Internet Speeds on Mobile Phones (Rate yours out of 10)

[LOLMAN]

I went tried to get somewhere on time today, my mobile phone (n95) satnav didn't direct us exactly to where I wanted. I took my dads iphone (pay as you go) to use the internet, the internet didn't even load a page in 10 mins (so its kind of <rubbish> this mobile broadband thats being sold).

So I am looking to get a different SIM for my dad and I am looking to get a smartphone with google maps with the cheapest contract going.

I would rate Orange's mobile internet for mobile phones on par with the BSOD you get with windows xp.

What I would like is, if there is any of you peeps out there that use mobile phones with internet, please give a rating out of 10 on its performance.

1 - BSOD quality.

5 - Just about useable (maybe can load a few websites but struggles with more) but not for heavy users.

10 - Really fast, just as fast as my internet broadband at home.

[jackvdbuk]

depends on location, most times mine is pretty fast others... it stinks!

orange htc desire

[jimbouk]

X10 mini pro on t-mobile. When in 3G it's only appears slightly slower than wifi at home. When I'm on gprs I wish more website had a decent mobile page! Painful at times, but it gets there.

[Funkstar]

It's hard to say, because despite having a Desire I very rarely use the browser. I have to admit, I'm not really a fan of using a small screen like that when I have a netbook I can use. When I do though I would give it a 6. It might have been higher if T-Mobile coverage, where I would use it for web, wasn't pretty poor (my parents house for examply, but it seems to be in a bit of a radio blackspot as no network is good there, DAB and FM also break up in their drive and on the road outside).

[Infinite]

HTC HD2 T-Mobile. 10.

Internet speed is awesome.

However in my experience, there are 2 things that make Internet seem slow on a phone.

1. At the beginning I thought that it was the slow internet that caused pages to low slowly, but after tethering internet off the phone on to my laptop (shushhh :3) it turns out that that main culprit of slow loading is actually the phone not having the raw power of rendering the pages fast enough. My laptop loaded pages almost as fast as a proper broadband connection when tethered.

2. The second factor is the latency. After a quick test of WoW (yes, tethering internet off my phone to play wow ) it reports my latency being around 700-800ms. Hence why there is lagg when you click on links and visit new pages and stuff.

For general coverage I'd say that T Mobile are really good. The only places where I cant get a stable 3G connection is the countryside. XD

[LOLMAN]

So far it looks like

T-Mobile
Orange
3
Vodafone
02

I remember when I took out a contract with O2 for an iphone before I returned it, that was pretty quick. However I returned it and it was on contract, perhaps contract and pay as you go internet is controlled?

[danroyle]

sony ericsson Xperia X10i T-mobile 10

Wonderfully fast never had any issues with mine it works well all the time.

[Ferral]

Mobile internet is a funny thing to gauge

Way it works is, you have your masts which have a capacity for its users, say for example the mast you are connected to has a cap of 500 users. Once that 500 is there and using it anyone else that connects interferes with everyone elses connection.

So say an additional 50 people connect to the same mast, what then happens is speed lowers on the initial 500 and it gets shared with the additional users so everyone gets the same speed. More people that connects to that same mast over the desired capacity the slower it will get.

Then of course you have to look at the network shares. T Mobile for example does a network infrastructure share with Virgin (Virgin get their airtime from T Mobile). So Virgin customers connected to that same mast will also slow things down if they are using the date.

Finally you need to look at 3G coverage from the different locations that you frequent from the different operators, further you get away from the operators masts the slower it will get.

You can change your network connection from automatic to manual and the device will actively look for better and faster connections

[peterb]

As Ferral says. I use a Vodafone USB dongle for mobile broadband. Works really well generally, but I was in central London this week and it was as slow as a slow thing for about 6 hours from 2pm - then picked up again. It could have been a network problem, but I suspect just volume of users.

But given a good 3G connection, it is pretty impressive.

[oolon]

Way it works is, you have your masts which have a capacity for its users, say for example the mast you are connected to has a cap of 500 users. Once that 500 is there and using it anyone else that connects interferes with everyone elses connection.

Thats not the way UMTS (G3) works, when the user limit is reach the base station reduces power so makes it harder for users at the edge of the cell to connect if it does not have enough users it powers up to suck in more users. UMTS works very well if there are enough overlapping cells. However when you are at the edge of coverage you can find the only cell available to you keeps on disappearing. This is of course made more complex by antenta some cells have omni directional and other have segments in different directions. Each Segment can have different power levels.

GSM is different it is far more like a normal telephone line, with a main band with a set number of lines and a ramp where everyone shouts to try to get connected. This causes some interesting effects, you can all a mobile have it ring then not be connected when the other end tries to answer as it cannot get a line on the main bandwidth. Text messages use the ramp, which is why they work when you can't make a call as they work at the lower level (and the reason for the length limit), text messages were created by the engineers to call engineers so they did not have to pay the incombent phone operator for pager messages. The marketing got hold of it and the rest was history.

[Funkstar]

Good explanation on 3G there oolon, I can now understand why I sometimes get a signal in certain places and don't at other times.

I knew about the twin connections for regular GSM.