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Orange UK and using T-Mobile data

B

bluebirds

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 12, 2011
55
1
Download the speed test app yesterday and returned speeds of 0.46Mbps on Orange 3G.

Went into Settings and changed the network to Orange-T-Mobile and it connected with 3G. Ran the speed test again and returned a speed of 7.55Mbps.

Done several tests today at different places and Orange-T-Mobile is returning speeds of more than ten times that of just Orange.

This only works when you manually select the network. If you choose automatic it puts me back to Orange and slow speeds.

It seems that the network sharing in now for data and not just voice calls and texts.

Shame it doesn't automatically switch you.
 
The automatic sharing is only GPRS atm unfortunately, but apparently they're still working on sharing the 3G between T-Mobile and Orange automatically. Apparently they switched the 3G sharing on last week only by region though. So should be coming everywhere soon.
 
Last edited:
adztaylor said:
The sharing is only GPRS atm unfortunately, but apparently they're still working on sharing the 3G between T-Mobile and Orange automatically. So it will come eventually. They haven't set a time yet though.
Click to expand...

I am currently using T-Mobile data connecting on 3G using my Orange sim card. So it is more than just GPRS.

Like I said I had to manually select it in network settings.
 
bluebirds said:
I am currently using T-Mobile data connecting on 3G using my Orange sim card. So it is more than just GPRS.

Like I said I had to manually select it in network settings.
Click to expand...

No, it does switch signal automatically but that is only GPRS at the moment. If you switch manually like you're doing then you can make it 3G. Pretty soon though it will switch between 3G signal automatically.
 
adztaylor said:
No, it does switch signal automatically but that is only GPRS at the moment. If you switch manually like you're doing then you can make it 3G. Pretty soon though it will switch between 3G signal automatically.
Click to expand...

Your a little out of date. They announced last week they would start sharing 3G this week.
 
7.55Mbps?! On T-Mobile?!! What the ****, where abouts are you? I've never had over 0.3Mbps on this useless network, and I've been from the middle of England to Scotland!

EDIT: OK for the first time ever I've got a better speed - 0.93Mbps! Whatever they're rolling out, it looks good. To think I just payed them £15 to unlock my phone the other day, too...
 
reclusive46 said:
Your a little out of date. They announced last week they would start sharing 3G this week.
Click to expand...

By region I heard. I'm still only getting GPRS (shared singal) in my area at the moment. I did mention it got switched on in my first post in this thread. But you seemed to has missed that one.
 
Last edited:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Are tmob and orange using separate or the same infrastructure? My speeds when connected to tmobile have increased at least 3fold, but when I connect to Tmobile orange I only get GPRS.
 
Dangerous Theory said:
7.55Mbps?! On T-Mobile?!! What the ****, where abouts are you? I've never had over 0.3Mbps on this useless network, and I've been from the middle of England to Scotland!

EDIT: OK for the first time ever I've got a better speed - 0.93Mbps! Whatever they're rolling out, it looks good. To think I just payed them £15 to unlock my phone the other day, too...
Click to expand...

Just outside of Cardiff. I nearlly fell over when I tested it :D

Did another test this morning and got 7.43Mbps. Then came to work about 25miles from home and got 6.17Mbps
 
bluebirds said:
Just outside of Cardiff. I nearlly fell over when I tested it :D

Did another test this morning and got 7.43Mbps. Then came to work about 25miles from home and got 6.17Mbps
Click to expand...

That's unreal. Never heard of such speeds from any carrier other than Three before. I don't know why my native Tmobile speeds have increased though. Have tmobile updated 3G network infrastructure in the past few days or are they actually using Orange's in places (for their own network, not the shared Orange one)?
 
Guys when I uncheck Automatic,
I see
O2
voda
3
T-Mobile
Orange

but no Orange-T-mobile ??

is this correct ?

My phone does swap between orange and t-mobile, but never orange-t-mobile ?
 
This is interesting I am about to leave Vodafone and was going to go back to o2 but if 3G data sharing has started then I might check this out. Is there any advantage to which one you go with or does it just come down to price plan?
 
my iPhone 4 was only getting 0.65Mbps on speedtest's app but in the same place, my new iPhone 4S is getting 3.41Mbps. same sim card, on orange.

----------
scoobdriver said:
Guys when I uncheck Automatic,
I see
O2
voda
3
T-Mobile
Orange

but no Orange-T-mobile ??

is this correct ?

My phone does swap between orange and t-mobile, but never orange-t-mobile ?
Click to expand...

mine goes between orange and onrange-TMbbile.
 
