I carried out a few speed tests on my new phone today and I was very impressed with the results. It's the first 4G speed tests I have carried out with a full signal and in a few different locations. I am on a 4GEE plan so my speeds are capped at 60 Mbps (I was disappointed about the cap being added a week or so I signed up but the only time I will really notice is during speed tests as 60 Mbps is more than enough for HD and even 4K video recording. I considered a Max plan, but decided that paying the same for less data or a lot more for faster speeds and loads of data that I don't need wasn't worth it. Plus I'm not into sport so BT Sport would be of no use to me and I'm at uni so the 15 GB of data a month in the EU wouldn't be used either.)

The first speed test I did was near the mast on London Road in Retford, getting an impressive 66.6 Mbps down and 23.46 Mbps up with a 34 ms ping. It was the fasted speed so far and I think marginally faster than the fastest I've seen on EE. Later, I visted my Grandparents in Tuxford. No 4G (except a bar at the top of the garden) but a stronger 3G signal than on Three (even in the kitchen where I had nothing on Three) and a speed test of 11.59 down and 1.17 up from their living room. I was expecting 4G upstairs as the coverage is apparently outdoor only but I only got a 3G signal achieving 5.1 down and 2.05 up- still pretty good.

it was on the way back that things got more exciting. Firstly, I did three speed tests and got pings of 27 ms, 24 ms and 24 ms respectively which is brilliant to say I was in a moving car at the time. In Tuxford I got 65.72 Mbps down and 28.09 up. Once we got to Markham Moor and my signal strength was full (as it was in Tuxford) I tested again and got 67.13 Mbps down and 28.27 Mbps up. Finally, I did a third test after passing through Gamston and got 68.06 Mbps down and 23.14 Mbps up- all fantastic results.

The interesting thing was that on the final test, the needle rose to the 70's and then 80's before slowing back down to the high 60's. I can only assume this is the network throttling due to the speed cap on my plan. I don't know how accurate these mid test speeds are but, if they are accurate, it's a good way of seeing the max speed (if I'm quick!) even with the imposed cap. I'm also pretty sure I saw it go over 100 Mbps down at Markham Moor (which is possible on double speed 4G I believe) but I'll have to test again to be sure. Despite the speed cap imposed on my plan, these are great results and shows how good EE's network is- I don't think I would have got 4G once during that journey on Three.

Just need to get my beans on toast then will read that.

This ridicule is pathetic, just block him if its so aberrant reading his posts then block him.

I suspect that Mr Steve's post was meant tongue in cheek...

No - the speed test value you see is a constantly changing average so gets more accurate the longer that the test goes on, as there are more data points. Most speed tests settle after the first few seconds.

Some new plans have a 60 cap so if they're on one of them it could be throttling.

Yes - but the cap does not kick in after a few seconds. It's always there. It's just the inaccuracy of the measurement at the beginning of the test.

Oh well. First wifi call was superb. 4 after that have failed or been deeply flawed. I guess my ADSL can't keep up with modern tech. Trying to book a table. Will wait for the land line to be free.

Fking rubbish.

is someone in your house uploading? I have managed to get intelligible calls at 400kbit

I've had one or two dodgy experiences with it not on my home broadband but on really crap ADSL but it's a pretty efficient codec for the voice it's the VPN overheads that mean you have to have a reasonable upload

I've had problems with EE WiFi calling in hotels where you have no idea what is going on. I think either EE or Apple are missing a trick, I want WiFi calling to enable itself on certain WiFi networks (aka, where my friend lives). I don't want it to automatic as my friends house has patchy signal which makes for useless voice calls without wifi calling. But I don't need it anywhere else. Turning on/off is annoying and not on control centre.

Agreed, an option like Three in touch would fix some of the problems with WiFi networks (firewalls) that block one leg of the call.

I've not had that problem, WiFi Calling doesn't activate if the WiFi network doesn't permit the connection through to EE's servers. I see this in Sainsburys as their free WiFi doesn't allow WiFi calling.

You don't get the "EE WiFi Call" in the title bar.

I've generally found wifi calling to be quite picky about the routers and models it will work with. For example, it never worked with my old TP Link router, but worked out of the box from day one with my Huawei router. Ditto a Sky router. Never managed to figure out why...

If the router can accept IPsec VPNs, it may interfere with wi-fi calling.

There are a couple of business networks I use where WiFi calling activates but I don't hear any audio. I just manually drop WiFi and use 4G calling, but it's annoying.

Found a few threads suggesting that it may be an issue with the Sky Q router when using an iPhone. I did make one perfect wifi call but may well have been connected to my other router down in the shed as have an AP up in the house.

Anyone here got Sky Q with Sky BB and have issues?

