EE still has fastest, fattest 4G pipe in London's M25 ring RootMetrics has compiled a map of 4G deployments in London which includes a whopping 11,000 crowd-sourced data points and concludes that within the M25*, EE still has the fastest, and broadest, network in town. That shouldn't be very surprising as EE started a year earlier than its competitors, utilising the excess of radio …
They claim such speeds and bandwidth is available, yet my EE 4G phone can't download an ebook in 20 minutes where my 3G phone managed it in less than a minute - at the same location on the same day.
Really wishing I hadn't been sold this 4G crap - it, in practical everyday terms - just doesn't work.
"Really wishing I hadn't been sold this 4G crap - it, in practical everyday terms - just doesn't work."
The bitterness of crappy telco service remains long after the sweetness of marketing promises has been forgotten. But you'll know next time?
Here's the list, to cut out and keep:
1) Marketing people are liars
2) Early adopter pricing makes your eyes water
3) From a logical or mathematical perspective, "up to" speeds can include the number zero
4) Twenty four month contracts last much longer when you realise you've been sold a pup.
The thing I found interesting was another organisation doing mobile data and signal testing. Remember back in 2011 the BBC used the Epitiro app to map 3G coverage and notspots nationwide. Looking at the Epitiro website it would seem that they didn't use the experience to create an on-going monitoring service.
The crowdsourced OpenSignals is still going and includes 4G services, although neither seem to provide any data drill down (eg. number of samples, data rates etc.)
So the question is which monitoring app should I be using: RootMetrics or OpenSignals ?
I'd be interested to see what the "normal" mode is on 4G phones and whether it is user selectable.
Given that 4G-LTE networks currently support voice by dropping back to 3G or lower, resulting in a noticeable switching delay on many phones, it would make sense for 4G phones to normally operate in 3G/GPRS mode and only switch to 4G mode when needed either to enable video streaming or due to 3G network congestion. Also whilst in 3G mode the (GSM) phone can simultaneously maintain voice and data transfer sessions.
It's not the core focus of the story, but I figure letting it slip would be lazy - how about an explanation of that little footnote about how the EU wants to push data rates up to US levels? There's nothing in the linked article to state that prices going up is inevitable, and unless there's already an existing discrepancy what companies pay for data connection handoffs and what they charge for incoming connections from elsewhere (in which case, that discrepancy is the amount that gets folded into the bill) the actual end user shouldn't see any difference.(though, on the other hand, Three have started doing free roaming to certain countries...)
Which sounds far too naive, so what have I missed? Other than "greedy bastids will try any excuse to claw more money out of you"?
There's far better competition here than in the US mobile market. If they all got together to agree to not compete on their data tariffs, I am sure that would interest the regulators. Besides, every time I’ve heard an industry talking head complaining about driving down roam costs the person held up as paying more in the end are usually people from outside the EU who are roaming within it.
It's probably just a lazy and baseless swipe at the EU in general.
I'm on all you can eat data for £13pcm on 3, they sent me an email to let me know if I have a phone which accepts 4G then I will get 4G all you can eat data at no extra cost.
I'm getting a Xperia Z1 and have been told the All you can eat data on the plan includes 4G when they role it out in my area.
Sure 3's telephone support is painfull in the extreme, but the shop staff are good and the website is better than Vodafone's and O2's (haven't touched EE for years).
I've been using VF 4G for a few weeks now (I had it in time for launch on my HTC ONE), and I've managed a maximum of 64.8Mbps in Finsbury Park, and I have the screenshot to prove it (I really ought to add the Rootmetrics app, clearly). The more important thing I've found, though, is that 4G is vastly more reliable than 3G in the City and West End in particular - I've never had a decent fix on 3G in my office (near Liverpool Street), while 4G worked from the off.
In contrast to EE's lamentable 3G reliability at the weekends when I would regularly get DNS errors I've found their 4G service fast and rock solid.
On Sunday I was watching the cycling on the Embankment and my Lumia 820 would load websites really quickly whereas Mrs MEH's iPhone 4 on EE's 3G service would struggle to open a page.
I was flogged a good package when I upgraded as well.
However, as I don't want to the hoi polloi clogging up the network, I'll claim it is rubbish and not worth upgrading to!
I've been having probs with 3G signal and making (and receiving) phone calls.
Just saw they're being called out for just that on Watchdog today. Dropped calls, calls going to answering machine.
The article's right- the 4G is amazingly fast, but if you actually need a phone i would use another network until they sort it out.
Even a piss poor WiFi setup usually proves more reliable than 3G / 4G. Lower latency, packet loss. Far less issues with network contention (mostly due to covering a much smaller area per transmitter). Even if it's a little slower on paper than the fastest 4G which you'll never actually get in reality, there are more metrics to network quality than just burst speed.
Jealous 8-). Verizon LTE, I have huge amounts of coverage (last 1000 mile road trip, I had about 950 miles 4G, about 40 miles 3G, and this one valley road had no service for a good 10 miles or so.)
But, the speeds... I just ran a speedtest and got 7.2mbps down and 5mbps up, and have seen 3mbps down and 1mbps up a few times. That's not terrible but not great for 4G. You'll hit one site and get like 20mbps and the next, not so much; VZW is running their LTE on a single 700mhz 2x10 channel right now, with AWS (1700/2100) being rolled out for capacity. They said a while ago 60% of their data traffic was going over LTE.
1. Despite pressure on the ITU to allow the use of the term and aggressive marketing, it's not 4G. it's 3.9 at best.
2. Currently theres no voice on LTE. You need to use CSFB
3. CSFB onto 3G is no good if the 3G network has no bloody coverage
4. It's still not 4G
BTW, EE offer ~50Mbps with 20GB quota for £51. SKY offer Fibre upto 38Mbps with no Quota at £34.50 (£20+line rental), excluding 6 months free offer.
Not cheap this Mobile broadband lark.
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