You can hear a PIN drop... All quiet on the mobile broadband speed front, says network watcher OpenSignal

Monitoring biz OpenSignal has found no major gains in mobile broadband performance since spring in its latest quarterly UK survey [PDF] as network operators focus their investments more carefully ahead of the upcoming 5G spectrum auction. Speeds are where they were before, with BT-owned EE the fastest network as usual. …

[JetSetJim]

<Title is optional>

Second OpenSignal press release in as many weeks...

Would be good if they could break down why/how VF and 3 have bumped their speeds up. Presumably it's new devices supporting better carrier aggregation modes as it's not as if new spectrum has been deployed

[Lee D]

Re: <Title is optional>

Could just as easily be better backhaul, or more towers, or just better prioritisation.

They're never going to know from crowd-sourced data, and the mobile operators aren't going to discuss internal technical affairs.

To be honest, speed isn't so much an issue. I'd happily halve my "max speed" if I could more data for the same price.

On a Three mobile broadband SIM, I get more than enough bandwidth even at peak periods to watch all my telly over it, what I don't get is enough data to cover what I want to do.

And Vodafone (the only people who give more data) are still too stupid to allow me to order a SIM despite the fact that they have a better deal with all the TV channels and big websites not counting towards your data allowance. I can't do anything on two accounts I "registered" and ordered a SIM on until I activate the SIM, but haven't seen any SIMs at all, and signing up with another email just starts the process again.

(P.S. No, just because you have a 100Gb SIM does not mean that you can tether / mobile broadband for 100Gb, and I use my SIM as a broadband replacement for the home network, not watching all my TV/movies on tiny phone screens tied into 36 month contracts).

But the fact that I can use a 4G SIM in a cheap Huawei box off Amazon to run my entire household is pretty impressive and shows you that the "max speed" doesn't really mean much nowadays. Even my Steam downloads happen just as fast as when I used to have a broadband line.

[John Brown (no body)]

Sweating the current assets while waiting to see who blinks first on starting 5g deployment?

[Ali 4]

3G? 4G? What are they?

I'm lucky if I get 2G here, outside. Inside there's no signal at all unless I stand by the window.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 3G? 4G? What are they?

I'm lucky if I get 2G here, outside.

That'll teach you for living in London.

[Giles C]

Out of town coverage

Well coverage on the north Norfolk coast (Hunstanton to cromer) is patchy at best and in a few places you can’t even make a voice call let alone have data.

There are also the anomaly’s such as the Peak District and Lake District where the only place you can escape phones is in the towns, get to the top of a hill and perfect reception - ideal if you want to call mountain rescue I suppose.....