So i picked up a Three PAYG sim to test it against my current O2 sim.
Sitting in the middle of Glasgow (outdoors), using a Nexus 5.

O2 - strong HSPA+ connection - not great speeds but more than useable
Three - weak HSPA connection - poor speeds, much worse than O2

now, the Three coverage maps shows that i was in a strong 4G area with good indoor and outdoor coverage. my phone flashed up the 4G logo very briefly then disappeared, at one point it also dropped to 3G !

so initial tests seem to be poor for Three, which i was expecting to be give HSPA+ at the very least considering the location.

is this a common occurrence with Three, or was i just unlucky with maybe something else affecting it?

It’s not common here in Bristol where the opposite is so but just stick with what works for you, I do and in my case it just happens to be Three.

I'm sure I keep reading on this forum that o2 has good coverage in glasgow. If so, they are probably the one to stick with.

All providers have their good and bad spots, even within areas they otherwise have excellent coverage.

wondering now if it was a specific local issue.
tested it again in a different area of the city (not so central).

HSPA+
22.27Mbps down
2.33Mbps up
44ms ping

apparently, still in a 4G area though, but no 4G connection possible.

I tend to find I only get 4G in Glasgow in more open areas - I don't think the 1800MHz plays well with buildings. That said, I generally find the 3G speeds perfectly respectable anyway.

i was standing in glasgow green at the time.... fairly open

just tested it outside my building in cambuslang... was flipping between HSPA and HSPA+.
according to the coverage map, it's a 4G area with marginal indoors.

Hillsborough is in the middle of a "strong" 4g area on Three but i have never seen it either in the stadium or in the wide open space that is the Wednesdayite car park.

The maps a bit of an arse i think.

More than likely. I work in a small market town, according to 3's coverage map the entire area is DC-HSDPA covered, but in the real world I get around sub 500k speeds in the office where I work as do several colleagues, yet at my Parents' house (less than half a mile away), I get 13mbps.

Three have looked into it, and now say that one mast is DC-HSDPA enabled but the other covering the Town Centre (where I work), isn't high speed enabled (regardless of their own coverage map saying that is) and is also severely congested. However the entire town is coloured on their map as being a High Speed area, and there is still nothing indicating any congestion. So yes, even short-ish distances can mean big changes in the speeds you see, depending on which mast you are connecting to.

I think the '3' coverage maps are created by the same cheerfully over optimistic person who does the postcode based estimates for BT ASDL speeds.

The coverage map is a load of rubbish, I live in an indoor/outdoor coverage area and can't get a 4g signal at all.

My postcode says:

4G.
Data.
Very good service.
You can use the internet in most instances on our 4G network. However, the signal strength may vary, especially when you're indoors.

It doesn't even work standing on the roof terrace.

My partner is on Vodafone and gets about 20mb speeds down. I get 7mb down on 3.

However, when in central London I get about 30mb down.

Shame it's rubbish where I live.

The EE coverage map is just as bad.

It shows very good coverage where there is none, bad coverage where there is some.

Solution: buy a PAYG SIM and test it yourself. Failing that, check RootMetrics.

Surprised that you have never had a 4G signal in Hillsborough. I was at the school opposite last week and had a strong 4G signal

The Three site has a bug that it seems hasn't been fixed yet, saying good data even in a post code where the map clearly shows outdoor only (and patchy even then).

Ignore the text.

And if you're in Glasgow, stick with O2. I'm told it's the best by far, regardless of what RootMetrics maps might show. It's been said so many times, I have no reason to doubt it.

you've been told nonsense then, or maybe a biased opinion.
my contract sim is O2 and it's pretty poor.
phones more often than not show full bar HSPA but with no data bandwidth possible.
and that's not just in Glasgow.

never looked at rootmetrics so no idea what it says.
i tend to use real life tests, and that's what my real life O2 tests are like.

That's the kind of thing that should be fixed sharpish - it's misleading.

Yes it is. Mind you, when checking any map I look at the map and ignore any text as I expect most people would.

Yeah EE's map is one of the most misleading as unless u click 4G you would assume it was a good signal but most likely your in an area with outdoor coverage. But I agree about Three's coverage thing being misleading I know a lot of places that are on the absolute edge of the outdoor 4G part and it still says very good service when in actual fact service is non-existent.

If you're on the edge of 4G coverage, temporarily force LTE only and check again.

Sure it's little use, but I have checked a few places where it's on the border of outdoor 4G coverage and found it, registered and even got a fairly decent speed (5Mbps or so down, but very low up).

So the maps aren't necessarily way off, but it's just that your phone will go with 3G instead.

I have found the map to be extremely accurate, but only if you force your phone to 4G and wait quite a long time for it to connect to the cell. If you start from a pink area on the map and you're on 4G only it will also hang on to the connection until you get to the outside of the blue area.

Blue is really variable through and outdoor only.

You are right in most places where I have done that it has given me an extremely weak 4G say -115-125 depending on particular place some places though you don't get a signal at all. But as you say LTE-Only is kind of useless at moment specially for me as I recieve a load of calls a day.

But honestly a signal that weak shouldn't even really be classed as a signal at all.

When I tested Payg I realised that I shouldn't pay much attention to speeds.

I was happy with coverage so I got my one plan and found speeds to be much quicker than payg. It seems since that three prioritise speeds for higher paying customers. Can't guarantee it will be the same for you

I think that isn't unique to Three either, there's often a small hierarchy between business customers vs consumer, MNO vs MVNO traffic and PAYG vs contract. Several networks will give you slightly different performance based on those things.

OK so done some more testing today in Glasgow city centre (sauchiehall street area).
to say the results were disappointing would be an understatement.

i attached 3 speedtest results, neither managed more than 2Mbps down.
if this is what 4G is like on Three then it's laughable.
i got 9Mbps on HSPA+ at home out in the sticks on Three.

is this a PAYG issues? as i'm testing using a PAYG sim.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...2014.51.16.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...2015.04.48.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...2015.05.30.png

however, coverage wise it seems to be infinitely better than O2.
i drove my usual commute with the Three sim in, and it never dropped below HSPA all the way. on O2 it regularly drops to GPRS and sometimes no signal at all.

There is a global outage apparently.

2Mbps on 4G? That is bad.

That's a disgrace to any cellular provider.