I am considering relying on giffgaff for emergency internet use (after I hit O2 throttle point) but with giffgaff there is no offline ordering system.

So it looks like my scenario will be go online with O2, order giffgaff gigabag, and then immediatly turn the O2 off and start using the giffgaff bandwidth but its still pretty pricy that way but I guess have to do for emergencies.

It looks like we are pretty backwards in the uk with mobile internet, the usage tiers I see from everyone except 3 are extremely restrictive and its as if they stuck in a timewarp and they think 1 gig is a huge amount of usage in 2013 (giffgaff 20p per meg payg prices £10 to watch 10min 480p youtube video). This has probably led to everyone going to 3 like a magnet and hence the congestioh. Giffgaff on their unlimited goodybags apparently have some kind of automated tethering detector which then bars you, I could try to evade it, using specific apps may or may not work no idea.

My phone isnt an LTE phone and buying a new phone is out of the question.

Edited by Chrysalis (Sat 23-Nov-13 18:30:47)

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

I am considering relying on giffgaff for emergency internet use (after I hit O2 throttle point) but with giffgaff there is no offline ordering system.

So it looks like my scenario will be go online with O2, order giffgaff gigabag, and then immediatly turn the O2 off and start using the giffgaff bandwidth but its still pretty pricy that way but I guess have to do for emergencies.

Bizarre. On EE and Three SIM only mobile broadband plans you can top up using the connection - bsasically they let you access their own website but nothing else until you've paid.

It looks like we are pretty backwards in the uk with mobile internet, the usage tiers I see from everyone except 3 are extremely restrictive and its as if they stuck in a timewarp and they think 1 gig is a huge amount of usage in 2013 (giffgaff 20p per meg payg prices £10 to watch 10min 480p youtube video). This has probably led to everyone going to 3 like a magnet and hence the congestioh. Giffgaff on their unlimited goodybags apparently have some kind of automated tethering detector which then bars you, I could try to evade it, using specific apps may or may not work no idea.

EE will sell you 8GB on a SIM only mobile broadband plan for use in a MiFi or tablet for £26/month on a rolling contract, or on PAYG you can buy 24GB for £120. Three used to offer 15GB but now only seem to offer 12GB on their PAYG and rolling contract plans.

O2 and Vodafone don't have the network capacity (until they roll out 4G) except in limited areas. Here in Farnborough town centre on a weekday lunchtime my friend with an S4 can get 4megabit downloads, on my work Vodafone on an iPhone 5 I can get 6meg, and on EE/T-Mobile 3G I was able to get 11meg - and on 4G EE I can get 25megabit. Outside the town centre both Voda and O2 are on GPRS or EDGE and even Apple iMessage doesn't work reliably. O2 generally is better around here, their 2G actually transfers data, but Voda 2G stops iMessage and even notifications working, including one person still on Blackberry. Voda 2G data here is broken.

Nobody is yet selling mobile broadband to replace fixed broadband. They're selling mobile broadband for those who travel (e.g. corporate road warriors stuck in [censored] hotels) and those who want to use tablets away from WiFi.

EE might sell from next year a suitable 4G /LTE based home broadband solution, using the Cat6 carrier aggregation using 2600mhz and 1800mhz ganged together. This should offer over 300megabit of possible throughput, and with an external antenna on a home, pretty seriously good coverage. I would expect to see usage limits around 400GB a month or so.

My phone isnt an LTE phone and buying a new phone is out of the question.

I bought an LTE MiFi in Sept from eBay as it handles lots of mobile protocols including all the UK/EU LTE freqencies. Sadly it doesn't do the USA frequencies - and the MiFi concept is stating to die due to too much WiFi saturation in hotels and other semi-public areas. So I'm going for an EE PAYG sim in my new iPad when it arrives.

Edited by jchamier (Sat 23-Nov-13 20:17:07)

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Just got back, so driven around in a car, the speeds only became useful basically outside the city and also outside the outlying suburbs, had to be halfway to loughborough before speeds got in the mbit range.

Do you do twitter? If so you could tweet the 3 UK team about the speed issues. There could be a fault. (or its the virgin media syndrome that Leicester was famous for back in 2002 on the NTL newsgroups. Too many students downloading the internet).

I used T-mobile on an unlimited plan, restricted to 4Mbps but I could easily watch Netflix for hours on end via it. I often used around 5Gb a month, some months higher, some months barely anything. This was taken out around April 2013 and I upgraded to 4G around August (so lost unlimited). Worth a shot.

It's important to note that backhaul may be shared but more often than not it's not that simple. It's usually that 3 have a transmitter on the same pole as T-mobile do. The cable to the fibre backhaul may be the same but the backhaul rented can be extraordinarily different.

