Originally Posted by jonmorris:
“I believe you'll get full access to sites/bands as anyone - but the speed will be throttled.
If EE restricted access, you might find speeds slower as a result of that, not a cap.
EE has lifted the cap for existing double speed users from 100 to 150 to 200. Now it will just set a cap on a tariff basis.
I do worry that given Three set a precedent that out of contract you can be told to accept significant changes with no way to refuse (refusal means leaving) and existing customers like me could find the speed cap is applied, with just 30 days notice.
I hope that won't happen, but it's a great way to get people to pay more by not really having a choice. No longer will you just be able to say 'I'm fine as I am thanks'.”
Okay, thanks for that info, and it's a bit off that they have gradually increased the cap and now only a select few will have access to the full network speed. Their website goes on about them being the fastest network. This is all well and good but if you are throttled it doesn't make a blind bit of difference. I got 63 Mbps on a speed test in Retford town centre the other week on Three. I think the fastest I have got on Three is about 65 Mbps. The other thing is that Vodafone users have got speed tests in excess of 200 Mpbs, giving the impression that they are the fastest. EE could do better than Vodafone if they allowed their users to. In real world usage on a mobile, it won't make a difference, but a lot of people do speed tests and questions will be asked if people on other networks are getting faster speeds than on EE. I do like them as a network and that's why I'm moving to them, but this latest move has disappointed me. By all means cap those on the lowest tiers, but 60 Mbps on 4GEE vs a speed of "Faster 4G Speeds" as it says on the 4GEE Max plans, where speeds faster than 60 Mbps aren't available everywhere is misleading in my opinion.
I hope speeds of existing customers aren't slowed too. At least I will expect a 60 Mbps cap.
Mind you, what worries me more is this tendency towards a two or three tier network. EE already had cheaper single speed tiers and have now made more of a gap between their top and bottom tiers. Three have also introduced a two tier system with their Essential and Advanced plans, albeit with no speed restrictions as yet. How long before Three impose speed restrictions on their Essential plans and how long until Vodafone and O2 also start doing this? It'll get to a stage where you can have the latest phone and a few GB of data for a reasonable (but not cheap) cost but you can't really take full advantage of it unless you pay a fortune for faster speeds and big data allowances on all networks.