Originally Posted by heskethbang:
“Just moved across from three to EE. Mostly good so far - nice to have Visual Voicemail back - haven't had this since the days of the iPhone 3GS on O2.
Two observations so far: 4g speeds obviously are great, but 3G yesterday in a village near Birmingham Airport, and I clocked 5mbps, whereas with 3 this would usually be 8-15mbps. Also, this morning at the gym in south Birmingham, my phone went onto GPRS?! Can't believe networks are still using this tech. Is it 1996 or something?!
As ever when switching networks, it's swings and roundabouts - upstairs at the gym I get smooth v fast 4G, and I'm sure there'll be plenty of places where I will now get improved coverage.”
I don't know whether my phone supports Visual Voicemail or not, though to be fair it isn't something that is a make or break for me in terms of network choice.
Like your findings, I have found Three to be slightly faster on 3G, in some locations. There was one mast on the A1, in Cambridgeshire (or would it be classed as Lincolnshire?) that Three gave me 20Mbps on 3G and EE gave me 10Mbps. Though I suspect that this is because EE have more customers, and to be honest the difference between 10Mbps and 20Mbps wouldn't affect me for the most part, because I don't use Youtube that much when out and about (or do any large downloads/uploads). In some situations, there would be quite a noticeable difference between 10Mbps and 20Mbps. But for the majority of people, the difference between 10Mbps and 20Mbps, on a phone, wouldn't be much. I think Youtube will still work in HD at 10Mbps?
As for your phone going to GPRS, it depends on what sort of signal strength 3G was like, and what device you have. Could you get 3G (albeit weak) on Three? If you could get 3G on Three, chances are you've got a crazy wacko device (like mine) that likes clinging on to 2G, when a weaker 3G is still available and will still work for calls, texts and faster data. Forcing 3G/4G (if possible) will fix that.
Originally Posted by jonmorris:
“Can you lock the phone to 3G/4G only?”
I wish! If I could find a 3G/4G only mode on my S4 (whereabouts can you get this mode, as I just have WCDMA only and LTE only, so not both combined) - that way I wouldn't be needing to complain how wacky my phone is when it comes to network selection!