Three's 3G performed better than O2 & Voda 4G

Thine Wonk · 10-01-2014, 23:23

According to Root Metrics Leeds and Bradford had O2 and Vodafone 4G when they surveyed the areas in November, however Three's 3G service still outperformed it in some areas.

Three's network had a much higher email success rate.
Web tests were faster than O2 and Vodafone, with O2 and Voda taking 3-4 times as long to load a 15k file

O2's average speeds were a bit faster, but Vodafone was slower than Three's 3G

Vodafone again had the highest call failure rate.

EE was the overall winner in the area.

So for all those saying Three's 4G is delayed by a few weeks, just remember Three already has such a good network it can outperform 4G areas and is still better than some other networks regardless of a delayed 4G launch.

jabbamk1 · 10-01-2014, 23:27

Dat title bias!!!!!!

Good results for Three there though. Really shows how great their 3G network is in comparison to others, in this case even beating out rival 4G networks. What I find good to see is that despite EE having the raw speed advantage, Three beats EE in every real world category such as opening emails, web browsing and email success rate. So not sure how EE won the mobile internet category when what really matters is real world usage and not just raw speed.

Not surprised to see Vodafone have the highest call rate failure again.... They really need to work on that ASAP as that's all I see from Voda in these reports.

EE top again I see.
That requires the obligatory GIF....

http://i481.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps75aca2bf.gif

http://www.rootmetrics.com/uk/compar...november-2013/

enapace · 10-01-2014, 23:33

Interesting nice to see.

Thine Wonk · 10-01-2014, 23:40

I know Three didn't perform as strongly as others in a couple of other recent Root Metrics tests where the others had 4G. However it just goes to show in some areas it is still the best in real world tests and hopefully even better when 4G arrives soon.

Everything Goes · 10-01-2014, 23:41

Call failure rates for Vodafone have not been enough to scare customers away so I doubt they will be in a hurry to do anything about it.

jabbamk1 · 10-01-2014, 23:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Everything Goes

Call failure rates for Vodafone have not been enough to scare customers away so I doubt they will be in a hurry to do anything about it.

Probably because the call drops everytime they ring to cancel.

japaul · 10-01-2014, 23:47

Are you sure it's all 4G for the others though? The way I read the link jabba posted is that O2 had 4G but not Vodafone. Where O2 / Vodafone have had joint 4G builds, O2 usually goes live first.

jabbamk1 · 10-01-2014, 23:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by japaul

Are you sure it's all 4G for the others though? The way I read the link jabba posted is that O2 had 4G but not Vodafone. Where O2 / Vodafone have had joint 4G builds, O2 usually goes live first.

I believe as of November 2013, Vodafone had launched in Leeds but not Bradford which was activated on November 21st 2013.

Everything Goes · 10-01-2014, 23:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by jabbamk1

Probably because the call drops everytime they ring to cancel.

Good plan

Thine Wonk · 10-01-2014, 23:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by jabbamk1

I believe as of November 2013, Vodafone had launched in Leeds but not Bradford which was activated on November 21st 2013.

Ah ok, thanks for that I thought that Vodafone launched 4G in Leeds and Bradford earlier than that. Glad to be corrected, it does explain why Vodafone didn't really compare to O2 as you'd have thought they would have been closely matched in 4G areas.

mogzyboy · 10-01-2014, 23:59

Wavejock is going to implode soon I fear. It must really grate on him to see Three's network performing so well...

japaul · 11-01-2014, 00:01

I found a later date for Vodafone Leeds (right at the end of Nov) so I think O2 was 4G but not Vodafone. The report observations which mention the differences from the last test seem to support that only mentioning 4G for O2. Leeds used to be an important centre for O2 (old BT Mobile).

jabbamk1 · 11-01-2014, 00:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by japaul

I found a later date for Vodafone Leeds (right at the end of Nov) so I think O2 was 4G but not Vodafone. The report observations which mention the differences from the last test seem to support that only mentioning 4G for O2. Leeds used to be an important centre for O2 (old BT Mobile).

I'm recalling the dates from memory so i could be wrong.

