Super slow internet after downgrading to cheaper plan!

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

recently I've downgraded from 4G 20£ (12months contract) to 3G 9£ (1month) contract. Previously, I was having 2GB of 4G data and the internet was super fast. Now, I've bought 1GB bolt-on as initially I've been given only 100MB of allowance.

Look at the speed I have since Monday (the day when they switched my plan). EXACTLY after switching the internet started to be slow.

I've already asked them via Twitter what's going on but decided to ask you for an advice. I've cancelled my contract and by 28th of this month I will no longer be o2 customer (moving abroad). But still, 2 weeks to help me decide which carieer I am going to pick after returning.

Note: Card was not removed, replaced. It's still the same one, so it's not dirty and so on.

Phone: iPhone 6

[viridis]

Ping is well over, could be a mast issue as everything signal wise looks OK.
Either way everything about those speeds with that signal is off.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi

What do your masts state at the moment and I'm wondering if it's not maybe coincidence but possible mast congestion.

http://status.o2.co.uk

Speeds do vary depending on a 3G or 4G connection.

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Thanks. It says that for Carnaby Street, London there's a message - "Sorry a phone mast in this area isn't working".

Kind of weird as I have thouse issues starting from Monday. Can't believe that it can be that serious but well, I will wait for any feedback then.

[Anonymous]

Hi

I hope is comes back to 'good' asap.

Unfortunately O2 don't give real time repair times ,but the mast status does update every hour or so I believe.

[Anonymous]

To add -> please take into account that a speed test can use 40mb+ of your data allowance each time it's run.

[anticpated]

I was under the impression it used Megabits which when divided down is 1/8th in terms of Megabytes. Therefore 40 Mbits is 5 Mbytes. That's still chunk of your data package mind you. Although I'm sure the cellular test will use a lower payload to test with.

I might wrong, it won't be the last time.

[Beenherebefore]

A byte (B) is a unit of digital information i.e. file size

A bit (b) is a unit of digital speed of the file and usually coupled with "per second"

So a 4G would have a 40Mbps download speed but you would use 40MB of data.

At 40Mbps, a file size of 40MB would take approx. 8 seconds to download.

http://www.matisse.net/bitcalc/?input_amount=40&input_units=megabits&notation=legacy

http://www.numion.com/calculators/time.html

[MI5]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Look at the speed I have since Monday (the day when they switched my plan). EXACTLY after switching the internet started to be slow.

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This is exactly the Nationwide problem with 3G network congestion.

You noticed it immediately you switched to 3G because 4G is not effected in the same way, but it would always have been the same had you attempted a 3G connection previously.

[anticpated]

Ever since 4G has been announced and introduced, 3G has progressively go worse because the flood of people using 3G.

To put it another way, if 10 people use 3G and 10 people have 4G - 7 of those people don't have regular access to 4G then they will fallback onto the 3G network. Meaning 17 people on 3G and the other 3 on 4G tipping the ratio (5.666:1).

I'll be back with some colouring pens and a whiteboard to explain further....

It could also be the fact that O2 are proactively upgrading all of their networks to work with higher 3G bands and 4G. A sticky plaster approach although I have no real evidence of this other than the lacklustre network performance when out of reasonable range.