[tomxor]

> trying to use mobile data was a joke. [...] This was in a small urban centre... called London

In any significantly built up area 4G is mostly a dice roll among the 3 major UK providers. There will be little consistency when moving between locations and even the same location will change over time.

This is because the radio bands used in 4G are now so saturated that you are aiming for the _least_ popular provider in your current location (different providers are allocated different bands). It doesn't matter how many towers they have or how good your reception is when all the users are limited to such small (radio) bandwidths in the same area, when there are too many users, you effectively have to wait your turn to "speak". This is the main selling point of 5G IMO: not the higher theoretical maximum throughput; but the real world better average throughput even in busy areas due to less user contention because there is so much radio bandwidth available that the major factor in getting reasonable throughput should be equipment, reception and backhaul rather than unpopularity.

This is actually how EE maintain higher than average throughput on their 4G networks AFAICT, because they are priced far higher than their competitors, keeping their user numbers lower... a strategy that may not continue to compete well within the 5G spectrum. Speaking of which, stay away from EE if you care about your sanity.

[rickdeckard]

> This is actually how EE maintain higher than average throughput on their 4G networks AFAICT, because they are priced far higher than their competitors, keeping their user numbers lower...

EE actually maintains a higher-than-average throughput because despite telecoms regulation in place they are "somehow" allowed to own a ridiulous amount of spectrum in critical frequency bands. This raw spectrum is required to provide the bandwidth and thus throughput:

For throughput on 4G mobile, the most important LTE frequencies in Europe are Band 1 and 3 (and arguably to a lesser degree Band 7). On those frequencies combined EE owns almost HALF of the total spectrum (45 of 70MHz on Band3, 20 of 60MHz on Band1, 50 of 120MHz on Band7), with the three (!) other competitors splitting up the other half.

[tim333]

I live in London and had 3 for years and it went from ok to almost unusable where I was. I think they've sold a lot of unlimited data contracts and don't have the gear to service them.

I switched to O2 a couple of months ago and they've been ok really. Nothing amazing but at least the thing nearly always works.

Three seem to have gone down hill in a number of ways. They were also dropping free roaming (still on O2) and I stopped being able to use my laptop on the tube (works with O2).

[varispeed]

That is somewhat true, but seeing people on the train, browsing internet or watching YouTube just fine, when you can't load anything tell a different story.

I even asked a few strangers what network they use and how come they have reception. This is the network I switched to eventually and indeed no more problems.

[tomxor]

Yes, sometimes it really is just down to better coverage, but if it's a city, it's almost always covered well by all 3 providers.

> I even asked a few strangers what network they use and how come they have reception

However this is selection bias, you may actually have switched to a less popular network (which is better), or it could be coverage, it's hard to tell. The funny thing is that you can see how over time people will be switching back and forth between providers, even though there may actually be little change of coverage, any improvements could be more to do with movement of subscribers. Unfortunately 5G wont entirely eliminate this phenomenon because higher frequency comes with the disadvantage of being less penetrating to solid structures, so e.g in a train, or building people will sill be contending with each other over 4G quite often.

In the end, all that matters is what works, and you can only really test that empirically or by using other's to gauge performance as you did. Luckily you can now test 2 of the major UK networks without a contract, "Three" and "Vodafone" provide contract-less unlimmited month-to-month sim only through their sub-brands "Smarty" and "Voxi"... and I highly recommend using these over the main brand because you always have the flexibility to change quickly as network conditions change (I've switched between these two multiple times for a home LTE router due to changing user contention - which I've only inferred from the fact that there were no new towers in the area while maintaining the same RSRQ, and connecting to the same cell ids).

www.cellmapper.net is a good resource for roughly gauging coverage... but far better than any of the vague maps given on ISP sites, it actually shows you individual cells for each tower with rough directional areas, I've found it quite useful for debugging weird issues with antenna positioning on permanent LTE router setup due to locking onto bad towers (which unfortunately is not directly controllable on standard user equipment modems).

[Matsta]

I agree it's good you can test.

