Three Sim Throttling Speeds In France

Steve101uk

Steve101uk

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I was using the three broadband sim with feel at home in France a few weeks ago and thought I would share my experience of it.

Firstly it worked , and it worked fine for emails, web pages etc and was averaging speeds of between 1 - 3 mbps. However, when I tried to stream the radio or watch netflix it was dead in the water, taking ages to stream and then constantly buffering. I do like to use the ipad for radio 2/4 sometimes as I don't have a fixed satellite and cannot always use my portable in aires etc. I don't really use the sim for netflix but for the purposes of testing I thought with 3 mbps I should be easily getting a stream.

The solution was to use the vpn. The moment I had the vpn up the radio worked instantly, as did netflix.

It seems to me they are throttling for some reason as for all other uses the speeds were fine. I do object to this as I paid £25 for 7 gigs, which I believe are then mine to use as I see fit. Anyway I found the work around for now.

for info, I used the sim in Le Crotoy, Alencon, Saumur, La Rochelle, Il de Re, la mailleraye sur seine and Boulogne sur mer. the only dead spot was the aire at Saumur, which is a few mile from town.
 
My experience also but I never thought of using the VPN as not having streaming wasn't much of a problem but will use that method in the future.

I don't know how familiar you are with the 'my broadband' log on page but a manual search of available networks is possible and usually comes up with one of the available networks.
 
laser101uk said:
It seems to me they are throttling for some reason as for all other uses the speeds were fine. I do object to this as I paid £25 for 7 gigs, which I believe are then mine to use as I see fit. Anyway I found the work around for now.
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter which network you are on. When you are roaming you connect to whichever local network your service provider have an agreement with for that country. It's down to that local provider to prioritise their available bandwidth. Obviously their own direct customers take priority. Next in line will be any local client networks they may have. Roaming customers get what's left.

Using the UK networks as an example: There are only really 4 genuine network operators here: O2, Vodafone, EE and Three.
The others buy access and bandwidth from these 4, for example BT Mobile and Virgin are EE client networks. Sainsburys and Tesco use O2. So for EE their own customers come first, then their client networks, then anyone who roams onto EE.

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I have recently used a three payg sim in France and Spain. I have the mifi set to manual search for networks and in France could connect to Orange, Bytel and one whose name was numerical, something like 40815. It would quite often pick up SFR but would not connect but would never pick up a signal from Bougyes for some reason.

No matter which network I was connected to the results were the same, a speed test would show speeds of 3 to 5 mbs, normally more than adequate for streaming, but streaming was never possible. My conclusion was that somehow someone was restricting the bandwidth for streaming, and possibly other, services.

I dare say that if I could be bothered looking that somewhere in the three 'feel at home' T&C's this will be mentioned.
 
Hi
laser101uk said:
I was using the three broadband sim with feel at home in France a few weeks ago and thought I would share my experience of it.

Firstly it worked , and it worked fine for emails, web pages etc and was averaging speeds of between 1 - 3 mbps. However, when I tried to stream the radio or watch netflix it was dead in the water, taking ages to stream and then constantly buffering. I do like to use the ipad for radio 2/4 sometimes as I don't have a fixed satellite and cannot always use my portable in aires etc. I don't really use the sim for netflix but for the purposes of testing I thought with 3 mbps I should be easily getting a stream.

The solution was to use the vpn. The moment I had the vpn up the radio worked instantly, as did netflix.

It seems to me they are throttling for some reason as for all other uses the speeds were fine. I do object to this as I paid £25 for 7 gigs, which I believe are then mine to use as I see fit. Anyway I found the work around for now.

for info, I used the sim in Le Crotoy, Alencon, Saumur, La Rochelle, Il de Re, la mailleraye sur seine and Boulogne sur mer. the only dead spot was the aire at Saumur, which is a few mile from town.
Click to expand...
Hi found this an interesting thread but not that computer savy. could someone explain what a vpn is in layman's terms and how it is able to overcome the problems with speed/bandwidths if that's the right term..
Ta Andy.
 
andy63 said:
Hi

Hi found this an interesting thread but not that computer savy. could someone explain what a vpn is in layman's terms and how it is able to overcome the problems with speed/bandwidths if that's the right term..
Ta Andy.
Click to expand...
Not sure of the correct technical terms are but a VPN basically deceives the network into thinking you are somewhere else by using a proxy VPN, in most cases for UK purposes it gives the provider information that you are in the UK when you are not.

