Originally Posted by wavejockglw:
“There are some UK mobile networks who offer unlimited data but is that realistic?
Perhaps when you have less than 50% of the subscribers of others it is an option to gain more customers but with a finite amount of bandwidth it's probably not sustainable and the usual terms and conditions small print will allow throttling etc when the need arises and by which times customers are hooked into a contract.
EE, Vodafone and O2 have been cautious with data limit offerings - for a reason? Vodafone have the biggest fibre optic backbone of any UK network and extensive 3G coverage with HSPA+ but they still only offer 2GB a month max on contracts. Are they doing that because they just don't want to compete or is there a good technical explanation for their consumer offering?”
You do understand that different providers have their USP or position themselves differently in the market? 3 went out and pitched as a mobile broadband provider and are the market leader in that, they also went after the smartphone consumer market, and built a network to support high data throughput.
Whilst it's true Vodafone OWN a fibre backbone now, 3 and EE pay for backhaul services on 2 of the other major players who own theirs. EE and 3 are offering the fastest speeds in the UK they show no signs of suffering from offering unlimited, especially with gigabit Ethernet backhaul, upgraded HSPA+, DC HSDPA and more 3G cells than the others.
Customer growth is at record numbers, with revenues up 12% this year, whilst O2 and Vodafone didn't gain any significant numbers and revenues were down, a lot.
If 3 can process 9 Petabytes of data a month, but O2 only 3 then there is no technical expatiation.