Hi,

Was with Orange around 2009/10 and left over the dire, dire data speeds (40-60k with a strong 3G Signal) and have been with GiffGaff ever since (poor 3G at home but I've lived with it!). Looking to upgrade my phone now and possibly head back onto contract, so wondering how people find the speeds on the Orange network now? Orange have the best 3G at home and work (I'd use 3, but I hike/climb/drive alot in the arse end of nowhere and 3's network is too unreliable without the Orange backup)

Cheers All,

I find the speeds good, they have definitely improved over recent years. I sometimes get upto 5mb in some places, and have gotten 7mb when on T-Mobile 3G!

Speeds are good, although not the fastest but they are consistent even at peak time!

City centre Edinburgh on a Saturday Night gets you:

http://s15.postimage.org/yj6em4na3/orange.jpg

I am on Orange, they used to have crap speeds but they have improved a lot! I have seen 7mbps in Essex at about 2am

Still ropey in SA4 but far better than it was.

I'm personally not on Orange but the best my mate has seen in Norwich is 1.8mb/s. Pretty aweful compared to be my 6mb/s on 3.

Get him to call or tweet Orange (@orangehelpers) and ask they sort his account. They need to change the settings on his account by adding GPRS PREMIUM back on to it. He then get full speed.

grab a payg simcard and give them a go again and see if they are any better for you now.

for reference i get up to 5mb on orange and up to 7mb when roaming onto t-mobile in northampton

I have GPRS Premium on my account and the best I have ever had was just under 3Mb on 3G in any area of Belfast.

I have GPRS Premium and I have seen 7mbps

Could be that the masts or the technology that connects the masts to EE's network (Backhaul) is peak at 3.1

Have you tried roaming onto Orange T-Mobile and seeing what they give you?

Cheers All! I think a PAYG SIM is the best way to sort this, I'll get one ordered. . Does all sound vastly better then when I was with them, slow speeds, constand time outs etc were the norm, even in the centre of town! Seriously considering leaving my phone locked to T-Mob at work though, for the really high speed, so i can stream radio!

Orange's masts support a theoretical speed of up to 7.2Mbps. When roaming to tmobilr you can get up to 21Mbps. However, tmobile customers can only get up to 2Mbps as t-mobile cap users accounts. (Unless you are on a tethering plan)

The speeds you get depends on your area though. Ordering a sim like you did is the best thing you can do. Also make sure your phone can support these speeds. My 2008 Nokia can't support speeds of over 3.2mbps.

The GPRS Premium mentioned by a couple of people, is that free or part of a bundle, and if so how much?

Its free. It just removes the cap on the download speed some old orange users have had on their account from a previous contract or something

I've got a Nokia N8, Which Google tells me offers up to 10.2Meg. That'll be gone soon, to be replaced by a Sony Xperia S, when they come out. I was more concerned that it wasn't as slow as it used to be, overall top end isn't really a huge issue on a phone, I'd rather the speed was decent and consistent than peaky!

I would definitely say that it's consistent in most areas. I find the others particularly 3 & O2 suffer a slow down at peak times.. not just in peak speed speed but in how snappy pages start loading etc.

I find generally roaming on T-Mobile is usually faster than just sticking with Orange so I often lock it to T-Mobile.. at home Orange gets 1.9mbps down whereas T-Mobile can get just over 5 down

That was the main problem I had with Orange, continual time outs. Now with GG I find things much better, it's just very dependant on where you are. 3G900 Will solve alot I'm sure but I get the impression capacity is going to be an issue.

I've never had that issue.. Yeah location is a big factor and even with 900 as you say O2 don't use a lot of frequencies within it so as more O2/GG users get phones like the iPhone 4 the benefits of them using UTMS900 will go away until at least they switch off big chunks of GSM900 then they will have a massive advantage.

However as i've said before I'm sure EE/Orange are quietly doing something to counter Voda/O2's advantage of the 900 spectrum.

Got a few SIMs, here are the results of the tests I've just done (average of 3):

3: 3.8Meg
O2: 2.8Meg
Orange: 1.2Meg
T-Mobile: 0.4Meg

All with 6-7 bars (ie Full signal) on my N8. Suprised? I was!

I have seen MUCH better on Orange, 3 and O2, T-Mobile is about right though for an actual T-Mobile SIM

Could you try it again later on or early in the morning to see who is suffering from congestion and who is using slower tech at the mast.

If you are using the Speedtest app the London Namesco test server is the most consistent for all of the Networks i've found.

I got bored at work earlier and speed tested the networks.

Edinburgh Central EH3 - iPhone 4S

Closest mast is the O2 one, i used a GiffGaff sim do they restrict or not allow use of UTMS900?

http://i43.tinypic.com/67tcae.jpg

I think giffgaff should be able to use UMTS900 just as if you had a O2 sim inside however I do not know how you would actually tell it's using that band for 3G or not?