Mobile Broadband - winner of the UK's best Mobile Broadband is 3

[c53204]

Three network beat Vodafone to become the best Mobile Broadband network in the UK.

Strange that I wrote a post a few days ago saying I had done tests with Threee v Vodafone and Three were much better. Forum MODS disagreed with me.

Still disagree with me?

[vfsucks]

i agree with you clive
pity they don't do a survey on customer service

[Retired-George]

Hi CliveS,

Thank you for posting. I hadn't heard of this myself, would you be able to provide a link at all?

I would just like to say that we did win the award for Best Network at the 2010 Mobile Industry Awards and the best rated and fastest mobile broadband at the top 10 broadband awards 2009, further details can be found on our Mobile Network Coverage page. Also, we are always striving to improve our network coverage for both voice and data.

George
eForum Team

[c53204]

Hi CliveS,

Thank you for posting. I hadn't heard of this myself, would you be able to provide a link at all?

I would just like to say that we did win the award for Best Network at the 2010 Mobile Industry Awards and the best rated and fastest mobile broadband at the top 10 broadband awards 2009, further details can be found on our Mobile Network Coverage page. Also, we are always striving to improve our network coverage for both voice and data.

George
eForum Team

three Network win award, runner up Vodafone

Sorry George. Didn't post a link - as it's one of your competitors ;-). But there it is. I understand your awards in 2009 - well done. Seems the 'striving to improve Vodafone data network' has not been such a success then?

Vodafones data speeds were slightly faster than Three, but coverage was worse. Not much use having a fast network if no one can get a signal/coverage - probably the reason it's faster 😉 as only the 'selected' few can get it.

Three's Data performance is even more remarkable, when you think it is co sharing much of it's 3G/HSPDA network now.

[Jack A]

Before I started Mobile Broadband, I did extensive coverage tests in my area ( North East ), and Vodafone appeared the best.
The other coverages varied from iffy to none.
I started Vodafone Mobile Broadband, and haven't been disappointed.
Speed is reasonable and have had no connection problems.

[c53204]

Before I started Mobile Broadband, I did extensive coverage tests in my area ( North East ), and Vodafone appeared the best.
The other coverages varied from iffy to none.
I started Vodafone Mobile Broadband, and haven't been disappointed.
Speed is reasonable and have had no connection problems.

I think Vodafones 3G coverage stops at the English/Scottish border - unless you live in the middle of Glasgow or Edinburgh. Three's data network has certainly improved dramatically over the past 6-12 months. It was after all designed to be a data network.

[SurfSilver]

Ok, as someone else has taken the plunge and identified a competitor by name, I'll say my piece.

Back in around April, I was a few months off the end of my original 24-month contract with Vodafone. I decided to give 3 a try on the strength of their no-questions-asked returns policy and the £15 per month for 15GB per month deal that they were pushing at that time. The point is that with my Vodafone contract still running, I was able to run direct, side-by-side comparisons, with 3 on one of my laptops and Vodafone on the other.

The result? 3 didn't even come close. Most particularly, it was evident that they were bandwidth-throttling on certain types activity at peak times of day. General surfing wasn't affected, but according to HooTech Netmeter which I use, the effective downstream rate for file download activity would drop like a stone from reasonable mobile broadband speeds to 32k at a few seconds after six p.m. and would shoot back up again a few seconds after midnight. I got the same result the following day. I am aware that 3 had publicly stated that they would throttle peaktime rates for things like peer-to-peer, but I was just doing normal stuff like software downloads.

I WILL give credit to 3 that they were as good as their word on the returns policy and there was no charge whatsoever to me for the 2 or 3 gigabytes of traffic I'd generated during testing (I used their dongle for about six days in total, but never for more than three consecutive days, in line with the returns policy).

However on the basis of this test I extended my contract with Vodafone, at a VERY substantial discount to the original £25 pcm, and since then, as it happens, coverage in my usual locality has been enhanced from 3.6Mbps to 7.2Mbps.

So, it's horses for courses, but for where I am and for what I'm doing, Vodafone is the better of the two. I haven't looked at any of the other competitors.

Check out my other posts on here, you'll see that I'm more often than not whinging about something, so you can be sure that I'm not a Vodafone plant.

[SurfSilver]

P.S. to my last (after further thought, and in the interests of fairness and balance) -

I will also say in 3's favour that their capture of usage is very impressive when compared to Vodafone's - as part of the tests I carried out in the Spring, I kept careful watch on my account on 3's website and was very impressed to see that it was updated in near-real-time. There's no doubt but that this makes Vodafone's comparative offering look very poor indeed, however, given the performance issues with 3 which I describe above, it wasn't sufficient to persuade me to switch. Had it not been for the bandwidth throttling, however, the choice would have been a very close-run thing. My delight would know few bounds if Vodafone were to upgrade their metering and billing infrastructure to match 3's capability...and the occasional nag will keep arriving on this Forum for as long as that happy day doesn't arrive.

[pebs564]

Three network beat Vodafone to become the best Mobile Broadband network in the UK.

Strange that I wrote a post a few days ago saying I had done tests with Threee v Vodafone and Three were much better. Forum MODS disagreed with me.

Still disagree with me?

Clive I agree with you too....

Voda's 3G Network is like swiss cheese and i have been with them for 2 years and just now have switched to 3 network and its amazingly good.


Just need to find out how to cancel this contract .. there is know where which states how to cancel the contract without calling the customer services...

any clues ??

Pebbers

[c53204]

Clive I agree with you too....

Voda's 3G Network is like swiss cheese and i have been with them for 2 years and just now have switched to 3 network and its amazingly good.


Just need to find out how to cancel this contract .. there is know where which states how to cancel the contract without calling the customer services...

any clues ??

Pebbers

Pretty sure you have to phone up, or write. I'll certainly be switching for my whole contract to Three when my Vodafone contract runs out. I got a PAYG SIM card free with my Mifi device. Stuck it in an old 3G phone and get better reception than Vodafone.

You just have to look at the online 3G map comparisons - pretty conclusive.