EE 4G PAYG Mobile Broadband

A month or so behind after wishing it for so long but now it seems we can get it. I have an Ipad mini and used 4G once and it was shockingly bad but I hear it's improved

Does anyone use the PAYG option? I would maybe try the 2GB option at £15 just to see if it has improved and then maybe jump onto a 30 day contract which seems better value.

Last time they let me out of the contract but I wouldn't mind PAYG and then I am not messing anyone around if I pack it in.

ta

I found 4G to be pretty decent with EE but ultimately I missed my unlimited T-mobile data and switched back.

With EE on the outskirts of cities I can pull quite easily a good 30Mbps. The highest I got was 54Mbps. In the centre of cities it's much less. On Oxford Street, it was literally packed I was getting around 4Mbps, outside Selfridges I was getting 3Mbps. On 3G I could only get around 0.7Mbps in these areas...

On Vodafone 3G I was getting 2133ms ping and 0.1Mbps so EE was outperforming that by far on 3G and 4G.

In Westfield, where my 3G would not work at all (the network was that busy) & on 3G I couldn't even send a Whatsapp, 4G here gave me 7Mbps. So clearly 4G has it's advantages but in the city centre, yes it might be 5 times faster (as advertised) but 5 times faster than 0.7Mbps is only 3.5Mbps so it was still nothing to shout home about. On the whole it drained my battery faster and I was rapidly going through my 2Gb allowance.

I used to manage on 1Gb data a couple of years ago but I ate up 1.1Gb in under a week so it was a no brainer to head back to unlimited T-mobile.

The upload on the 4G was always over 10Mbps in all locations.

I would say if the 3G connections doing what you need, stick with it.

Thanks,

it was but I decided that I didn't want to be using Google after reading how they activate people's gps and track them (which is now built into 4.3) and also because of their reading of e-mails etc and I sold my Nexus 4 on Ebay

I now have a Nokia c2 which is only a basic £20 3G phone on 3 but needless to say it can't mange jack for internet. Ive traded my all you can eat to 500MB thus slashing my monthly cost in half and also shed some other unneeded monthly bills.

For home I have Sky 8mbps which is enough for all I do at home (that's free) and I can also use sky wifi when I am out but I travel alot and thought that to be honest for no contract and for 90day validity £30 was okay for 6GB

When I had my 30 day contract before I never got above 8mbps but the upload was always 21mbps plus. I was told they didn't uncap new customers for 6 months but now on PAYG they have no excuse and I have no reason not to try them again.

At that time EE didn't have a Ipad tethering spot either but I assume they have now as they advertise tethering as part of the plan.

I also like the look on the EE film store - it's £3 for a film and until Xmas they don't charge to download it. I've tested it and I can download and Airplay so that's cheaper (and better) than Itunes etc.

It's really for when I am out and about that I want the speed. I had a T-mobile 3G £19 for 12 months sim but that's just run out yesterday and I often send videos to family when I am out and the raw upload would do it better than any of my current service offerings.

I think i'll give it a go - It's PAYG afterall. And even if I bought 12GB for £60 it's still £12 cheaper than 3 offer 12GB for.

Goes without saying as soon as 3 bring out 4G I'm upgraded and there again for everything

Edited by pcoventry76 (Mon 26-Aug-13 01:20:52)

Give it a go, sounds like you've carefully considered it.

I have personally had bad experiences with 3 and I wouldn't go back unless it was the only network offering a good deal (even then I'd probably just get ripped off and go elsewhere). I need a phone that works, a phone that can stay connected to calls as I drive and ride on trains, I cannot have it losing reception mid call, sadly 3 didn't fulfil that criteria. Good 3G coverage but it to often goes to No Service and having no 2G fallback is absolute pants. I was always being cut off mid way through important calls, constantly having to ring people back - only for the phone to cut me off again 2 minutes later when it lost service yet again.

