The three network… It’s a law onto itself at the moment. Since Christmas, it’s been having it’s problems.

2G Speeds at 4G prices

Having been moored above the lock close to Cropredy called Varneys’ for over a week and had plenty of time to experiment with the phone, boat location and settings of the SIMs on my phone. I can conclude that for the mast that provides for Three for this area, Three is selling a 4G connection, but providing 2G/3G speeds.

Generation	Cellular technology	Average data speed (download)
2G	HSCSD	15-20 kbps
2G	GPRS	30-50 kbps
2G	EGPRS/EDGE	130-200 kbps
3G	UMTS	384 kbps
3G	HSPA	3-5 Mbps
3G	HSPA+	5-8 Mbps
4G	LTE	15-20 Mbps
4G	LTE-Advanced	50-80 Mbps
4G	LTE-Advanced Pro	60-100 Mbps
5G	NR	150-200 Mbps

— Average download data speed for GSM/UMTS mobile network evolution —

Here’s a picture taken from the Speedtest app on Googleplay.

A lot of the time, it was providing about 2-4Mbs, which is 2G. All the time it was doing this, it was showing the 4G symbol. As we can see from the table, 4G connection is upwards of 15, nothing like what I was getting.

Pretty dodgy.

I know they’re merging with Vodaphone.

At the moment, my experience is that the rural masts seem to be suffering. The towns they seem to be upgrading to make it all look good on the surface.

A lot of the time at Varneys’, I was having to use my O2 SIM. I’ve never had to do this in the past.

Even so

I’ve had a couple of moves. One to Cropredy village, where the 24 hour mooring is now in force, (for most people…), and having looked at the moorings and what they had to offer at the bottom of the village and found them wanting…. on to Banbury town, Southam Road area.

Southam Road

I quite like Southam Road, even if it is ‘in town’, you don’t really notice it. Tesco is a walk away, signal is good. Solar is full by 12.00. Radio and TV works. Like civilisation for landbubbers. And boaters too here.

So, quite nice. At least for a week or two.

The mud is a little bit of a pain in the ass.

Here’s a picture of where I just came from, Cropredy village.

Other developments

Seems CRT have been un-impressed with my movement patterns over the last licencing period.

Around 2 months ago, they sent me and email notifying me they were going to put me on a 6 month licence, rather than the traditional 12 month.

This is like a warning shot. They do this as the first in a series of steps, to, if you don’t comply, pulling your boat out of the water and expelling you from the system.

It seems, when I talk to most of the regulars down this section, most of them seem to be on 6 month signings. One of them has even been told to move onto a home mooring.

Home mooring

A home mooring is where you pay for a stetch of land, or in a marina, it’s the last step before the CRT take legal action against you.

I’ve not reached that stage yet. I’m just starting out on the naughty road… But it’s not my fault, honest!

No moorings

When you go beyond a certain space, Fenny Compton in the North and Summerton in the South, the life of cruising, mooring and accessing your boat becomes a lot more difficult.

The canal is remote. Mooring are far from the road. This is only one of a number of problems.

CRT do not want to know about these problems. They’re only interested in that you’re moving your boat 21 miles in the licencing year.

This year, I’m going to have to, as I did on the Grand Union network, make sure that I’m doing this.

This should present some new places and new challenges for fortcoming blogs.

Until next time..