I think it's best to assume that only O2 had 4G tested in the November report above. The Vodafone results should be in line with O2 somewhat or seen an increase in speed compared to the earlier report if 4G had launched in those areas.

qasdfdsaq · 11-01-2014, 00:34

http://rmwebcdn.rootmetrics.com/uk/w...vember2013.png

Wait, what?

qasdfdsaq · 11-01-2014, 00:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by jabbamk1

I'm recalling the dates from memory so i could be wrong.

I think it's best to assume that only O2 had 4G tested in the November report above. The Vodafone results should be in line with O2 somewhat or seen an increase in speed compared to the earlier report if 4G had launched in those areas.

Rootmetrics results and description for Glasgow seem to disagree. Bot had "launched" 4G according to the report, but drastically different results.

http://www.rootmetrics.com/uk/compar...ber-2013/#data

japaul · 11-01-2014, 00:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

http://rmwebcdn.rootmetrics.com/uk/w...vember2013.png

Wait, what?

Isn't that exactly what you would expect? EE double speed 4G, O2 10MHz 4G, Three/Vodafone 3G.

qasdfdsaq · 11-01-2014, 00:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by jabbamk1

I believe as of November 2013, Vodafone had launched in Leeds but not Bradford which was activated on November 21st 2013.

"The data provided in this report reflect our findings in the Leeds and Bradford market during testing conducted from 22—27 November 2013."

qasdfdsaq · 11-01-2014, 00:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by japaul

I found a later date for Vodafone Leeds (right at the end of Nov) so I think O2 was 4G but not Vodafone. The report observations which mention the differences from the last test seem to support that only mentioning 4G for O2. Leeds used to be an important centre for O2 (old BT Mobile).

According to http://www.4g.co.uk/vodafone-4g-network-summary/ Vodafone 4G was already active in Leeds in October, though I don't know how reliable that article is.

qasdfdsaq · 11-01-2014, 00:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by japaul

Isn't that exactly what you would expect? EE double speed 4G, O2 10MHz 4G, Three/Vodafone 3G.

Thread title is "Three's 3G performed better than O2 & Voda 4G".

Rootmetrics main results are broken down into "Speed" "Reliability" and "Combined" indexes.

Reliability index incorporates call text, and data performance, and since 4G doesn't do calls, those figures can't be used to say anything about 4G.

That leaves the "Speed" index, which considers only data and text performance, both of which are handled by 4G, and shows O2 and EE well ahead of 3 and Vodafone only slightly behind.

Also conveniently omitted are the results showing 3 having the worst SMS failure rate of all networks and the second worst call failure rate, behind both EE and O2, and was the slowest of all networks for downloading emails.

japaul · 11-01-2014, 01:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

Thread title is "Three's 3G performed better than O2 & Voda 4G".

Rootmetrics main results are broken down into "Speed" "Reliability" and "Combined" indexes.

Reliability index incorporates call and text performance, and since 4G doesn't do calls, those figures can't be used to say anything about 4G.

That leaves the "Speed" index which shows O2 and EE well ahead of 3 and Vodafone only slightly behind.

But that's my point - the speed index is exactly what you would expect for a network combination of double speed 4G, regular 4G and 3G (if we accept that Voda didn't have 4G during the test). Perhaps the thread title isn't the best as Jabba hinted.

qasdfdsaq · 11-01-2014, 01:20

Yes, the order in the speed index is what you'd expect. But the main results of the report contradicts the thread title is my point.

Assuming of course the ongoing speculation as to if Vodafone's 4G was actually included or not, which given some of the dates quoted suggested it should have, at least in part.

japaul · 11-01-2014, 01:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

Yes, the order in the speed index is what you'd expect. But the main results of the report contradicts the thread title is my point.

Assuming of course the ongoing speculation as to if Vodafone's 4G was actually included or not, which given some of the dates quoted suggested it should have, at least in part.

The reports always mention changes like that from the previous one. It says EE launched double speed and O2 launched 4G since the previous test. Why would it not mention Vodafone 4G if it had launched?

qasdfdsaq · 11-01-2014, 01:36

They fail to mention a lot of things in their reports and methodology.