It often said 'call failed' even though it claimed I had reception too. It also often made a really weird noise when I tried to make calls with low reception. It sounded like crazy interference. It just annoyed me.

It's extremely rare for me to get cut off with T-mobile and even rarer on o2 (in fact almost never). Although o2 is often 2G signal whereas T-mobiles virtually always 3G (so I personally prefer my T-mobile handset).

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 26-Aug-13 01:32:27)

I agree it's all good on the EE camp

I am going to give it a go and if it works out possibly get a EE handset. I think I have downloaded enough data on my ex virgin 120MB to last me a lifetime - once you'd downloaded the internet - it gets kinda boring ( and at 4TB a month I sure have.

time to go back to the slow lane 50%

Got one today although the woman in the shop was useless. Said they didn't sell them in store then said they were out of stock so I asked her colleague to check and he came out with a box of them.

Will test it and let anyone interested know.

My mate said to me that it's a rip off compared to 3. is it? 3 do 3GB for £15 30 days and this is £30 for 6GB 90 days.

Not a rip off. Everybody assumes 3 is the cheapest and that EE is much more expensive. Truth is often networks are all about the same if you shop around properly.

For pure unlimited data they are if your on a mobile phone contract. Not always the case for mobile broadband on contract or PAYG

Of course can always switch to 3G if I want to.

Not an amazing start. And not typical of any other PAYG card i've bought before.

Took a fair while to get any signal - then another few mins to switch to LTE and now I am waiting for the registration page to load before I can actually use it. Granted if this was just 3G 3's pop it in and away you go system is much easier and the only other thing about 3 MBB is that sims are about £11 on ebay for 3GB and you can just chuck them away after.

Had to register on website and then put activation URL into Ipad to get to the activate button. Ball ache!

As for speed.. I had this with my contract sim I had.. I got it everywhere I went so no point taking it to a double speed city. Ill see what happens over the next week or so but I'm glad this is PAYG!

Upload is decent but download - kinda blown away by 3 in my case.

http://prntscr.com/1niatl

Certainly an eye opener when 3G beats 4G on a speedtest.

http://prntscr.com/1nibxj

Edited by pcoventry76 (Mon 26-Aug-13 14:09:29)

Happens a lot, there's often only one LTE mast covering a large area whereas there can be multiple 3G masts around. So the LTE mast can end up slower. Also in a lot of places the masts do not have a fibre link direct to them just yet (so the signals go mast to mast which slows things down). Overtime there will be more masts that are LTE enabled and there will be more direct fibre links. Also LTE attracts the heavier users. As I said on Oxford Street in London I was barely seeing 3Mbps via LTE.

On other networks such as Vodafone and o2, as they are currently largely 2G networks, LTE will be a god send as it should get LTE to where their 2G currently reaches. So people will go from 2G in some areas to LTE.

Comparing it to 3 is a tough one, largely because 3 doesn't have the customer base using all the bandwidth. If 3 had the Orange T-mobile and EE customer base it would perform worse.

LTE isn't as amazing as everyone made it out.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 26-Aug-13 14:34:24)

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Happens a lot, there's often only one LTE mast covering a large area whereas there can be multiple 3G masts around. So the LTE mast can end up slower. Also in a lot of places the masts do not have a fibre link direct to them just yet (so the signals go mast to mast which slows things down). Overtime there will be more masts that are LTE enabled and there will be more direct fibre links. Also LTE attracts the heavier users. As I said on Oxford Street in London I was barely seeing 3Mbps via LTE.

On other networks such as Vodafone and o2, as they are currently largely 2G networks, LTE will be a god send as it should get LTE to where their 2G currently reaches. So people will go from 2G in some areas to LTE.

Comparing it to 3 is a tough one, largely because 3 doesn't have the customer base using all the bandwidth. If 3 had the Orange T-mobile and EE customer base it would perform worse.

LTE isn't as amazing as everyone made it out.

Indeed - oh well at least it's PAYG so if it's like this at the end ill be binning the SIM