I use Google Chrome as a browser and there is a free extension called zenmate that does this.

That is very much a layman's guide, no doubt that someone with more knowledge will explain properly soon.
 
Thanks @matamoros ..
So you don't need to pay to set one up??
I looked at the link provided by @laser101uk ..don't fully understand everything but it does appear to cost to set one up from that link...
Thanks again Andy. .

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matamoros said:
Not sure of the correct technical terms are but a VPN basically deceives the network into thinking you are somewhere else
Click to expand...

I'll add a bit... Virtual Private Network.

If I want to watch Eurosport UK that I pay £4 a month for, from Europe mainland, it comes back "not available" because I buy UK rights.

Now if I go to the link above and buy a VPN a computer in the UK, that becomes my computer. I call up this computer from France and from it's UK computer it calls Eurosport who think I'm in the UK all is OK.

So basically just a relay station.

Also very popular with dodgy people hiding their tracks !!
 
hilldweller said:
I'll add a bit... Virtual Private Network.

If I want to watch Eurosport UK that I pay £4 a month for, from Europe mainland, it comes back "not available" because I buy UK rights.

Now if I go to the link above and buy a VPN a computer in the UK, that becomes my computer. I call up this computer from France and from it's UK computer it calls Eurosport who think I'm in the UK all is OK.

So basically just a relay station.

Also very popular with dodgy people hiding their tracks !!
Click to expand...
Thanks Brian... I'll keep reading...
 
andy63 said:
Thanks @matamoros ..
So you don't need to pay to set one up??
I looked at the link provided by @laser101uk ..don't fully understand everything but it does appear to cost to set one up from that link...
Thanks again Andy. .
Click to expand...
The zenmate one for Chrome is free but a lot of others charge. I have noticed that when using the zenmate extension the speed does seem to drop sometimes but I am using an old laptop and I think it is getting clogged up with stuff and the laptop itself may be the cause of this.
 
But presumably you still need either a WiFi connection or a mobile data connection to start with and then you login to your VPN?
 
Abacist said:
But presumably you still need either a WiFi connection or a mobile data connection to start with and then you login to your VPN?
Click to expand...
Yes you still need a wifi or mobile connection to the internet and then you can choose to enable the VPN in the settings/extensions option on the browser.

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Hi i loaded 3GB for £15 on three mifi used it for roughly 5 hours in 5 days here in France on 3 devices amongst us and its run out already ! not used data eaters just e- mail and forums like this no videos, films, online games or other data eaters, is that reasonable ? I just put another 3GB on i just hope it lasts a bit longer this time. I make sure devices are disconnected, wifi off and mifi off etc when finished . Any ideas please ?
 
autoswan said:
Hi i loaded 3GB for £15 on three mifi used it for roughly 5 hours in 5 days here in France on 3 devices amongst us and its run out already ! not used data eaters just e- mail and forums like this no videos, films, online games or other data eaters, is that reasonable ? I just put another 3GB on i just hope it lasts a bit longer this time. I make sure devices are disconnected, wifi off and mifi off etc when finished . Any ideas please ?
Click to expand...

If you are using phones or tablets they are more than likely burning through data sound syncs and updates without you realising. My phone uses 10gig a month which is probably the extreme end of the scale but shows how much data you can get through.. that's just mobile data by the way, not WiFi when I'm at home or in the office.

Depending on the device you may be able to control some of this data use but one of the biggest killers is Facebook so search about and see how you can turn off things like automatic video playing etc.
 
If using a pc ensure Windows automatic updates is off. If using a Tablet ensure software updates is off, Apps updates (apps store) are off. If using a Samsung Galaxy also ensure updates are off for Samsung apps (this is a different setting to non-Samsung apps). If you use dropbox expect high network usage as it attempts to sync all your devices.
 