Again, they clearly say the tests were done from November 22nd to 27th.
jabbamk1 suggested Vodafone's 4G launch date in at least part of the survey area as November 21st. At least one external source implies this too, but Facebook's social media page implies it was after the 25th.

sethpet · 11-01-2014, 10:07

Thread Title really shoudl be changed.

Vodafone 4G launched very end of November in Leeds

Quote:

Vodafone UK ‏@VodafoneUK 30 Nov
We've just launched our 13th 4G city! Be the first to know when 4G is coming to your area. Keep an eye out here

Thine Wonk · 11-01-2014, 10:55

Yeah I wasn't sure of the dates but at the time I thought both O2 and Vodafone had 4G in Leeds and Bradford by the last couple of weeks of November '13 but I'm happy to be corrected if that wasn't the case. Sounds like O2 had both and Vodafone only had one of the two cities live at the time of survey?

What it does show though is web page performance was still better on Three (in fact 3 times faster) than even the providers that had 4G and email reliability was higher too.

Even though 4G doesn't currently support voice traffic on UK networks you would expect maybe Vodafone to have improved their very poor call failure rate by now. They must have upgraded backhaul and done the 4G upgrades ready for 4G, base station improvements etc so I wonder why and where these calls are being dropped.

My observation was that even though some networks have 4G, web performance, email performance and calls are still more of an issue on other networks than on Three.

On the mobile internet Root Metrics score we had:-
EE - 91 - had 4G
Three - 74 - 3G only
O2 - 59 - had 4G
Voda - 34 - had 4G in one of the two cities

10-01-2014, 23:23	#1
Thine Wonk Forum Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 14,577	Three's 3G performed better than O2 & Voda 4G According to Root Metrics Leeds and Bradford had O2 and Vodafone 4G when they surveyed the areas in November, however Three's 3G service still outperformed it in some areas. Three's network had a much higher email success rate. Web tests were faster than O2 and Vodafone, with O2 and Voda taking 3-4 times as long to load a 15k file O2's average speeds were a bit faster, but Vodafone was slower than Three's 3G Vodafone again had the highest call failure rate. EE was the overall winner in the area. So for all those saying Three's 4G is delayed by a few weeks, just remember Three already has such a good network it can outperform 4G areas and is still better than some other networks regardless of a delayed 4G launch.

10-01-2014, 23:27	#2
jabbamk1 Forum Member Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: London, UK Posts: 8,759	Dat title bias!!!!!! Good results for Three there though. Really shows how great their 3G network is in comparison to others, in this case even beating out rival 4G networks. What I find good to see is that despite EE having the raw speed advantage, Three beats EE in every real world category such as opening emails, web browsing and email success rate. So not sure how EE won the mobile internet category when what really matters is real world usage and not just raw speed. Not surprised to see Vodafone have the highest call rate failure again.... They really need to work on that ASAP as that's all I see from Voda in these reports. EE top again I see. That requires the obligatory GIF.... http://i481.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps75aca2bf.gif http://www.rootmetrics.com/uk/compar...november-2013/

10-01-2014, 23:33	#3
enapace Forum Member Join Date: Mar 2013 Posts: 4,249	Interesting nice to see.

10-01-2014, 23:40	#4
Thine Wonk Forum Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 14,577	I know Three didn't perform as strongly as others in a couple of other recent Root Metrics tests where the others had 4G. However it just goes to show in some areas it is still the best in real world tests and hopefully even better when 4G arrives soon.

10-01-2014, 23:41	#5
Everything Goes Forum Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: In the future.... Posts: 11,259	Call failure rates for Vodafone have not been enough to scare customers away so I doubt they will be in a hurry to do anything about it.

10-01-2014, 23:42	#6
jabbamk1 Forum Member Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: London, UK Posts: 8,759	Quote: Originally Posted by Everything Goes Call failure rates for Vodafone have not been enough to scare customers away so I doubt they will be in a hurry to do anything about it. Probably because the call drops everytime they ring to cancel.

10-01-2014, 23:47	#7
japaul Forum Member Join Date: Apr 2013 Posts: 1,662	Are you sure it's all 4G for the others though? The way I read the link jabba posted is that O2 had 4G but not Vodafone. Where O2 / Vodafone have had joint 4G builds, O2 usually goes live first.

