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City based speed tests show EE at the top |
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#1 |
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Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: In the future....
Posts: 11,257
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City based speed tests show EE at the top
Rootmetrics speed tests across UK cities has perhaps unsurprisingly show EE as top dog by a large margin.
But I do wonder about Vodafone's poor performance. Vodafone have a lot of capacity which historically they have not been utilising very much. They are on par with O2. Vodafone have been utilising their CA with 2600MHz in cities and refarming some of their much loved 2G 900MHz and small holding on 1800MHz. O2 use image compression to get round their bandwidth limitations which must help them a bit. Meanwhile Three have not fared that well although increased 4G has helped them a bit year on year. Yes killing off the One Plan has made a huge difference NOT http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php...d-h1-2016.html |
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#2 |
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Join Date: Sep 2007
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While EE are clearly leading, it's because they have the most amount of spectrum and the most amount of upgraded sites, including CA sites. EE have done an amazing job when it comes to their 4G rollout and using their spectrum to maximise speeds. EE are on top of their game and prepared for rising data usage more than any other MNO.
I think Three are doing pretty well considering they still offer AYCE data and a 30GB tethering allowance at £23pm, you can't even get a 30GB allowance for that price on any other MNO. Three are still bound to attract data hungry customers, and their original customer base are data hungry too, making a customer base full of extreme data users with unlimited data plans... It's only quite recently that Voda and O2 have started offering decent sim-only deals with higher data allowances, they've never been good for data hungry customers, and their performance for download speeds is about on par with Three from what I can see (although Three's upload speeds are suffering). If Three customers start to notice speeds are suffering and they jump ship over to high allowance Voda/O2 plans, will their networks be able to handle the load? |
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#3 |
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Join Date: Feb 2008
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Quote:
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their original customer base are data hungry too, making a customer base full of extreme data users with unlimited data plans... ... If Three customers start to notice speeds are suffering and they jump ship over to high allowance Voda/O2 plans, will their networks be able to handle the load? |
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#4 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: London, United Kingdom
Posts: 19,783
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Quote:
Well, I'm considering doing exactly that; Three to Voda potentially. Still a bit on the fence. I use around 10-15GB a month so around a year ago I had no choice other than Three. Now, o2 and Voda both have reasonably priced 20-25GB plans, so I could quite easily see myself jumping ship.
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#5 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Leicester
Posts: 897
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Quote:
I went from Three to Vodafone and regret it immensely. 4G for me is 5mb down and about the same up. 3G is 23mb down and 3mb up. It's ridiculous that the dl speed is faster on 3G. I'll be back to a Three in April.
I now get a great Voda signal at home, and I've had at least a couple of bars of 4G in most places I've checked across Leicester and Leicestershire . I appreciate that's not the case everywhere in the UK, but all I can say is it works well where I use it. My 4G speeds are significantly faster than my 3G ones, although both are more than adequate for me anyway. The most data-intensive thing I do on my phone is stream Spotify at 'extreme' quality. |
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#6 |
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 14,541
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EE has always been the fastest for speeds, that's just 1 thing though and to the average user may not actually be an esssential. Who is best in terms of everyday usage and overall best for value, well that's debatable.
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#7 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: a land filled with trolls
Posts: 12,010
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Quote:
Rootmetrics speed tests across UK cities has perhaps unsurprisingly show EE as top dog by a large margin.
But I do wonder about Vodafone's poor performance. Vodafone have a lot of capacity which historically they have not been utilising very much. They are on par with O2. Vodafone have been utilising their CA with 2600MHz in cities and refarming some of their much loved 2G 900MHz and small holding on 1800MHz. O2 use image compression to get round their bandwidth limitations which must help them a bit. Meanwhile Three have not fared that well although increased 4G has helped them a bit year on year. Yes killing off the One Plan has made a huge difference NOT http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php...d-h1-2016.html Now it makes a much bigger deal of it, so arguably more people are likely using tethering now than before. Go figure! Three still likes to state to the press and analysts that it is built for data and can handle it. I think that's true in many areas (I now get 60-80Mbps in quite a few places, using JUST 1800) but certainly not everywhere - by a long shot. 3G can also perform really bad still, even with people supposedly on 4G, and cell breathing makes it just as bad as it ever was in congested areas. EE is so far ahead it's scary. |
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#8 |
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 14,541
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They wanted to enable more people to use the service and be happy with it, rather than a minority like 5% getting cheap home broadband.
There are many happy Three customers, as you hear in this thread people who left Three to go to Vodafone and regretted it, there's more to a mobile network than just pure speedtest speed. |
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#9 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: a land filled with trolls
Posts: 12,010
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Yes, like low latency, capacity and the ending of times where you have signal but no data flow, as is a big problem with cell breathing.
Three is at least planning to reuse 3G spectrum for 4G, but needs to get on with it. Vodafone is already doing it quite extensively and the big issue with VF is the delay in getting sites upgraded, with a huge backlog of planning applications. Thing is, once it gets them sorted and catches up, it will have massively transformed its network and carrier aggregation is going to offer the type of capacity that EE currently enjoys. Three offers great value and in many places now, great speed and reliability, but it is slipping behind in many other places and if it doesn't watch out, it will fall behind Vodafone soon. Not yet, and I can't give a date, but Vodafone has a road map that looks more future proof than Three. |
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