Originally Posted by Aye Up:
“I have to agree to some extent. Previously when EE was (and still is) ahead, RM was very quick to label EE as the best network in the country. TBH save for us technophiles these tests are bull shit which doesn't bother the average user who posts on twitter or instagram.
I am glad they are becoming irrelevant, it moves focus to network quality and cruciallt coverage, something which RM often fails to paint accurately.”
I think the way data is recorded and displayed now means I am finding it more useful, but clearly it's only as good as the tests done - and EE (especially with tests being free) does mean you've got a lot more data points, and thus chances to get some higher peak speeds - even if the average might drop a bit.
Vodafone has its own speed test app, which is also free to use, but I guess there's no way to view the results on a map and it's for Vodafone's own internal measuring.
Meanwhile, Speedtest.net/Ookla provides data to networks like Three that get all the figures from the tests that people like me do quite often!
Ultimately, O2 really can't complain as it's not as if ordinary people haven't been saying how bad the network was.. but I'll be the first to say that in London and the surrounds, it's massively improved in the last year - and both 2G and 3G has been 'fixed' where 4G has arrived.
O2 has to be careful because once it has started to fix more of its network, and speeds and reliability improve nationally, it will want to use this data (when it's more positive) to endorse its network. That will be made harder if it's ridiculed and dismissed the measuring before.
At the end of the day, all joking aside about backhanders, I'd say that EE is clearly way out in front with network quality and speeds right now. It will have overtaken Three, which has neither the high speeds that EE can offer, and what I assume have been congestion issues that have dogged the network around me for a lot of the summer and even earlier.