Slow speeds in USA

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I'm currently in San Francisco on holiday, I've been here a few times before but I've never visited since moving from Three to O2. I'm currently paying the daily £4.99 O2 Travel but the service seems shocking.

Webpages are taking minutes, images won't download on WhatsApp and Google Maps is struggling to show anything yet my partner on Three network (in the UK) sitting next to me is browsing away fine.

We're both connected to T-Mobile USA and both have full signal with HSPA+. I've tried a speed test and I'm getting response times for 350-600ms and up/down speeds of 0.02-0.04mbps.

I haven't used my phone for tethering, downloading any significant amount of data (other than Web browsing and using a few apps).

I've also tried manually connecting to one of the other networks but each is refusing my connection. I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge.

Am I doing something wrong, is there a specific configuration that should have been applied that could explain the speeds?

WiFi in our hotel is currently $18 / day, I'd prefer not to pay that for 5 days but my connectivity is virtually non-existent via the current cellular network.

Any help or advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Rob

[MI5]

If you think 0.02mb/s is mediocre I'd hate to have to use your definition of "poor" !

[madasaf1sh]

The time i have speeds of that level is in Manila, during Typhoons..

Was in the US at the beginning of the month and was getting decent speeds to use Uber, Google Maps. the data networks, without any issues.

Also bare in mind that when roaming all your data is backhauled to the UK, and the APN's are a gateway,to allow traffic from the mobile network to be routed to the public internet.

Now Vodafone and BT own backhauls and ITS services from the US and other Major locations across the globe, so the internet will seem faster..

Telefonica is limited really to south america and Europe with very little of their own undersea cable capacity of their own.

(I am currently working on Private APN's for Global Users, so have been looking at this for a while).

[MI5]

Well that's all the OP is getting currently but O2 data speeds are no better anywhere in the World and they always blame local networks for issues saying that they have no control over data speeds when roaming.

[Anonymous]

Thanks to everyone for your responses and tips.

I'm still here for a couple of days but so far have resisted the $18 / day hotel WiFi. I have continued with O2 Travel so far but only because at least it allows for WhatsApp messages during the evening / early morning - I've been unable to connect to other free WiFi from my room unfortunately.

The free SF WiFi does seem okay and I've been connecting to that whenever possible. Coffee shops are also a good source of WiFi so that's helped.

Yesterday evening I noticed that I was now connected to AT&T rather than T-Mobile, it would then allow me to manually connect to AT&T (whereas previously I couldn't connect to any other than T-Mobile) - so I'll see how that goes and post back.

One other observation, I'm not sure whether it's just me or whether there is any truth, but speeds seem to increase a little around midnight UK time. I'm not sure if a quota is reset or something like that? If that is the case though, it's an amazingly low quota.

Just to put that into perspective, I've just run a speed test and I've got 390ms response, 0.10 down and 0.15 up. So still pretty bad but a little easier to browse some websites. I still have full signal with HSPA+ too.

One final thing I've done to try to help is switched on the in-built Android 'Data Saver'. Not sure if it helps but can't see it hurting given the description.

Seems like this will be my first and last year with O2. I'll give Vodafone a try next time given the feedback (I was split this year when taking out my contract so that's helped my decision). Thanks again for all the replies.

Rob

[MI5]

Your first 50 mb per day is supposed to be unrestricted for speed.

[darrengf]

Restrictions apply from the world go and not 50MB.  They restrict you further at 50MB.

the terms say o2 allow you to use the first 50MB before they apply restrictions.  However o2 have been clever and said no where in any terms, literature, websites or anything what the first 50MB speed is.

beleive me I've checked it out.

also it makes no difference where traffic is routed.  The restrictions have been set by o2 for a connecting sim to a roaming network.

remeber. The more you use the more o2 has to pay.  So for your £5 you have to at least use 1mb, over that your pounds in.  However as speed is that poor, people give up, but forget to switch of data roaming.

however in USA, using SMS and calls is worth £5 a day as it's 45p per SMS or 1.10 per min per.

you have to weigh pros and cons up.

however if you land in a country where o2 travel doesn't exist, then there are no data restrictions and you get the speed allowed in that country at full cost.

its all a clever marketing strategy.  Looks great on paper, rubbish in reality, free money for o2 😊

[MI5]

I did say "supposed to be"

[jonsie]

I've only tried the once to roam on O2 in the last few years. That was in Thailand 🇹🇭 using O2 Travel and believe me, at no stage was speed above 0.1, to be honest I don't think I managed to use 50MB in total. I opted out of O2 Travel the following afternoon. Everyone was hoping roaming would be a whole new experience when in actuality it would seem to be nothing but empty promises and total disappointment. 

[darrengf]

Yep. It seems to be poor on o2. Other networks it's completely different and even Tesco mobile is different.

im confused why o2 has made it so bad,  from complaints on twitter are they thinking loyal o2 people will stay? 

Im not sure what's going on any more as nothing other networks have now either caught up or surpassed them in ways.

three has roaming and three rewards, Vodafone allow you to use everything in abroad at no restrictions and EE has its speed etc.

O2 used to be king pin that other networks where envious of.

come on o2. Fix it. 

[Anonymous]

Hello again,

So I've now finished my trip to San Francisco and luckily we were given free internet by the hotel for the final 48 hours. Mobile speeds continued to be very disappointing, speeds never really increasing beyond 0.15Mbps and response times consistently bad. 

I found that manually setting to AT&T didn't really work out, by around lunchtime the following day I was receiving dialogs that I was only able to make emergency calls but still with a full signal. After about an hour like this I changed back to automatically select the network - which put me back on T-Mobile.

I had reasonably high expectations before getting to the US, I figured that paying £5 / day versus the free data on Three would mean a relatively good service - I couldn't have been more wrong. Just 9 more months until I move networks 😕

Thanks to everyone for the comments and tips.

Rob