Mobile broadband: A real world trial
Mobile providers make some impressive claims about the capabilities of their networks. EE says it has the “biggest, fastest network”, O2 boasts it invests £1.5 million every day and Vodafone is proud of its focus on performance rather than “spreading signal over the widest area”.
But anyone who’s ever owned a mobile device knows that this doesn’t always translate to a great service in real life. We’ve all experienced not-spots, dropped calls and text messages that just won’t send.
Things get particularly tricky when it comes to net access. A short loss of signal is enough to cancel a download, and dropping back to 2G is like returning to the days of 28.8k dial-up modems.
The term “mobile broadband” implies that you’ll be getting an experience somewhat equivalent to actual broadband, but all too often this is sadly not the case.
So how does mobile broadband actually perform, when you ignore the optimistic speed estimates and coverage boasts? That’s the question we set out to answer with the Broadband Genie Road Trip.
Mobile broadband in real life
The Road Trip tests the performance of mobile internet on the move in a real world trial. No fancy tests or ideal laboratory conditions: we take dongles from all the providers on a long train journey and do our best to stream media, download and upload files and record speeds along the way.
The Road Trip is now in its fifth year, and for 2013 we went further than before, taking eight mobile broadband services on a lengthy trip from London to Edinburgh.
What we found is that on some networks mobile broadband is better than ever before, but there’s also an annoyingly high chance that you’re going to end up disappointed.
Speed test highs
The good stuff first: a couple of networks excelled in raw speed numbers and general mobile data performance.
Three, which has put a lot of effort into mobile internet, recorded the single fastest download speed of 8.66Mb, which is the best result we’ve ever had on a Road Trip. It also managed a respectable overall average of 1.87Mb.
EE, the UK’s first 4G service, didn’t quite manage to best Three in peak speeds – topping out at 7.11Mb – but it was consistently very quick and gave an average 3.43Mb downstream. That’s extremely good.
Both Three and EE also managed to hold onto a connection and complete a large number of tasks, an absolutely vital requirement for mobile internet. We had 37 tests in total, and Three completed 30 of them while EE was right behind with 27.
Video streaming lows
One area where none of the providers really stood out was media streaming. While almost all handled Spotify tracks without issue, not a single network completed more than 50% of the video tasks. Streaming video is a demanding application, but we’d recommend that if you’re planning on watching TV or movies on a train journey you download the file first.
The real eye-opener though was the networks that turned in a significantly poorer performance in all areas, notably Virgin Mobile and Vodafone.
Vodafone had a total completion rate of only 18%, and from the three speed tests it managed gave an average download speed of 0.19Mb. It struggled through a couple of file downloads and completed a short video, but otherwise it was a very disappointing, and surprising, result.
Virgin Mobile fared even worse. It completed only 13% overall, struggling in every area, managing just a single video and download task and a few speed tests. This is even more of a surprise than Vodafone because Virgin is using the EE network.
Which is the best mobile broadband network?
Clearly, EE and Three are the top options for the most capable mobile internet. Three’s coverage is very strong and it can give some very impressive speeds, while EE is easily the fastest mobile operator in the UK.
But it is important to note that mobile broadband is not yet at the point where you should rely on it for critical functions. When travelling the connection fluctuates constantly and this causes big problems for anything that relies upon a constant data connection. Video streaming aside, we wouldn’t want to try using a cloud service like Google Docs on a train.
There’s also no guarantee of sufficient coverage or speed in any area. Not-spots abound even in busy locations with otherwise good connectivity, so it’s absolutely essential to research this before you purchase any mobile internet service.
Author Bio: Matt Powell is writing on behalf of the mobile broadband information site Broadband Genie, where you can find helpful guides and reviews.