Dangerous Theory said:
Are tmob and orange using separate or the same infrastructure? My speeds when connected to tmobile have increased at least 3fold, but when I connect to Tmobile orange I only get GPRS.
Click to expand...

At the moment it's separate infrastructure and you are roaming onto T-Mobile's network.


Dangerous Theory said:
That's unreal. Never heard of such speeds from any carrier other than Three before. I don't know why my native Tmobile speeds have increased though. Have tmobile updated 3G network infrastructure in the past few days or are they actually using Orange's in places (for their own network, not the shared Orange one)?
Click to expand...

That's because 3 and T-Mobile share the same radio network, so you should get the same coverage and speeds from both networks. When Orange and T-Mobile finally merge fully, all three should run at the same speeds (assuming there are no bottlenecks in the back haul)
 
fat jez said:
At the moment it's separate infrastructure and you are roaming onto T-Mobile's network.
Click to expand...
I think you misunderstood. I'm with Tmobile, not Orange, this is why I don't know why my speeds dramatically increased.

fat jez said:
That's because 3 and T-Mobile share the same radio network, so you should get the same coverage and speeds from both networks. When Orange and T-Mobile finally merge fully, all three should run at the same speeds (assuming there are no bottlenecks in the back haul)
Click to expand...

Three and t mobile's agreement ended with the EE merger proposition AFAIK. I'm getting 0.93 Mbps on Tmobile, and Avg of 3mbps on Three (with a maximum of 5.9). I also tend to get more bars on Three. They can't be sharing radios.
 
scoobdriver said:
Guys when I uncheck Automatic,
I see
O2
voda
3
T-Mobile
Orange

but no Orange-T-mobile ??

is this correct ?

My phone does swap between orange and t-mobile, but never orange-t-mobile ?
Click to expand...

Choose T-Mobile and see if it connects by 3G or GPRS

----------
Dangerous Theory said:
That's unreal. Never heard of such speeds from any carrier other than Three before. I don't know why my native Tmobile speeds have increased though. Have tmobile updated 3G network infrastructure in the past few days or are they actually using Orange's in places (for their own network, not the shared Orange one)?
Click to expand...

Me neither. I have a PAYG micro sim at home from 3 to test their speeds as my Orange contract is up in December and just wanted to check the speed I could get from 3.

Just checked to wives speed as she is with T-Mobile and getting a fraction more than me.

Don't know how or why this is happening but been on Orange-T-Mobile since yesterday and everything is very quick internet wise.

Everything is instant. Youtube, internet, videos on webpages and apps. Never seen speeds like it in the years I have been with Orange.
 
Dangerous Theory said:
I think you misunderstood. I'm with Tmobile, not Orange, this is why I don't know why my speeds dramatically increased.



Three and t mobile's agreement ended with the EE merger proposition AFAIK. I'm getting 0.93 Mbps on Tmobile, and Avg of 3mbps on Three (with a maximum of 5.9). I also tend to get more bars on Three. They can't be sharing radios.
Click to expand...

OK, in that case you are roaming onto Orange's network and they have not enabled 3G roaming for your area yet.

And for your info, the agreement did not end with EE taking ownership of Orange & T-Mobile, instead Orange joined the MBNL agreement.
 
fat jez said:
OK, in that case you are roaming onto Orange's network and they have not enabled 3G roaming for your area yet.

And for your info, the agreement did not end with EE taking ownership of Orange & T-Mobile, instead Orange joined the MBNL agreement.
Click to expand...

Again, I think you miss what I'm getting at. I am not roaming on the Orange network - I have specifically selected my iPhone to only join my native carrier, Tmobile (because Orange roaming only gives me GPRS). A few days ago and since I've been with TM last October, my max download was 0.3Mb, and upload 0.05Mb. After checking today, it is now 0.9 & 0.5. I am purely wondering why the speed change: either Tmobile have uncapped a limit, expanded their infrastructure, or have actually started using Orange's radio network to transmit "T-Mobile" 3G, NOT "T-Mobile Orange".

As far as the agreement thing goes, you may well be right as I've not kept up to speed, but Three speeds are definitely faster than Tmob's for me.
 
In that case it could be a network fault that has been fixed or a site that has been upgraded, whether on the radio side which may have been recently upgraded to have increased capacity or to HSDPA (unlikely, you'd notice more of a jump) or on the back haul to the core network, which could have been bottlenecking. I know they recently signed a deal to increase the capacity of the back haul network, so it's possible this is now being rolled out.
 
Just a little update on this, as well as the "South West" that is already covered, the 3G share will start expanding into Scotland FROM tomorrow.
 
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