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As you know one of my bug bearers with O2 is currently there Roaming in the EU which we all know that they throttle.
On the 15th June 2017, EU made changes that all the EU networks had to offer cross roaming free of charge, so you can use your own allowance in one of the Roaming EU countries.
Now I wanted to give it a Month to settle in before I did any testing to ensure that every network was complaint and that all the issues were sorted out.
So, on the 13th July, I went on a day visit to Dublin with 2 of my friends and a few Devices / Sim cards from different UK networks to do some testing and obviously a bit of eating and drinking too.
Now the test was not totally about speed, but about what was on offer from each network and how they all compared.
I took the following with me
O2 Contract iPhone 7+ Cat 9 Device Capable of 450Mbps DL
O2 PAYG iPhone 6+ Cat 6 Device Capable of 300Mbps DL
Three Contract iPhone 6 Cat 4 Device Capable of 150Mbps DL
Vodafone Contract WileyFox Swift 2 Cat 4 Capable of 150Mpbs DL (Dual Sim Phone)
Tesco PAYG Wileyfox Swift 2 Cat 4 Capable of 150Mbps DL (Dual Sim Phone)
BT Mobile Contract Wileyfox Swift 1 Cat 4 Capable of 150Mbps DL (Dual Sim Phone)
Asda PAYG Wileyfox Swift 1 Cat 4 Capable of 150Mbps DL (Dual Sim Phone)
1st Test Manchester Airport Terminal 3 (7AM) (Main networks only tested)
O2 Contract 4G Signal 8.52Mbps Down, 7.19Mbps Up
Three Contact 3G Signal Data did not work for 2 Hours being in airport
Vodafone 4G Signal 15.96Mbps Down, 10.44Mbps up
BT Mobile 4G Signal 4.81Mbps Down, 8.54Mbps up
Winner at Airport: Vodafone, 2nd O2 Contract
2nd Test Dublin Airport Terminal 1 (9AM) (Only had time to run Main Network Tests)
O2 Contract 3G Only 0.25Mbps Down, 0.30Mbps Up
Three 3G Only 7.46Mbps Down, 1.07Mbps Up
Vodafone 3G 6.07Mbps Down, 3.93Mbps Up
BT Mobile 3G 3.16Mbps Down, 1.64 Up
Winner at Dublin Airport: Three, 2nd Vodafone
3rd Test Centre of Dublin O’Connell Street (10.30AM)
O2 Contract 3G Only 0.49Mbps Down, 0.58Mbps Up
O2 PAYG 3G Only 1.84Mbps Down, 0.44Mbps Up
Three 3G Only 7.46Mbps Down, 1.07Mbps Up
Vodafone 4G 26.30Mbps Down, 11.01Mbps Up
Tesco PAYG 3G Only 2.09Mbps Down, 1.12Mbps Up
BT Mobile 3G 4.59Mbps Down, 1.21Mbps Up
Asda Mobile 3G 3.89Mbps Down, 0.46Mbps Up
Winner on O’Connell Street: Vodafone, 2nd Three
4Th Test was done in the ILAC Shopping Centre in Dublin Centre (12 Noon)
O2 Contract 3G Only 0.50Mbps Down, 0.49Mbps Up
O2 PAYG 3G Only 4.44Mbps Down, 1.43Mbps Up
Three 3G Only 0.86Mbps Down, 0.41Mbps Up
Vodafone 4G 43.73Mbps Down, 26.74Mbps Up
Tesco PAYG 3G Only 2.25Mbps Down, 0.83Mbps Up
BT Mobile 4G 13.56Mbps Down, 23.91Mbps Up
Asda Mobile 4G 26.68Mbps Down, 21.70Mbps Up
Winner in ILAN Centre: Vodafone, 2nd Place Asda
5th Test was done in Burger King Centre of Dublin (2.40PM)
O2 Contract 3G Only 0.51Mbps Down, 1.04Mbps Up
O2 PAYG 3G Only 0.91Mbps Down, 0.18Mbps Up
Three 3G Only 7.41Mbps Down, 0.35Mbps Up
Vodafone 4G 16.66Mbps Down, 14.45Mbps Up
Tesco PAYG 3G Only 5.65Mbps Down, 0.64Mbps Up
BT Mobile 3G 19.05Mbps Down, 3.53Mbps Up
Asda Mobile 3G 9.16Mbps Down, 0.27Mbps Up
Winner in ILAN Centre: BT Mobile (3G), 2nd Place Vodafone (4G)
6th Test was done on the River Bank in Dublin Centre. Only 3 Tests ran (4.20PM)
O2 Contract 3G Only 0.57Mbps Down, 0.42Mbps Up
Three 3G Only 0.52Mbps Down, 0.29Mbps Up
Vodafone 4G 121.07 Down, 26.95 Up
Winner: Vodafone, I’m not even awarding a 2nd Place as no network deserved it.