10-01-2014, 23:50	#8
jabbamk1 Forum Member Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: London, UK Posts: 8,759	Quote: Originally Posted by japaul Are you sure it's all 4G for the others though? The way I read the link jabba posted is that O2 had 4G but not Vodafone. Where O2 / Vodafone have had joint 4G builds, O2 usually goes live first. I believe as of November 2013, Vodafone had launched in Leeds but not Bradford which was activated on November 21st 2013.

10-01-2014, 23:53	#9
Everything Goes Forum Member Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: In the future.... Posts: 11,259	Quote: Originally Posted by jabbamk1 Probably because the call drops everytime they ring to cancel. Good plan

10-01-2014, 23:56	#10
Thine Wonk Forum Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 14,577	Quote: Originally Posted by jabbamk1 I believe as of November 2013, Vodafone had launched in Leeds but not Bradford which was activated on November 21st 2013. Ah ok, thanks for that I thought that Vodafone launched 4G in Leeds and Bradford earlier than that. Glad to be corrected, it does explain why Vodafone didn't really compare to O2 as you'd have thought they would have been closely matched in 4G areas.

10-01-2014, 23:59	#11
mogzyboy Forum Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Wales Posts: 4,554	Wavejock is going to implode soon I fear. It must really grate on him to see Three's network performing so well...

11-01-2014, 00:01	#12
japaul Forum Member Join Date: Apr 2013 Posts: 1,662	I found a later date for Vodafone Leeds (right at the end of Nov) so I think O2 was 4G but not Vodafone. The report observations which mention the differences from the last test seem to support that only mentioning 4G for O2. Leeds used to be an important centre for O2 (old BT Mobile).

11-01-2014, 00:06	#13
jabbamk1 Forum Member Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: London, UK Posts: 8,759	Quote: Originally Posted by japaul I found a later date for Vodafone Leeds (right at the end of Nov) so I think O2 was 4G but not Vodafone. The report observations which mention the differences from the last test seem to support that only mentioning 4G for O2. Leeds used to be an important centre for O2 (old BT Mobile). I'm recalling the dates from memory so i could be wrong. I think it's best to assume that only O2 had 4G tested in the November report above. The Vodafone results should be in line with O2 somewhat or seen an increase in speed compared to the earlier report if 4G had launched in those areas.

11-01-2014, 00:34	#14
qasdfdsaq Inactive Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 3,286	http://rmwebcdn.rootmetrics.com/uk/w...vember2013.png Wait, what?

11-01-2014, 00:42	#15
qasdfdsaq Inactive Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 3,286	Quote: Originally Posted by jabbamk1 I'm recalling the dates from memory so i could be wrong. I think it's best to assume that only O2 had 4G tested in the November report above. The Vodafone results should be in line with O2 somewhat or seen an increase in speed compared to the earlier report if 4G had launched in those areas. Rootmetrics results and description for Glasgow seem to disagree. Bot had "launched" 4G according to the report, but drastically different results. http://www.rootmetrics.com/uk/compar...ber-2013/#data

11-01-2014, 00:43	#16
japaul Forum Member Join Date: Apr 2013 Posts: 1,662	Quote: Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq http://rmwebcdn.rootmetrics.com/uk/w...vember2013.png Wait, what? Isn't that exactly what you would expect? EE double speed 4G, O2 10MHz 4G, Three/Vodafone 3G.

11-01-2014, 00:44	#17
qasdfdsaq Inactive Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 3,286	Quote: Originally Posted by jabbamk1 I believe as of November 2013, Vodafone had launched in Leeds but not Bradford which was activated on November 21st 2013. "The data provided in this report reflect our findings in the Leeds and Bradford market during testing conducted from 22—27 November 2013."

11-01-2014, 00:47	#18
qasdfdsaq Inactive Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 3,286	Quote: Originally Posted by japaul I found a later date for Vodafone Leeds (right at the end of Nov) so I think O2 was 4G but not Vodafone. The report observations which mention the differences from the last test seem to support that only mentioning 4G for O2. Leeds used to be an important centre for O2 (old BT Mobile). According to http://www.4g.co.uk/vodafone-4g-network-summary/ Vodafone 4G was already active in Leeds in October, though I don't know how reliable that article is.

