I am currently on giffgaff but these days its become one massive rip off and i like to use the internet for watching videos, social etc soo you guys know any good networks that are cheap and reasonably price.

Handset data?

Three...

3 also

Three

Three is definitely the best value for PAYG, given they offer AYCE from £15 I think.

However EE is the network to beat, not as competitive as three but 4G is more widely available.

However, as most of 3's network is now DC-HSPDA (HSDPA+) enabled you can get speeds on 3' s 3G network that others *ONLY* manage on 4G!!! 3 are also rolling out 4G pretty swiftly - and at no extra cost!

HSDPA+ has a theoretical download limit of 21.6Mbs. I have seen between 15 and 18 in reality at times on 3!

DC-HSPA is 42Mb/s theoretical on Three actually!

My mistake! Better still! In that case, AFAIR, EE's "normal" (as opposed to "double rate" = 4G+) 4G is slower than this!!!!

I guess its HSPDA+ which is 21.6? I had assumed it was another name for DC-HSPDA?

I've been seeing about 28Mbps with 39ms ping on DC-HSDPA on my local mast (Three) if I wake up early enough. It's still no 4g but I'm not sure I really need it. It's a 4 network mast and on EE I get about 18mbps on 3g and on Vodafone it's hovering about 5mbps and o2 it's about 8mbps. Simple choice for me really with unlimited data on three.

Did you guys know that in Turkey, Turkcell have launched the worlds first 63Mbps 3G network. It's the only 3G network to be upgrading past DC-HSPA+

Are they doing that instead of 4g? That might have saved a bit on licensing fees from Ofcom if a network had done that.

Probably not as much capacity per user if still using the UMTS air interface but increasing speeds. Maybe triple carrier?

3 If you get good speeds

Yeah it was triple carrier I found it on ericsson's website. It had an upload limit of 11mbps and was using three 5mhz carriers at 2100mhz. Every mast would still need a backhaul and equipment upgrade I presume so 4g makes sense for future proofing I suppose.

It's more of a stopgap solution till Turkcell roll out 4G which should be happening later this year.

Where as other networks have already invested a lot in 4G so there is no point upgrading existing 3G tech at all.

Just getting pedantic for a moment...
It's actually called HSPA+ which is the 21.6 (and then lower speeds are HSDPA 14.4, 7.2, 3.6 and 1.8)

DC-HSDPA is 2 bonded HSPA+ channels hence the theoretical 42Mbps.
However you never actually get anywhere near these speeds.
The 15 and 18 you are seeing are almost certainly DC-HSDPA running off 2 bonded HSPA+ streams at 7.5 and 9Mbps respectively.

The very fastest 3G I have ever had was 30Mbps briefly.
So that would have been each HSPA+ channel running at it's near maximum real throughput of 15Mbps.
Single channel HSPA+ can probably go faster a bit since you don't have any bonding overheads.

The fastest I saw was 36-37Mbps in a lab environment.

Whoever gives you the best 3G & 4G signal.

However if you have the choice.. EE for the best experience in general but not the cheapest and is capped. Three for the cheapest bang for the buck and unlimited.

Rolling out 4G swiftly? HAHAHAHAHA

Three is struggling with its rollout strategy thats no secret. I also think you will find achieving those very speeds on DC-HSPA is often very rare in urban environments, go take a walk down Oxford St on a weekday or Market St in Manchester any day of the week.

Those DC speeds were very good abour 2 years ago, however I have yet to see my phone achieve more that 6-7Mbps on Three, 4G is not as swift as we would like. But then again I don't complain for the majority of people who like to stream music or watch videos on youtube, even posting a facebook message, Three is more that ok.

I don't buy into the crap that DC-HSPA is as good as 4G it isn't, you need only look at EE's network rolling out DC-HSPA in partnership with Three, that yields better results. EE regularly returns 25-30Mbps 4G speeds for me where I live and work, DC is about 15Mbps which I think is adequate.

However on a more sincere note, people are getting hung up about speeds and all that jazz. That is folly, there a many technologies being trialled (as alluded to by Jabba on countless occasions) at the moment, 4G being the least of them. Speeds are only part of the equation, capacity, coverage all matter as well. Personally I think of 4G as an enabler and not a revolutionary step, it increases the amount of things that can be done on your phone, crucially it doesn't change how you use it either.

EE must have the most confusing 4G there is!!! They have "single rate" (about the same as DC-HSPDA 3G) and "double rate" - often on the same tariff (pay up to so much get single rate, pay more get the faster version)!

I am the last one to be blowing EE's trumpet, however in reference to the double speed, I can see as the market matures the double speed offer will stop and everyone will eventually get access to the same speeds and level of service on the network.

you are talking about DC-HSDPA theoretically being similar to single speed LTE, in practice is seldom is, and you are also ignoring upload speeds and latency in your bid to try and equalise them.

PS it's HSDPA not PDA, a PDA is something you use for appointments . It stands for High-Speed Downlink Packet Access.

Can/does Dc-hsdpa work across different bands like carrier aggression 900/2100 I get 20 mbps on my local non 4G'd Vodafone mast

No - if you're getting that sort of speed it will be at 2100mhz only. I've seen close to that on T-Mobile back in the pre-EE days but whilst MBNL was rolling out.

I don't think the UMTS /HSPA specs have carrier aggregation thought of, but after the LTE specifications were published some stuff came back into the UMTS spec. Such as how HSPA+ is more aligned with a TCP/IP core than the earlier mobile data stuff.