I was just wondering if anyone else has this issue? When my iPhone connects to 5G it doesn’t offer any greater speeds than 4G. Usually it is slower. I am just wondering when the masts are upgraded if they are just coded to say there is 5G without any upgrades to the backhaul? It seems strange that the speeds are near identical or worse. Having come from Vodafone which has speeds of about 700 down and 300 up on the local mast it seems quite shocking to have an upload of 1 or 2 on 5G with O2.
I was at Kenwood House the other day and my phone was displaying E, I didn’t even think that existed anymore. Although it did remind me of my first iPhone, back when O2 promised their customers the best products and a great experience. It’s strange how at that location they clearly gave up on that promise as it’s still using the same technology as it was in 2007. When I swapped over to my Vodafone esim it had 4G.
It’s funny because I left O2 ten years ago because everyday I walked to work and the exact same spot everything stopped working (despite a mast apparently being on the same corner), I happened to be driving my car the other day and stopped at the traffic lights there. CarPlay said 5G at full signal, but nothing would work. It’s ridiculous how in 10 years nothing has really been done at all has it?
I also went for dinner in King’s Cross and found my phone to be completely unusable even though when you check the map there is a mast across the road from where I was. Even when outside I couldn’t go online, despite 5G showing.
It seems as though when the phone is negotiating a 5G signal the masts just says yes. Despite there being no additional capacity there. Anyone could trick a phone into displaying 5G signal, but without any backhaul upgrades what is the point? The network clearly has capacity issues even in areas that are not densely populated. Within 500m of my house there are 11 O2 masts, yet as soon as you walk down to the shops quite frequently data will just stop working even though you have great coverage. You would think with Virgin’s fibre network now being able to be used for, probably, next to nothing it would be quite easy to upgrade sites. Vodafone seems to have managed it and they have to purchase their backhaul from VMO2 and Openreach. Then it was also 37 a month sim free for the same thing I am paying 12 pounds for on O2. Considering the capacity issues I don’t know why Virgin Media is trying to recruit extra customers when it can’t deal with the ones it has already, that is how I ended up back on O2. I assumed it would have improved, but it’s like the corner that made me leave in the first place, the technology claims to have improved. That mast is showing whatever the latest thing is, 3G, 4G, now 5G. Yet it still has no usable data service, it is just quite insane really.