11-01-2014, 00:52	#19
qasdfdsaq Inactive Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 3,286	Quote: Originally Posted by japaul Isn't that exactly what you would expect? EE double speed 4G, O2 10MHz 4G, Three/Vodafone 3G. Thread title is "Three's 3G performed better than O2 & Voda 4G". Rootmetrics main results are broken down into "Speed" "Reliability" and "Combined" indexes. Reliability index incorporates call text, and data performance, and since 4G doesn't do calls, those figures can't be used to say anything about 4G. That leaves the "Speed" index, which considers only data and text performance, both of which are handled by 4G, and shows O2 and EE well ahead of 3 and Vodafone only slightly behind. Also conveniently omitted are the results showing 3 having the worst SMS failure rate of all networks and the second worst call failure rate, behind both EE and O2, and was the slowest of all networks for downloading emails.

11-01-2014, 01:05	#20
japaul Forum Member Join Date: Apr 2013 Posts: 1,662	Quote: Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq Thread title is "Three's 3G performed better than O2 & Voda 4G". Rootmetrics main results are broken down into "Speed" "Reliability" and "Combined" indexes. Reliability index incorporates call and text performance, and since 4G doesn't do calls, those figures can't be used to say anything about 4G. That leaves the "Speed" index which shows O2 and EE well ahead of 3 and Vodafone only slightly behind. But that's my point - the speed index is exactly what you would expect for a network combination of double speed 4G, regular 4G and 3G (if we accept that Voda didn't have 4G during the test). Perhaps the thread title isn't the best as Jabba hinted.

11-01-2014, 01:20	#21
qasdfdsaq Inactive Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 3,286	Yes, the order in the speed index is what you'd expect. But the main results of the report contradicts the thread title is my point. Assuming of course the ongoing speculation as to if Vodafone's 4G was actually included or not, which given some of the dates quoted suggested it should have, at least in part.

DS Forums

Three's 3G performed better than O2 & Voda 4G

11-01-2014, 01:27	#22
japaul Forum Member Join Date: Apr 2013 Posts: 1,662	Quote: Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq Yes, the order in the speed index is what you'd expect. But the main results of the report contradicts the thread title is my point. Assuming of course the ongoing speculation as to if Vodafone's 4G was actually included or not, which given some of the dates quoted suggested it should have, at least in part. The reports always mention changes like that from the previous one. It says EE launched double speed and O2 launched 4G since the previous test. Why would it not mention Vodafone 4G if it had launched?

11-01-2014, 01:36	#23
qasdfdsaq Inactive Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 3,286	They fail to mention a lot of things in their reports and methodology. Again, they clearly say the tests were done from November 22nd to 27th. jabbamk1 suggested Vodafone's 4G launch date in at least part of the survey area as November 21st. At least one external source implies this too, but Facebook's social media page implies it was after the 25th.

11-01-2014, 10:07	#24
sethpet Forum Member Join Date: Aug 2013 Posts: 494	Thread Title really shoudl be changed. Vodafone 4G launched very end of November in Leeds Quote: Vodafone UK ‏@VodafoneUK 30 Nov We've just launched our 13th 4G city! Be the first to know when 4G is coming to your area. Keep an eye out here

11-01-2014, 10:55	#25
Thine Wonk Forum Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 14,577	Yeah I wasn't sure of the dates but at the time I thought both O2 and Vodafone had 4G in Leeds and Bradford by the last couple of weeks of November '13 but I'm happy to be corrected if that wasn't the case. Sounds like O2 had both and Vodafone only had one of the two cities live at the time of survey? What it does show though is web page performance was still better on Three (in fact 3 times faster) than even the providers that had 4G and email reliability was higher too. Even though 4G doesn't currently support voice traffic on UK networks you would expect maybe Vodafone to have improved their very poor call failure rate by now. They must have upgraded backhaul and done the 4G upgrades ready for 4G, base station improvements etc so I wonder why and where these calls are being dropped. My observation was that even though some networks have 4G, web performance, email performance and calls are still more of an issue on other networks than on Three. On the mobile internet Root Metrics score we had:- EE - 91 - had 4G Three - 74 - 3G only O2 - 59 - had 4G Voda - 34 - had 4G in one of the two cities