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EE 4G Speed Slower than Three's 3G

Beanoir

Beanoir

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 9, 2010
571
2
51 degrees North
And they're charging extra for it!

This isn't good news for those that bought the iPhone 5 and moved to Orange/EE with the promise of faster speeds etc etc...

Glad I stayed on 3 now ;)
 
Trying to work out where 51 degrees North is... London in line with the M4 coridoor isn't it?

Might be useful if you give us your location and actual speeds, as it's all just going to be location specific. It can even just be down to one busy cell, in the middle of Bath I've seen O2 grind to a halt and Orange/Three getting 8meg down and 2meg up on HSPA.
 
Westyfield2 said:
Trying to work out where 51 degrees North is... London in line with the M4 coridoor isn't it?

Might be useful if you give us your location and actual speeds, as it's all just going to be location specific. It can even just be down to one busy cell, in the middle of Bath I've seen O2 grind to a halt and Orange/Three getting 8meg down and 2meg up on HSPA.
Click to expand...

Sorry, London and Essex (work and home) so yes, in line with M4 but the other side of London.

I get between 8mb being the lowest generally, and upto 19mb is the fastest i've recorded on at least 3 occasions looking at my speedtest app. I'd say on average i'm getting about 12-14mb.

I think its becasue Three use HSPA+ and the iPhone5 takes advanatge of that technology where previous generation iPhones couldn't?
 
Beanoir said:
Sorry, London and Essex (work and home) so yes, in line with M4 but the other side of London.

I get between 8mb being the lowest generally, and upto 19mb is the fastest i've recorded on at least 3 occasions looking at my speedtest app. I'd say on average i'm getting about 12-14mb.

I think its becasue Three use HSPA+ and the iPhone5 takes advanatge of that technology where previous generation iPhones couldn't?
Click to expand...

Almost! Three use DC-HSPA+ - the only iOS devices capable of accessing this are the iPhone 5 and iPad 3+4.
 
On average I get a download speed of about 19mbps on Three, so very happy with that.

Plus £36 for 500mb of data, or as much as £56 for 8GB data on EE? I'll stick with my £15 for unlimited data on Three!

It's a no brainer.
 
cambookpro said:
Do giffgaff use DC-HSPA+? Because I may consider going back to 3 if they're considerably faster.
Click to expand...

Not too sure. I think it depends on the area. I had to switch from Three to O2 recently due to getting no service from Three in places where I REALLY needed service. In areas of good coverage, however, my speeds on Three were double what they are on O2 (I suspect giffgaff would have similar speeds due to using O2 networks). For example, in my parent's house I used to get 14 down on Three whereas now, I get 7 down on O2 in the same location at roughly the same time.

If you're in an area where Three has good coverage, you really cannot fault them. They have excellent prices and a fast 3G network as well as offering unlimited data.
 
Steven. said:
On average I get a download speed of about 19mbps on Three, so very happy with that.

Plus £36 for 500mb of data, or as much as £56 for 8GB data on EE? I'll stick with my £15 for unlimited data on Three!

It's a no brainer.
Click to expand...

Thats £36 for a 24 month SIM ONLY!!!!

If you want 500mb on a 12 month deal its a whooping £46. I think they misunderstand the point of sim only, people dont want to be tied into a lengthy contract. 12 months is at a push but most of us want a 30 day rolling.

For less money I can get the one plan on three, 30 day rolling, unlimited data and enough texts and minutes that it may as well be unlimited. Plus, no slow down when you use a lot of data.

Three have DC-HSPA but only on the M3 corridor, the rest of the UK is HSPA+. Which is still faster than EE's 4G.
 
Mercenary said:
Thats £36 for a 24 month SIM ONLY!!!!

If you want 500mb on a 12 month deal its a whooping £46. I think they misunderstand the point of sim only, people dont want to be tied into a lengthy contract. 12 months is at a push but most of us want a 30 day rolling.

For less money I can get the one plan on three, 30 day rolling, unlimited data and enough texts and minutes that it may as well be unlimited. Plus, no slow down when you use a lot of data.

Three have DC-HSPA but only on the M3 corridor, the rest of the UK is HSPA+. Which is still faster than EE's 4G.
Click to expand...

Wrong, those are for plans with phone. The sim free plans are £15 pcm less, 12 month contract, but you can't order them til nov 9. So, sim free 500mb will be £21 a month for 12 months, 1gb £26 etc. Still not cheap mind.
 
SO what is EE/Orange's big selling point on 4G then, I just don't get it, they only offer 4G in 11 cities and even where they do it's not even as fast as other competitors 3G!?

Surely it's a no-brainer!?
 