7th Place Was done at International Banking Centre Dublin (5.40PM)
O2 Contract 3G Only 0.58Mbps Down, 1.01Mbps Up
O2 PAYG 3G Only 6.76Mbps Down, 1.10Mbps Up
Three 3G Only 0.30Mbps Down, 0.35Mbps Up
Vodafone 3G 2.70Mbps Down, 3.03Mbps Up
Tesco PAYG 3G Only 1.46Mbps Down, 0.96Mbps Up
BT Mobile 4G 1.16Mbps Down, 10.40Mbps Up
Asda Mobile 3G 1.82Mbps Down, 0.23Mbps Up
Winner Int Bank Centre: O2 PAYG, 2nd Place Vodafone
8th and Final Test Dublin Airport at Gate waiting to Board Aircraft (8PM)
O2 Contract 3G Only 0.57Mbps Down, 0.56Mbps Up
O2 PAYG 3G Only 3.90Mbps Down, 1.12Mbps Up
Three 3G Only 0.42Mbps Down, 0.35Mbps Up
Vodafone 4G 26.22Mbps Down, 2.95Mbps Up
Tesco PAYG 3G Only 0.08Mbps Down, 0.54Mbps Up
BT Mobile 3G 1.72Mbps Down, 0.34Mbps Up
Asda Mobile 3G 0.23Mbps Down, 00.07Mbps Up
Winner in ILAN Centre: Vodafone, 2nd Place O2 PAYG Just
Findings
O2 Contract is throttled beyond believe. You could see the phone trying its hardest and on many occasions starting the speed test I was getting 10+ Mbps, however throttling kicked in and it went straight to 0.50 mostly. I’m appalled that it’s still throttled badly and its shocking that 4G is still not available. What I can tell you though is that 4G is trying to Activate on O2, but it forces your phone back to 3G. before it would say Network Failure, now it says Network Registered, but would revert to 3G. so O2 need to just put a tick in a box, unlock 4G please and also remove the blasting throttling that your killing us with. Also, O2 Contract is throttled, but not PAYG, what is wrong with O2.
O2 PAYG was not throttled as I could see and speeds varied over Dublin. The main problem is that it would not clamp onto 4G no matter how hard I tried, I was able to connect to Metor and Three, however there wasn’t much difference in them both, the phone would always revert back to Three as its preferred network.
Three Contract, Wow this was all over the place, no data in Manchester and although it didn’t look throttled in Dublin itself, speeds were very hit and miss. The main problem is that Three latches onto its home Three IE network and just doesn’t really let go, Three IE seems somewhat hit and miss and I think that most of the masts are just congested.
BT Mobile, put in a good performance but couldn’t clamp onto 4G much, which was the same as Asda Mobile. The main reason is there network of choice which again is Three IE. Data rates were all over the place. Lots of places were just congested, but no data restrictions were in place for what I could see
Asda Mobile were the same as BT Mobile. No restrictions but struggled on the preferred network which again was Three IE. Shame really as was impressed that a Supermarket PAYG got 4G overseas.
Tesco’s was just hampered with the lack of no 4G. It was never no clear winner, but there wasn’t a restriction in place which is good for a Supermarket Network.
Clear Winner has to be Vodafone. No matter how you look at it, it just won from the word go. It was pretty solid all over on 4G, just reverted to 3G in shops etc, but the 121Mbps download on 4G just shows that they have truly meant what they said and no restrictions at all. The choice of network was Vodafone IE which clearly showed that they have spent money in the network in the city and I’ve no doubt that If the sim card was in my iPhone 7+, the data would have been much higher
Position UK Network 3G/4G in EU EU Network used
1st Place Vodafone (4G and 3G) (Vodafone IE)
2nd Place BT Mobile (4G and 3G) (Three IE and Metor)
3rd Place Asda (4G and 3G) (Three IE and Metor)
4th Place O2 PAYG (3G Only) (Three IE and Metor)
5th Place Three (3G Only) (Three IE) (No Data in MCR Airport Data all over place)
6th Place O2 Contract (3G Only) (Three IE and Metor) (Throttled)
I really do hope you enjoyed reading this. O2 Please please please, enable 4G roaming and stop Throttling, its making you look like cheap skates and bad as a network for over seas.
And what are you throttling only O2 Contract customers?
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@evantkh wrote:I would say that tests of browsing websites and using applications are more appropriate than doing speed tests as it should talk about user experience rather than just the speed.
At those speeds there simply isn't any user experience. Ten minutes to load a Google Map, unable to look up even basic text mobile websites for train timetables etc. Forget about anything like Facebook. In fact, forget anything involving phone data. This is all with full mobile signal and 3G on the display.
From My O2 -- the total amount of data I was able to use each day (posting again):
I never experienced throttling with O2 previously; I believe this to be because I had opted out of O2 Travel and just paid for overseas usage as I used it.
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Honestly, it was garbage when they charged daily for it, I used it once for a trip to France and it too me 30 minutes to log on here and post how crap it was.
Time before that, on pay by use... Regularly 10mb+ all over Disneyland (surely that would be a place that needed "streamlining" but no apparently)
Time before that, on pay by use... Regularly 10mb+ all over Disneyland (surely that would be a place that needed "streamlining" but no apparently)
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@viridis had almost forgoten about that thread. It will be interesting to see what hapens from o2 now it is in the public domain
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Just reading the article. Excellent. But why did it come to this. Truth was all I wanted.
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@darrengf strange the only wat to get the truth was just before the register published I guess o2 had to come clean in the press .Also a shame you have had to to to all the trouble of collating the info (thread for nominations this month ?)
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engadget https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/26/o2-roaming-throttling/ credits the community now whos twitter do I see lol
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