4G Speed Reduction

[Anonymous]

I recently upgraded my tarrif from a 1GB data plan to 20GB, due to always hitting my limit, and ending up buying additional data each month, adding 6 quid to my bill on average. Before the change in tarrif, I was getting fantastic speeds for browsing and streaming - it was like being on home broadband - if a webpage took longer than a couple of seconds to load, it was probably because the webserver was down or experiencing problems. It made hitting my limit extremely easy, but I was more than happy with the performance.

The very day that my tarrif upgrade was enabled, the speed dropped drastically. I now cannot view any website without a 5-10 second wait - sometimes longer. Streaming from YouTube is just not worth it - buffering for 5 seconds to play 1 second of video, then buffering again - a torturous, looping experience. The only streaming that does seem to work is Netflix, but only after a long wait, where I assume it is buffering in the background. My friend on Virgin 3G actually loads Netflix programmes faster, and also doesn't buffer during playback.

I have tried to put up with this for a month - thinking it would just rectify itself, and was a coincidental network problem, but I'm struggling to fathom what the issue is now, especially when the change on my account should have literally just been an increase in data limit and a reduction in price (mins/txts stayed the same - unlimited).

The telephone sales person at O2 was adamant that I didn't need a 20GB data plan, and repeatedly said that I should save 3 quid a month by getting a vastly reduced data plan, but I decided to go with the big plan against their advice so I wouldn't have to worry at all about hitting any limits.

I hate to think it, because if it is correct it was never explained to me, but has my bandwidth been artificially reduced due to opting a larger data limit? It's the only logical explanation I can think of, and I can understand why this might be necessary if generally it's the few users with big data plans that are slowing the network, but if this is the case, I'd like to move away from O2, and I hope you will be able to cancel my contract without fees. I believe I'm still within a 90-Day grace period too.

[jonsie]

I'm not sure if O2 will change it after all these years but surely there is little reason for it these days unless the O2 infrastructure can't cope.

[MI5]

I'm sure it's all part of the business plan to enable them to offer the 20gb packages.

[jonsie]

I'm sure you're right, it goes back to the days of unlimited data and to be honest  using bypass improves it but you still have a certain amount of compression even then.

[darrengf]

@Anonymous@Anonymous

I Have thought more on this and some one mentioned that you cant stream HD on you tube.

Yep your correct, you cant.

O2 Phone tarriffs i think have built in data compression to allow you to use data more and Youtube HD is blocked due to the volume of data used and why would you compress HD when you want to watch it in HD.

Here is a link to an old forum topic, but Customer care did confirm as per one of the updates that o2 do use compression on 3g,4g for pictures and videos.

http://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Pay-Monthly-and-Pay-Go/4G-compression-is-it-just-me-AWFUL-browsing-experience/td-p/551172

Hopefully this answers your problem.  Probally why i never notices ie on Youtube is that ive become that used to it.

There is an app that you can download to test data speeds over video, websites and pictures etc and I can advise that HD youtube on o2 fails everytime. All the others work fine though

[MI5]

Yeah we know it's heavily compressed but it's always been that way.

[Anonymous]

Recently moved from a 20gb plan to a 30gb plan and had streaming issues ever since then. Any video higher than 480p is unwatchable due to buffering.

Done a few tests and consistently getting the same results, down speeds of around 16-20mb while video streaming is lucky to hit 1.5mb.

Been the same where ever I've been over last month so im certain its not an issue with masts.

[evantkh]

@MI5

I am using bypass currently as the login and it solves some network issues for me as well, but I actually don't know why the customer support don't know about this configuration.

[MI5]

It's a secret

[evantkh]

@MI5

I do see documentations of this for business users, but never talked about to consumer tariffs. That's interesting.