O2 ups 3G speeds by 30%

O2 has begun sending HSPA 3G through the 900MHz band, using it to up the capacity of its 3G service The 900MHz band was originally earmarked for GSM usage, but in January comms watchdog Ofcom gave O2 the go-ahead to route UMTS/WCDMA traffic through the band. That, O2 said today, could give it 50 per cent more data transfer …

[zedee]

Just done a quick check

and it looks like every HTC since mid 2009 supports UMTS900.

Hero ftw!

[CADmonkey]

LOL

30% faster + no connection is still f**k all good to me, out here in the wild wastelands of central Brighton.

[Ivan Slavkov]

Agreed, I would like to see that legendary 3G network

I have seen 3G on my N71 all in all twice while on O2 network within the last 2 years. At best - a few channels of Edge, usually just GPRS (Cambridge, Ipswich and London).

Compared to that in the "wild wastelands" of Bulgaria with a Mobiltel SIM it goes to 3G every time you use data.

[Steve Gill]

It's there

I've had good 3G connections in the last 12 months in London, Cambridge, Leeds, Bristol, all on O2 on an old HTC HD2.

[Anonymous Coward]

30% of f* all is f* all in Scotland

Yep,

Same here - central belt of Scotland. Next to zero coverage, unless you're in the centre of Glasgow or Edinburgh and only in the open air - don't use it inside a building. There are rumours of 3G in Falkrik as well, but who knows.

So yeah - 30%. Wonderful. (rolls eyes).

[MrT]

Coverage is odd...

... I had 4 out of 5 bars of 3G goodness on a HTC Desire at the top of a 1600ft 'mountain' on Harris (Outer Hebrides), but absolutely nothing at all back down in Tarbert waiting for the ferry. Must have been on a line of sight to a tower over the sea on Skye - which itself isn't bad given the distance. Mobile broadband out there seems to favour the sheep...

[Dayjo]

No 3g?

I've not had any issues receiving 3G from O2 all over Brighton. I get the odd dead zone in the more.. "residential" areas.

[CADmonkey]

"residential" areas.

like my fucking house, for example?

[I know better]

Yeah right.

Total b******cks. I live and work in the M25. I have a big round non-3G logo in my Iphone status indicating I'm getting dial-up speeds. In fact the more I look at it, the more it looks like a big fat zero which is way too close to reality for me to laugh.

FIX THE REST OF THE NETWORK AS WELL PLEASE OTHERWISE HELLO VODAFONE.

[Cazzo Enorme]

Re: Yeah right

Seconded. I can't get a reliable 3G signal at work in central London, SE1 - and I can't even get a phone signal at home in Enfield. If they can't get normal coverage in densely populated areas that are well served by other carriers, then this bandwidth upgrade is not much to shout about.

[A. Nervosa]

HALT

I feel for you mate but for the love of everything that's holy do not switch to Vodafone.

Their coverage is like a scattering of hotspots all over London. If you ever find an area with decent coverage you do get impressive speeds, but that's f--k all use when 80% of the time you're stuck on GPRS in the middle of a dead zone as I always seem to be.

[Ryan 7]

Does this mean that once it's rolled out country-wide,

that anywhere currently in receipt of a strong G signal will eventually get a H signal instead?

That would make long train journeys heavenly...

[Joel 1]

Rural expansion?

Will this mean 3G coverage can extend to those rural areas currently limited to 2G 900MHz service?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good, but...

I just wish O2's DNS lookups were quicker, it's fine that whatever you're downloading will get to you in under a second, but only after the lookup which often takes 10-15 seconds.

[Paul Shirley]

not just the DNS

O2 has appalling latency on everything, not just DNS, caught it taking 30+ sec to *start* rendering pages last week. Complete waste of time expanding the radio coverage if the stupid sods forget to upgrade the backhaul infrastructure.

Getting tired of having no signal indoors in most of the city and GPRS speeds even where I get 4 bars of HSDPA. Now I'll (eventually) get better signal but bet I won't get better data.

Really glad I bought WiFi capable phones, cause O2 don't do data in any meaningful way.

[Anonymous Coward]

In central london....

This may be a coincidence, but ran a number of speed tests on my iPhone 4 last week and averaged about 1.53Mb/s down and 1.04Mb/s up. Today I'm getting an average of around 2.28Mb/s down and 1.16Mb/s up.

Still doesn't help safari/email etc randomly not connecting to remote servers for no reason even in a 5 bar signal area.

[Paul M 1]

Title

This may also be a coincidence but yesterday I noticed that my iPhone 4 had a full strength 3G signal in my West Sussex village where normally I'm lucky to see 2 bars and EDGE.

Running Speed Test showed a max download speed of 6 Mb - only slightly slower than my broadband!

[Tigra 07]

Had this a while now...

This covers most of Wolverhampton aswell i can confirm.

[Captain Scarlet]

Would that mean

As more devices move to the 900MHZ band as long as the substation isn;t over utilised the other band should get an increase in availability? Obviously if I am wrong flame away.

[Jamy]

Thank you smartphone users

I would just like to thank all those with iphones and the like for making the tight fisted network operators spend money on their networks again. Well done to you all, you are doing a great service to network planners every where!

[envmod]

it works!

my 3G connection in London is noticably faster and reliable, about bloody time.

[jai]

is this why

is this why i've had no 3G connection at all to O2 yesterday and today? and even seem to be having trouble getting an Edge connection.

[King Edward I]

In Cambridge...

...I've just got a speed test result of 4.39Mbps on my phone. Tis much better than I normally get. Wonder if it's because of this :)

[Giles Jones]

3G is good enough

How about more coverage please? much of the time i'm on edge or gprs when I'm away from home.

Just like people who can't get ADSL aren't bothered by claims of more speed, I'm sure those who only are in a 3G area some of the time would welcome more coverage.