Customers of Three UK’s wireless (4G and 5G) home broadband service in Swindon (South West England), which hails from the old ‘Relish’ wireless service that was acquired from UK Broadband Ltd. in 2017 (here), were recently left in a panic after the operator incorrectly informed them that their service would “no longer be available“.
The confusion stemmed from a letter that was sent out to customers by Three UK last month, which stated: “Due to technical changes in your area, your current Home Broadband service will no longer be available from June. Your existing equipment will need to be removed by a professional. Should you wish to stay with Three we can offer you an alternative Home Broadband service. Visit the coverage checker to see what options are available in your area. We will be in contact with you to discuss.”
The situation prompted local councillors to engage with both Three UK and the government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency over the issue, which revealed that the letter was sent because the mobile operator will be replacing their existing 4G masts in the area with newer 4G / 5G ones in order to provide a better service. The catch is that this may require a change of the end-user’s (mobile) router.
According to the Swindon Advertiser and Cllr Sumner, Three UK has since acknowledged that “their communications could have been better” and they have now paused the terminations, albeit while still intending to contact those affected with an agreed date for the hardware change to occur (the new router kit will be provided for free).
In addition, the operator has said that no new contracts will be required and they’ve pledged to provide those impacted with 3 months of free broadband (the same will also be offered to re-sellers, although it is up to them whether they pass this on). But it sounds like the change won’t be particularly smooth.
Cllr Sumner said:
“I’ll be getting updates in due course on the mast programme and 7 sites will be having the new installation constructed before the old one is terminated, whilst 12 masts are what they call ‘rip and replace’ which will affect the service for customers for 3-5 days.”
Put another way, some customers may experience an outage that lasts up to 5 days, which is not trivial.
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I wonder what changes they’re making that see existing 4G devices to be incompatible with (presumably) mast upgrades.
I think the old kit couldn’t harness all the modern 4G and 5G spectrum bands, both at the mast and on the CPE.
The current router uses B42 and B43 LTE:
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2017/03/wireless-broadband-isp-relish-adopts-new-verve-connect-3-5ghz-router.html
So Three have confirmed they are turning off 4G in B42 and B43 LTE Bands in Swindon.
Could it be that Three wants to stop using Relish’s B77 band and move everyone to their 4G/5G network and n78 5G?
Apparently they don’t have permission to use B77 for 4G/5G.
Initially sounds like Three where going to pull a fast one and just disconnect the customers and make them seek new services to be fair and when councils and government programs got involved sh@t themselves.
It’s that Three UK Limited, Three Mobile, Hutchison, Cignal or Cellnet? So confused by all their names.