Beanoir said:
SO what is EE/Orange's big selling point on 4G then, I just don't get it, they only offer 4G in 11 cities and even where they do it's not even as fast as other competitors 3G!?

Surely it's a no-brainer!?
Click to expand...

whats your upload on LTE?
typical the upload on LTE cant be matched by hspa+/DC-HSPA+

I wonder why people in europe report such slow LTE. Here I get 50 mbps almost always. and 25mbps upload. When The services is new.. you should be getting even higher speeds since there is less users/more bandwidth.

maybe they just didnt expect that many people to join LTE so quick?
 
BFizzzle said:
whats your upload on LTE?
typical the upload on LTE cant be matched by hspa+/DC-HSPA+

I wonder why people in europe report such slow LTE. Here I get 50 mbps almost always. and 25mbps upload. When The services is new.. you should be getting even higher speeds since there is less users/more bandwidth.

maybe they just didnt expect that many people to join LTE so quick?
Click to expand...

Our speeds in the UK are nowhere near what people are getting in the US or indeed in a lot of Europe, and that also goes for demestic broadband services too, we are way behind in that respect.

Upload i'm getting around 3-4mb which if i'm honest is fine because I don't really upload much and certainly not big files from a smartphone. Having said that, it's still better than my home broadband which is less than 2mb!!
 
Beanoir said:
Our speeds in the UK are nowhere near what people are getting in the US or indeed in a lot of Europe, and that also goes for demestic broadband services too, we are way behind in that respect.

Upload i'm getting around 3-4mb which if i'm honest is fine because I don't really upload much and certainly not big files from a smartphone. Having said that, it's still better than my home broadband which is less than 2mb!!
Click to expand...

you know us Americans... always in a hurry for some reason.... ;)

you're right 3/4 is more than enough..especially for mobile.
just crazy.. growing up I remember in the UK and most of Europe they did away with using dialup and old copper lines. Because it was much more efficient to use highspeed internet (back when 600kbps-1.0 mbps was highspeed)... and we were mostly all on Dial up over here lol Its changed a lot in the last 20 years
 
I think the EE quoted speeds have to be very very conservative. I am getting 18Mbps download and 1.91Mbps upload on EE 3G on my iphone 5 in Surrey right now.
 
Beanoir said:
Thats a first! I'd be interested to see some actual download speeds for 4G
Click to expand...

You won't see the true speed of LTE on your iP5.

When iPad 4 arrives in the UK, you should see 40+ down and 30+ up easily. If EE have enough bandwidth.
 
dchao said:
You won't see the true speed of LTE on your iP5.

When iPad 4 arrives in the UK, you should see 40+ down and 30+ up easily. If EE have enough bandwidth.
Click to expand...

What makes the iPad 4 better then the iPhone 5 in this respect. Do you have a link to actual evidence.
 
Beanoir said:
EE 4G Speed Slower than Three's 3G

And they're charging extra for it!

This isn't good news for those that bought the iPhone 5 and moved to Orange/EE with the promise of faster speeds etc etc...

Glad I stayed on 3 now ;)
Click to expand...

???:confused:

8140015900_fd087ab9cb_b.jpg
 
Beanoir said:
How about about on your iPhone?
Click to expand...

Why? That is an EE 4G speed test on a 4G phone. You stated that EE 4G is slower than 3, my screenshot shows your assertion to be incorrect. EE speeds on 4G are double the best speeds on 3UK.

I wouldn't use EE 4G in my personal phone, not because of the speeds, which are pretty fast, their crap expensive plans and stupid data caps are more of a problem, not their speeds.
 
Last edited:
Some staff at EE (T-Mobile in particular) seemed to imply that they would be capping the speed at 12mbps, rather than just saying that was the typical maximum speed.

I think this has lead people to think the speed is lower than the 3G networks can provide now.

Both T-Mobile and Orange extensively cap speeds on their 3G networks, so it looked like that would continue.
 
d123 said:
Why? That is an EE 4G speed test on a company phone. You stated that EE 4G is slower than 3, my screenshot shows your assertion to be incorrect. EE speeds on 4G are double the best speeds on 3UK.

I wouldn't use EE 4G in my personal phone, not because of the speeds, which are pretty fast, their crap expensive plans and stupid data caps are more of a problem, not their speeds.
Click to expand...

Well I have to say, i've seen a few people testing it out in London today, and not one person managed over 20mbits. I'm not debating your evidence, i'm just saying, i'm basing my reports on that, and what the BBC tested in a real world interview today in Manchester.

If it was 40mbits and it covered more than 5% of the UK and it wasn't ridiculously priced, then yes i'd probably have a slice of the 4G action, but it's not worth it as it currently stands.
 
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