To add, if you want to try O2, there's GiffGaff/TescoMobile and if you want to try EE there's 1pm Mobile and EE offers PAYG sims as well.

I have 5g internet at home, tested every network and EE was miles faster than anyone else even though I live close to all the towers. I did find that going on a contract was alot cheaper than PAYG, and it's the only way to get unlimited data on EE. Still it's £30/month which is cheaper than what Voxi is offering.

With the wifi on the tube, the EE one works alot better than Three who goes through the Virgin wifi network. EE installs a profile so it auto connects quite reliably when you stop at stations.

[tomxor]

I think technically EE probably is the better network, it's just unfortunate that their customer service is hell on earth.

If you get a sim that actually works from the start, i guess you are lucky. Just pray you are not unfortunate enough to ever have to deal with their customer support for any real technical fuckup at their end... they burned so much of my time I can never go back.

I bought a 24 month unlimited contract (which I don't like doing but I know the network is technically better so bit the bullet). The sim didn't activate, 1 months of phone calls and endless promise after broken promise, they still couldn't activate the thing. Finally they sent me a new sim but on the wrong 1GB/month plan, which apparently they intended to switch once activated, which of course they never could manage to actually do. So after another month they agreed to end the contract since they couldn't seem to actually fulfil it.

Oh but there's more.... 6 months later I find out they are still charging me for this stupid 1gb contract for which no sim card even exists. I reluctantly call them again thinking at this point it might be faster to open a law suit, this is ridiculously complicated and takes much convincing since the contract is now supposed to be ended so all the account numbers etc are wrong. They agree to send me a refund me by cheque for £50 rather than set up another DD to avoid more fuck ups........

1 Month later: I receive a cheque for 50p - fucking joke.

They still owe me £50, but it's not worth the time it would cost me to attempt getting it back.

This is partly why I don't like contracts, you can't easily walk away from shit like this.

[Matsta]

I feel you; it's a pain.

Tbh, Three was even worse when I rang, I just got a call centre in India, and they can never help you.

Does suck about EE for you. I've had a few issues, but they are okay with giving me credit. They messed up my discount on my latest contract, so they gave me a recurring discount of £5 on my contract and added like 3 months of credit on.

I also had an issue with BT (which I assume is the same call centre as EE). They never gave us the signup bonus (free soundbar). I waited six months, got the ombudsman involved, and someone high up gave me a call. They instantly realised it was pretty messed up. So, in the end, I ended up getting a Soundbar, and like £300 back in credit, so I had free internet for most of the contract, then cancelled as soon as I moved house.

But if it happens to you, always hint you don't want to get the ombudsman involved, and they will suddenly get their crap together.

[lost_tourist]

why not say the network? I don't think that's against HN guidelines.

[cjrp]

I used to have this problem at major stations like London Bridge. Full 4G signal bars, but no actual throughput. Seems to have gotten better lately, not sure if that's the effect of 5G or reduced passengers due to WFH.

[Matsta]

I was on 3 until my contract ran out a few months ago, but it was still that bad. Oxford Circus you have full bars of 4g but no signal at all. I was going in quite alot last year before most people had returned to the office it made no difference to pre covid.

I think part of the reason is that 3 only use a handful of bands where EE has a bunch more to spread the load.

Was the same when I needed to tether my phone, always had no signal but couldn't load anything. Had to hotspot off colleagues phones. This was all over central London (Shoreditch, London Bridge, Holborn)

Moved to EE and now don't have any issues.

[vladvasiliu]

It's anecdotal, but during all my visits to London, pre-covid, I've always had good enough cell reception. I didn't watch youtube or similar, but I could always use google maps and city mapper, both of which I've used extensively since I'm not familiar with the city, or check random internet websites.

I didn't pay attention to which provider I was using, since it was probably chosen by whatever deals my home provider stuck with providers over there.

[ravel-bar-foo]

Why is this 4G band saturation never a problem in Seoul? The only place I ever had cell connectivity problems was in a stadium. Does the UK not use LTE? Maybe the Seoul providers installed lots of wifi access points?