Sim only Mobile broadband dongle

[Anonymous]

I bought a 25gb sim only dongle from O2 on a 24 month contract. The download speed is abysmal, the most I've had is 10mb/sec but its usually 2mb/sec, and the upload speed  is sometimes less than 1mb/sec. I'm only 5 miles outside Liverpool City centre, which isn't exactly remote surely?

My work colleague who sits next to me has a similar gadget on EE & he gets between 75 & 100mb/sec.

O2 say they have a mast down in the area, but I know they are just bluffing because they didn't even ask which area I was in. The dongle is registered in a different are to where I am, that's why I bought such a thing, it's supposed to be mobile!

Is anyone else experiencing slow speeds with O2?

[MI5 · Accepted solution]

You can check for any issues at your actual postcode here http://status.o2.co.uk/
In all honesty, I don't have any problems outside of the City centre but it is hopelessly slow in and around Liverpool 1.

[jonsie]

So you have 24 months of this if there is no issue showing on the status page. The most you've had is 10Mb so is this in your present location or somewhere else? 

I have both EE and O2 sims in my dual phone and if I'm away from my home WiFi then I always use EE because speeds are 4 or 5 times better. I think the O2 network is creaking at the joints in most areas due to the band they were left with when underbidding for 4G initially and having some 20 million customers using it.

Big cities such as Manchester and London are pathetic and you wouldn't want to buy a dongle on O2 living there. Liverpool in contrast has decent 4G in the city centre but I have noticed that driving into there from Manchester that O2 flits between 4G and 3G and even E at one particular place on the A580. 

[gmarkj]

I must admit that o2 seem to be pretty good coverage wise (as in, area with network) but in terms of speed they are not good in cities.
Even in Milton Keynes at the weekend I only got 10-15Mb/s even though I had 3 bars of 4G+!
I get more than that in my town on 4G - usually hovers 25-28Mb/s.

Edited to add - we have seen that some get a better rate if they change the username or password of the settings to bypass I think.

The other option might be to try and set it to use 3G instead. As 4G rolls out and more people use that the 3G bands can sometimes give a better rate.

[liggerz87]

Iv done 2 tests I was speed testing O2 4g speed wasn't as fast as usual but I think that's because in the day people used it and just did another was 15 this afternoon and now was 34 lol

[liggerz87]

[liggerz87]

[Anonymous]

Thanks to everyone who replied. Looks like I'm stuck with slow speeds for 2 years! Wish I'd have looked on here before buying.