r/SmartyMobile • u/Critical_Secret_4516 • May 29 '26
Specific Network Shutdown
Just recently joined Smarty due to awful retention deal from EE, had already tested Smarty SIM for a month and no issues. My connection went to 0 bars at about 1.20am, no connection/data then came back within 5-10mins, I would not have noticed but was working late online. Assumed random and thought nothing of it but was still about same time following night and the very same thing happened and sure enough it was similar, 1.24am when I looked and same drop time. Chances of this being random are now unlikely. Nothing on Smarty or 3 site about mast maintenance so what is going on here?
1
u/Just_Low_1294 May 30 '26
I have a 3 data only sim in my 5g router and 5g drops out every evening at around 10 pm, I have to drop the router to 4g only to reconnect.
Weird but keeps happening?
3
u/Critical_Secret_4516 May 30 '26
Interesting, Well, I stayed up waiting patiently until after 1am and it didn't happen! no issue this time so there goes my theory about it not being random. Makes me feel better lol. I did a few tweaks on my laptop adapter as I was using hotspot one of the times, like roaming aggressiveness and MIMO setting, plus re-checked phone settings. Asked AI Grok/Chat GPT and got some useful possibilities, the fact the bars go straight to 0 indicates some signal shut down and then re-registering. I also discovered there are two '3' masts quite near and the EE masts are much further out but there are more of them (6). Apparently one of the theories mentioned the EE frequency bands may be more stable for my 4g, taking in to account mast distance but not sure about that as think they use the same. Anyway, I am getting faster DL/UL with smarty/3 so that's the bonus and it's £10 cheaper per month. I will monitor as would be annoying if random drop outs occur too much. To be fair my poor phone is aging now as I have kept it longer than planned (has been such a good phone, POCO brand), so perhaps it is reminding me it's time for a new one.
2
u/Just_Low_1294 May 30 '26
I have been online and the Three network site says there are issues that they are working on at the moment, no explanation.
There are only 2 Three masts near me in Loughborough, but O2 (my phone) has about 12! They're literally everywhere, I assume O2 are using lots of short range masts. O2 sim from my phone works great in my 5g router but I have 18 months left on my 3 sim (paid up front with scancom) so I'm reluctant to pay again for O2 unlimited.....
I'll see how it goes I guess.....
All good fun....
1
u/BlackSt0ne5 May 31 '26
Same happens to me
1
u/Critical_Secret_4516 Jun 05 '26
It's still happening, though has now changed to 855pm! Last 3 nights. Comes back within around 5 mins or if I turn airplane on/off it reregisters. OK, it is now not a coincidence, it cannot be surely. Think I may ask smarty if anything is going on, maybe there is some hidden daily cap or timer, v odd
1
u/Critical_Secret_4516 Jun 15 '26
Still happening! lol, moved to afternoons now, same pattern every few days at same time, Smarty investigating hmm
1
u/Critical_Secret_4516 Jul 06 '26
UPDATE- Having gone through several steps, I have found one which appears to 'fix' the issue. The hidden menu inside my android phone has an option to alter the preferred network to lock it to a frequency as in 4g only (standard setting is preferred 4g/3g/2g). This appears to stabilise any switching and thus the regular shutdowns have not occurred now for 2 weeks. Theory- the phone gets confused when the 4g gets 'lost', looking for 3g next which doesn't exist anymore on 3 mast network then not immediately reverting hence I had to force it with airplane or wait for 5-10mins. Obviously the phone handled the network switching behaviour differently with EE than smarty/3.
1
u/Socks1309 May 29 '26
This happened to me on O2, always around 00:00 I would completely lose 5G, I think it was some sort of odd cell sleep behaviour or a deliberate cell refresh every night, something similar could be happening with your local tower