Thetownend.com

Some good news for the town.

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/11213326.Business_boost_as_4G_comes_to_town/?ref=var_0

Well only if you're a Vodafone customer. Are any of the other networks 4g ready yet in Swindon? Three told me last October then it was end of March now it's end of May. Be interesting to see if many people switch networks.

Only if you're a Voda customer prepared to pay through the nose for being able to stream video when you're walking down the street, if it's that important to you. And if the experience with Orange is anything to go by, if you're a Voda customer on normal 3G, watch the network performance go down the toilet.

The performance of Orange 3G isnt directly related to the EE 4G being introduced. As part of the merger between Orange & TMobile, they have been undertaking a massive site consolidation project on both 2G & 3G, getting rid of loads of duplicate sites etc. If your 3G performance has dropped, its more likely due to that, ie your closest site may have been de-commissioned or maybe there are more people trying to access the same site now.
People who have used 4G on EE have been very impressed with the speed, but as you say, for most people, its more a gimick at the moment (unless you are using it to replace or improve on home broadband). One friend of mine, only actually uses 4G to check data speeds over 4G and show off to his mates !

I get 4g on O2 in a fair few places around town. It's quite fast whenever I use it.

Our 4G network is very good actually. Fastest of them all

Then you are bloody lucky. Voda's 3g coverage is patchier than a patchwork quilt that's been patched up to repair the patches.

Good news indeed, I'm due a new phone on the 1st!

Yep it's got worse.

Ollie - Can I change my plan to a 4G package without resetting my contract? Just don't want to scupper the upgrade date further down the line..

EE has the fastest. Vodaphone and O2 aren't far behind though.

Don't listen to your masters, they are lying to you...

Have now been told that Three 4G in Swindon not available until late 2014 and that Three and EE have an agreement in place blah blah blah. Was also reminded that 3G from Three is the fastest 3G out of all the networks so consider it 3.5G or H+ as he called it. Think I was fobbed off ;-)

To be fair Three's 3G is pretty good. Do you even need LTE now? Aren't three offering LTE without change of contract (when it arrives)?

I live out in the sticks and get about 50 meg download on 4G. My broadband peaks at 11.

We can't even get 3G in deepest darkest Somerset :(

The wonders of a lightly loaded cell :)

Good example though. But aren't 4G costs a bit prohibitive of using it to replace your home broadband?

I'll take your word for it - all I know is that around the time they started spamming me to upgrade to 4G, my mobile data access went downhill, at home, at work and all places in between so it's not just one area, it's everywhere (or everywhere I use it). Although since Christmas, they have at least brought the phone signal in line with the poor data access as the phone signal is now pretty poor as well. Was thinking about going back to Voda, maybe not in light of Batch's comments. Looks  like I'll be joining the missus and the eldest on O2 then. (Cue loads of people telling me they're shite too)

If Voda was OK fr you before then don't let me put you off.

And a cynic might say, how are EE going to flog you 4G if the 3G works well. In any case if they are consolodating, fewer cells = greater cell occupancy = less per user bandwidth.

Yeah you can...just need to reset the discount

Correct. Just done a speed test on my Sky Broadband and it peaked at 10.76. Three 3G has just registered 13.63 peak so quite impressive I guess. And yes the CS guy said it will switch to 4G without any price increase nor new contract.

I've had 4g on Vodafone intermittently over swindon including at the CG last home game. Normally trying to get half time scores is a ball ache but this zipped through. Quite impressed and I hope it improves the overall experience which I have to agree with Batch to a certain extent that I can go from strong 3G to no signal by going round the corner!

No idea about their 4G but I can tell you voda 3G is gash. Frequently have to borrow by girlfriend's EE mobile because mine is showing as GPRS and hers is showing 3G

I have been with O2 for years after experiencing Orange and Vodafone.  I would not move from O2 as things stand.  Always had pretty good service and connection, bar a couple of days in the past couple of years when the whole network went down, but at least they put their hands up and tried to compensate.

I was on O2 up until about 18 months ago. There were a number of places in Swindon where their signal totally dropped and the 3G data performance was abysmal. Guess they might have improved things now.

On Three now, no problems with the signal around Swindon. 3G data speeds are excellent and I've been getting 4G when in Bristol, Reading and London. Though I don't see the need for 4G myself so can't get too excited.

EE is decent in Swindon. (or at the ground at least). Easy peasy to check scores.

Shame that Orange/EE are total fuck stains.

I've just upgraded to a 4G plan on Voda so I'll let you know how the speed is.

Well, they've got fuck all chance of selling me 4G because of my experience of how poor their 3G is. Swings and roundabouts and that