I know a lot of this depends on how far you are from the site and how congested it is. But who generally gives the fastest data speeds. For myself
Orange 1.4 meg
T-Mobile 1.9 meg
Vodafone (using Sure Signal) 4.1 meg

Having heard how great T-Mobiles 3G coverage is supposed to be ,I was a little bit disappointed with their speeds. Bearing in mind they use the same equipment as 3. And from what I have heard 3s data network is fast.

Gosh, you've opened up a huge can of worms. The situation with speed is so complex (because of the number of variables) that all anyone can really say is what their own experience is.
Even when tests are done to find the 'best' network the results are often contradictory and not as simple as some on here would have you think.
I think it would be better to rephrase your question. 'In the place where you use data the most, which is the fastest network?'

They may use the same cell sites, but not the same backbone. Also 1.9 meg for mobile is pretty decent, there's not a lot you can't do with that.
Vodafone (using Sure Signal ) is your bloody home broadband - so it's stupid to include that. What speed do you get on Vodafone if you turn off Sure Signal? probably GPRS because thats why you got it in the first place?

Can of worms indeed, you can't compare like that, it's pointless, post some real figures up sure signal indeed

As the vodafone website says "Watch the stories of people from around the UK who have been rescued from their mobile signal problems." - presumably they switched to 3 or a network that has better coverage"

'our signal is shit across large parts of the UK, but it's ok have one of these boxes, that'll be £50 thanks'

It's probably coverage dependant but in my house 02 is the fatest and most reliable, followed by 3 and then T-mobile.

Can you do a speedtest on HTC HD2? We have one of them on Vodafone which has constant 3G+ signal at home because we live opposite a mast lol. Would be interesting to see the results of that.

Can't seem to download apps on it from Windows Marketplace, it's a business phone if that affects it.

We also live opposite a 3/T-Mobile mast, only have 3 mobile broadband to test that though.

From the 3 I've had

Three - by far the fastest, superb
T-Mobile - Variable, generally OK though
O2 - dreadful, very slow, still useable but disappointing

If you can tether it via USB or wifi then you could do the test on a pc by going to speedtest.net using the 3G connection

Ahh ok then, i might try that and see the results

3 fastest but down 1 day per month.
t-mobile very variable, usually slow.

I quite suspect that when 3 is congested t-mobile takes the hit!

When I get a H on my phone these are the speeds all are on sim only and are the fastest I have got and average.


T-Mobile - 1.5 meg average down and 500 kbps up

Vodafone - fastest 3mb down and 1.5 m up

O2 - fastest 2mb, download, 1.6 fastest up although average is GPRS and EDGE so very hit and miss

Tried a pay as you go on Orange and got ropey 3G coverage so did not get a sim only from them and as 3 are doing away with 2G did not want to go with them.

Have decided to go to Vodafone as I feel there 3G coverage seems better.

Usually get a pretty good connection speed of about 2.5mbs from 3 Mobile Broadband and ok service off o2 when my IPhone's 3G connectivity decides to work had no issues until the iOS 4.2.1 update tempted to go back to 4.1 for a while

So average figures must be really low then in the range of 120k average.

Yep it is that bad, pages try load but cant. It is a real pain unless your in a city centre.

I'm on O2 in South London and always have H showing. Sometimes it flies through, other times it won't load a page whatsoever! Very hit and miss, I thought H was meant to be the fastest option?

It is except not on O2

Lol tell me about it.

Vodafone sim gets amazing fast internet all the time but strangely the phone signal is hit and miss. Can't win

Can only go by what i've actually experienced.

Orange off peak i get this:
http://yfrog.com/17iphone3pics550p
During the day i get this:
http://yfrog.com/juiphone3pics567j

One was taken on Iphone4 the other a 3Gs.

Vodafone i get 1.75 most of the time although peak it does down to 1.25 down

T-Mobile i got about the same as Vodafone only it suffered less at peak.

Not used O2 or 3 for long enough or speed testested them recently

There is one thing about 3G coverage it changes all the time. The more people using that 3G mast a reduction in coverage will be seen... so called 2G doesn't work like that and the coverage stays the same no matter how many are on it.

OMG those ping times are horrendous, my pings are 143ms, yours are 3-4 seconds, that's shocking.


Sort of, this cell breathing thing has been misunderstood I think as I did some reading recently that suggests it doesn't effect coverage at all.

What should happen is your phone communicates with the cell you are on and tells it what signal in decibels it is getting from any cells it can see in the area. The cell and the controllers then decide which cell to put you on based on that data, it will prefer the one with the best signal, it is important to note that your phone does NOT decide that, it only sends the data to the cell and it's controller decides whether to move you or keep you on the current cell.

You should always try and stay on cells that you get the strongest signal from.

*load kicks in causing capacity issue*
When the cell you are on gets above a certain amount of utilisation it uses the data yours and other phones tell it about signal levels to decide who to kick off (by kick off I mean deliberately move you to a cell that is less congested).

So you may not be on the nearest because it's congested, but it knows you will still have signal because it knows you have an acceptable signal level on another cell thanks to the data you fed to it about the other cells you could see and the signal levels of them.

If you didn't have an acceptable signal level from any other cells it wouldn't kick you it would kick somebody else who did.

So I think this cell breathing has been misinterpreted, it should never cause coverage to change depending on capacity only which cell you are connected to should change.

Of course if lots of cells are all severely congested you won't get a connection and you'll end up connecting to 2G, something which may happen on some *cough* networks who haven't invested much in 3G coverage / capacity.

If there are any network engineers here please feel free to correct me as I'm not a network engineer, but this was my understanding of it from doing a bit of online research.