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On the mifi broadband dongle we use a laptop which ive got me authorizing updates etc set up so i can stop them, there`s a hudl which ive tried to find and stop updates etc but hope i`ve not missed any settings on it i want stopped ? same with i pad and i phone i`ve shut all bits that look iffy but cant find stop all updates on them ?
 
Hopefully someone with more knowledge than I on these devices will come along and provide some more information/hints.

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Is it the Feel at Home add on or just topped up by £15? I bought the £15 add on which gave me 300 mins, 3000 txt and all I can eat data which is valid for 30 days used it for 12 days in France using internet everyday and when we got home no problem at all.
 
I think its popularity might be the cause , we had the feel at home thingy as soon as it came out and it worked out of this world in France connection everywhere and good speeds but this year must say I'm a bit disappointed with it , nowhere near as good , in fact I have gone back to my O2 sim , I know it costs £1.99 a day , but only the days you use it, and it works everywhere even in Belgium where the feel at home thingy doesn't work, and it works without limit for the whole day from midnight to midnight, you also get cheaper calls as well.
 
matamoros said:
I use Google Chrome as a browser and there is a free extension called zenmate that does this.
Click to expand...
Zenmate is available as an add-on for Firefox too.

BUT - I think they have just removed routing via UK internet address from the free version. Once you have to pay, they are one among many paid-for VPN services. No idea how they rank in comparison to all the others, I'm afraid. If I had to guess, I'd say they are likely to be one of the better ones, but I've never used them.

They are a German company, so their free routing is via Germany, Romania, USA & Hong Kong.
 
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autoswan said:
Hi i loaded 3GB for £15 on three mifi used it for roughly 5 hours in 5 days here in France on 3 devices amongst us and its run out already ! not used data eaters just e- mail and forums like this no videos, films, online games or other data eaters, is that reasonable ?
Click to expand...
Lots of devices & lots of applications have a setting that allows you to specify that they should only update or otherwise use lots of data when connected via wifi, rather than 3G.

Trouble is, when you use a mifi router, the individual devices are connected by wifi - they have no idea that the wifi is itself getting it's internet connection via 3G.

iPlayer on my wife's Kindle Fire was set like that. I didn't know that she had set it to download several programmes when wifi was available & she didn't realise the significance. As we drove over the M62 to the Southport rally, a large chunk of the 15G of data I thought would do me for several work trips away disappeared into the excellent 4G connections we passed through! The Kindle Fire is now on the router blacklist, as I couldn't find an obvious setting to stop it doing it again!
 
TheCaller said:
Lots of devices & lots of applications have a setting that allows you to specify that they should only update or otherwise use lots of data when connected via wifi, rather than 3G.

Trouble is, when you use a mifi router, the individual devices are connected by wifi - they have no idea that the wifi is itself getting it's internet connection via 3G.

iPlayer on my wife's Kindle Fire was set like that. I didn't know that she had set it to download several programmes when wifi was available & she didn't realise the significance. As we drove over the M62 to the Southport rally, a large chunk of the 15G of data I thought would do me for several work trips away disappeared into the excellent 4G connections we passed through! The Kindle Fire is now on the router blacklist, as I couldn't find an obvious setting to stop it doing it again!
Click to expand...

Hi Simon the same thing happened to me in Spain. .. Some sort of phone update used up the card allowance ..
As you said was set to only download on wifi . Which it was without me thinking about it...
Can only think that you have to make sure the device is always turned off when not in use... unless someone knows of a setting that only allows downloading after asking ...
Ta Andy.

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I use ask first on my laptop to tell updates etc 'no way ' but can't find it on the girls I pad, I phone and kindl so I've just gone through them and disabled everything I could see that looked suspect ! Just hope thier devices still work ok now ? :whistle: Oops do smileys use data too :eek:
 
DBK said:
Is there such a thing as a free VPN service? I ask because I am thinking of making my own using the advice given here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33548728
Which describes how to use a Raspeberry Pi to make your own VPN server.
Click to expand...

I saw that! are yous seriously going to be able to write all that code? credit due if you can!:LOL:
 
Judgemental said:
I saw that! are yous seriously going to be able to write all that code? credit due if you can!:LOL:
Click to expand...
Well, the Raspberry Pi arrived this morning, just waiting for the cheapy USB keyboard to arrive and I'll give it a go!
 

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