Usually the T-mobile site is a fair bit higher up on that transmit pole, usually having 2, 3 or 4 cells (all pointing in different directions) and usually the transmit power from the T-mobile site is significantly higher than the 3 one.

3 are usually low down on the pole, with only 1 transmitter, renting less backhaul (less customers) with the only thing really shared being the pole and even then it's not like for like.

Then EE also kept plenty of Orange sites (as these are often much higher than T-mobile sites were) and have much better range (often being 30 - 40m high). These sites very often do not feature 3 what-so-ever and are unlikely to even when EE upgrade the orange equipment. The Orange signal is nearly always better than T-mobile in hard to reach areas and this is entirely different too (although in time it'll essentially become a T-mobile site).

Then there's a fair few T-mobile sites where 3 chose not to be as the sites not placed ideal for them.
So all in all the EE network becomes worlds apart from the 3 network despite the agreement between T-mobile and 3 for mast sharing.

I cant see them jumping to 400 gig month (for a reasonable price) even if they were capable it seems that they find it more profitable to sell each gig of data at a premium.

Regarding leicester and students yes its entirely possible, or just the area been bad in general. Although I have found stories on the net about 3 been bad in cities.

Regarding giffgaff and topping up without credit, maybe it is possible I just assumed it isnt but I dont like using web browsers on phones.

I will check into it, also since BT is my landline isp I need to check into the apparent free wifi I have, maybe that will work fine.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

It's important to note that backhaul may be shared but more often than not it's not that simple. It's usually that 3 have a transmitter on the same pole as T-mobile do. The cable to the fibre backhaul may be the same but the backhaul rented can be extraordinarily different.

I thought it was one landline-telco providing a physical connection, but then two logical connections for each mobile telco (ie, EE might have 1Gbps, and Three might have 2x100megabit/sec) to their respective core sites.

Usually the T-mobile site is a fair bit higher up on that transmit pole, usually having 2, 3 or 4 cells (all pointing in different directions) and usually the transmit power from the T-mobile site is significantly higher than the 3 one.

That is interesting, I've seen different effects on two devices side by side.

3 are usually low down on the pole, with only 1 transmitter, renting less backhaul (less customers) with the only thing really shared being the pole and even then it's not like for like.

If they're only sharing the pole its not a RAN share, and MBNL was set up as a RAN share, unlike Cornerstone between VF and O2.

Then EE also kept plenty of Orange sites (as these are often much higher than T-mobile sites were) and have much better range (often being 30 - 40m high). These sites very often do not feature 3 what-so-ever and are unlikely to even when EE upgrade the orange equipment. The Orange signal is nearly always better than T-mobile in hard to reach areas and this is entirely different too (although in time it'll essentially become a T-mobile site).

Around here its the Orange sites that are being killed, coverage in 3G only areas is back to what it was like with T-only before Orange was added. Granted most of those sites were pretty shockingly slow for 3G (2meg or so) but it was better than GPRS :-/

Then there's a fair few T-mobile sites where 3 chose not to be as the sites not placed ideal for them.
So all in all the EE network becomes worlds apart from the 3 network despite the agreement between T-mobile and 3 for mast sharing.

Yes, I gathered that 3 isn't everywhere that T is.

I assume it will be another 12 months minimum before the dust starts to even settle on a lot of the changes.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

I cant see them jumping to 400 gig month (for a reasonable price) even if they were capable it seems that they find it more profitable to sell each gig of data at a premium.

You're thinking of them as a mobile telephone provider - if you think of them as an IP connection supplier, with sufficient capacity, why can't they compete with BT Infinity and suchlike?

Regarding leicester and students yes its entirely possible, or just the area been bad in general. Although I have found stories on the net about 3 been bad in cities.

Its been forever blamed for the poor cable performance, and some bad decision making by the first cable company that was there (can't recall the name).

Regarding giffgaff and topping up without credit, maybe it is possible I just assumed it isnt but I dont like using web browsers on phones.

They might have an app, but I mostly used the web browser to visit sites such as ipchicken.com

I cant remember the first ever cable company now either, but it was NTL prior to VM. Leics was one of the first parts of the country cabled up, it happened whilst I was in secondary school which was about 22 years ago now. I would hazard a guess the earlier rollouts were the worser ones as back then broadband wouldnt have been on the radar.

Whilst students may have pushed up the utilisation figures I suspect they were somewhat a scapegoat to cover up bad infrastructure. eg. July still had dodgy performance and no students at that time of year.

Edited by Chrysalis (Sat 23-Nov-13 23:45:34)