You're spot on, I used to have a sky hub and although i had 23 mbps broadband connection the wifi call quality was terrible, really digital and unusable. Often calls where dropped too.

Moved house, now with BT and the same phone (iPhone 6s)

Slower broadband speed (8 mbps) and wifi calling works flawlessly.

I guess you could try a different router?

If Steve needs / wants to keep the Sky Q router set up as it is, he might be able to plug a cheap additional wifi router (that has been confirmed as working with iphone wifi calling) into one of the LAN ports and set the iPhone to be the only device that connects to that secondary wifi network. Wonder if that would work?

4G signal at Stoke Bruerne quite poor this weekend. Rural area so probably 1800MHz cant reach as much as VO2 900Mhz/800MHz. Anyway 4G 1800MHz is 1 bar , -110s dBm and varies between 2Mbps and 5Mbps download. Upload anywhere from zero to 2Mbps.
3g is a different story, cell breathing means very little coverage as it is a busy event this weekend. When I did get a signal, couldnt get a throughput. I shall keep testing 3G and let you know the outcome, but not good. The Orange 3G on 23433 is no longer present, the orange mast has gome EE 3G 23430. Still not good in terms of throughput!

I suppise it would normally be OK in terms of speed; coverage doesnt look good due to topography, hills etc. But not good today...

Edit: now on 4G mode . hope I don't need any calls because it wont be possible with rhus non-Volte device!!
3G, when working, was <1Mbps both ways.

Or just bloody do what anyone else would do and set your phone to auto!

As a continuation from my last post...

I decided to carry out a bit of an experiment, to see what the phone would do on its own, and I set the S4 to default mode (LTE with GSM Auto), observing what happened.
It started on 4G, which was fluctuating between mid -120's dBm and mid -110's dBm, depending on whereabouts I was in the village. In the spot where I did the test, it was about -120dBm.
Then it dropped a bit weaker, just below the -120dBm mark, and switched to 3G.
For the next minute or so, it couldn't make up it's mind, and was continually switching between 3G and 4G; 3G was -107 - -111dBm and 4G was -120 - -123dBm. (Bear in mind my last post; 4G was doing up to 5Mbps download and up to 2Mbps upload whereas 3G was less than 1Mbps both ways.)
After a while, the S4 did exactly what I DIDN'T want it to do, which was to do exactly what the S4 has done in the past. It settled itself on a 2 bar (about 28%, or -97dBm) EDGE signal. Yep, it did what it does best, and dropped to 2G (at about 150 kbit/s), despite 4G being readily available and much faster than 2G. (Even the congested 3G would have outperformed 2G, though it was quite weak and would sometimes drop out, though 4G was ok.)
With that I'd had enough of auto mode, vowed never to use auto mode again and shoved it on LTE mode.

And this is why we don't use a mode that would result in a sub-optimal data connection (though of course, this will be fine when I get an LG G4 or G5 with VoLTE support!).

What were the measurements of the 4G which was readily available?

Signal strength: around -120dBm. It was showing up as zero bars on the default graph but on "Network Signal Info" widget it showed a few bars. So the 4G signal was still available and OK to use.
Speed tests: first one was 2.46Mbps down and 0.34Mbps up, ping 23ms
Second one was 1.71Mbps down and 1.57Mbps up, ping 27ms
Third one was 5.63Mbps down and 2.11Mbps up, ping was 26ms
All of those were 4G 1800MHz at approx -120dBm
3G (at approx -110dBm) provided 0.90Mbps down and 0.23Mbps up with a ping of 54ms.
2G theoretical max is 220kbps (i.e. 0.22Mbps), I'd have likely got between 100kbps and 150kbps if I was lucky. Didn't bother speed testing it as it would have been a disaster, so I switched back to LTE mode.

There's a reason you're being switched down. If many people are on that crap a signal (RSRP isn't great but it's not the only measurement to make a proper judgement) it drains capacity, the networks and phones are setup to begin hand down when the channel quality is that crap that it is giving those speeds (despite it being usable on the surface) because of the negative effect getting those speeds has on other users. Obviously I agree this is a pain because of the lack of a proper layer under but you have to look at the bigger picture. It needs to be fixed at some point but remember we are still in the middle of the network refresh, there is a reasonable timeframe though, I accept it's not much use to you now though!

By the way, does anyone know how to confirm if the discount on the 16GB SIM is still being applied to an account? I bought the 16GB SIM when it was discounted to £19.99, and I know it came up with Loyalty Discount (or something like that) before - and although my last bill was £19.99 (actually a bit more due to picture messaging and a premium rate text), it is now showing in My EE as £34.99?
Is it actually going to remain at £19.99 for the 12 months, or does it go up to £34.99 after a certain time etc?
Thanks!