I've been hearing lots of good things about T-Mobile and 3's network. I dug
out my old T-Mobile PAYG SIM, and chopped it down to put in my iPhone - all
good and working.
The coverage is certainly good - a big improvement from when I used T-Mobile
many years ago. Still lacking in places, though.
Anyway, I've been running some speed tests using the Speedtest.com app but
speeds seem more like 3G, rather than HSDPA. I've had a look online and can
see lots of people paying to get the higher speeds?
So...
On PAYG, is there any way to get HSPA? I did not buy an allowance, just
used the 'max £1 daily charge'. May this have been the reason?
If I were to go on a SIM only contract with an 'internet booster', would
this include HSPA access?
If not, is the charge £2.50, £5 or £12.50 a month to enable it? I've seen
posts will all these charges mentioned but most of the stuff I've read on
this topic is over a year old.
I would give 3 a try but they've decided to switch off 2G roaming to Orange
in my area so this renders them useless at home.
Just as a side note I've been doing speed tests with Orange, O2 and Voda as
well. Although Orange has quite good 3G cover, the speeds are, on the
whole, terrible. Many times I can't even get any data throughput at all!
This is in multiple towns/locations. Any one else noticed this?
As of time of posting - 10.00 - 10.15 am in the outskirts of Cardiff.
Speeds in kbps, ping in ms:
Orange (contract) 8 down, 242 up, ping 599
T-Mobile (PAYG) 277 down, 226 up, ping 348
O2 (PAYG) 1293 down, 906 up, ping 256
Vodafone (contract) 5994 up, 3118 up, ping 245
On 13/04/2011 10:21, Metafix wrote:
>
> Anyway, I've been running some speed tests using the Speedtest.com app
> but speeds seem more like 3G, rather than HSDPA. I've had a look online
> and can see lots of people paying to get the higher speeds?
>
> So...
> On PAYG, is there any way to get HSPA? I did not buy an allowance, just
> used the 'max £1 daily charge'. May this have been the reason?
> If I were to go on a SIM only contract with an 'internet booster', would
> this include HSPA access?
Your phone should show HSDPA on T-Mobile, but on a 'mobile internet' AKA
"Internet on your phone" account (PAYG or contract) it is throttled to
400kbps (unless there are special terms - Web'n'Walk Plus?)
To get faster 'mobile broadband' on your phone to need to add either
> The coverage is certainly good - a big improvement from when I used
> T-Mobile
> many years ago. Still lacking in places, though.
>
what you want is a 900Mc/s system then .......
T-Mobile HSDPA 
Linear Mode
