Want to know the best network for data ? - Galaxy S II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I picked up my sim free s2 today and it's awesome, but prior to picking it up I spent a load of money buying various payg sim cards to test for data performance. Minimum top up seems to be £10 these days (ouch) and this is what I got.
Please note when testing vodafone I used a contract sim and 3g was unavailable where I was in devon
Please note I did not test T-orange (as I'm already aware they are useless for data)
Please note all tests were done in west london and devon
Please note speed tests were done with www.speedtest.net
Please note all tests were done with full signal strength
Please note I used the "about: useragent" trick to let my phone view the true iplayer website
Tesco
This is actually using o2 behind the scenes.
Data rate 0.5 mbps this was pathetic but much worse than being slow, the data transfer was horribly uneven when downloading, you would get a burst of data and then wait literally a minute or 2 for the next burst, this behaviour meant that when attempting to download a newspaper (free press reader app from samsung) it would never complete.
Some kind of https (secure internet) issue meant it is unable to log into hsbc bank
BBC iplayer video streams were completely blocked by the network.
www.tvcatchup.com also does not work
I then tethered (via wifi) my phone to my laptop and repeated the tests to check if it was a device competency issue, the results were exactly the same.
O2
The results were exactly the same as tesco, unsurprising seeing as it's the same network except logging into hsbc worked perfectly.
I have it on good authority that giff gaff (also on o2) has similar poor data rates.
3
All I can say is WOW what a difference
Data rate steady at around 2.5mbps I can download a newspaper in a couple of minutes, no problems with secure websites the only nuisance was removing the content lock because apparently (according to 3) even torrent like websites are too mature for youngsters and are lumped into the same restricted category as hard porn websites
BBC iplayer works perfectly both on my phone and when tethered to a laptop as does www.tvcatchup.com
In general tethering to my laptop was a positive and speedy experience (for mobile) I actually went on to download a couple of gigabytes of data which was made possible because if you top up with £15 you can get unlimited data for 30 days, and I don't mean a fair use policy of 500 mb or 1gb, I mean TRULY unlimited. Also included with your £15 is 300 any net minutes and 3000 texts.
Lastly vodafone the king of data, peaking at 4mbps everything works well (until you run out of your measly 500 mb of data for the month and stump up more money for more data) also whilst vodafone has better coverage than 3 for voice 3 is winning for 3g coverage. The bottom line is vodafone is the best performer (when you can get it) but you will have to pay for it
In conclusion I'm keeping my 3payg sim all you can eat data for £15 including talk minutes and thousands of texts, seems like a good deal to me.

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I use Giffgaff for my Galaxy Tab and I quite often get speeds of up to and around 1.5-2Mbps. Found them to be the best value for money considering what you get for your £10. I'll be switching to them full time once my Orange contract is up. I guess you kinda have to be lucky to live in an area with good O2 3G coverage.
Good testing though, mate. I was quite shocked to see Voda was getting up to 4Mbps. That 500MB limit would be a real killer for me, though.

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Vodafone is completely useless in my area, they took down the mast when they destroyed the old Peugeot plant across from my house.
3 is not bad, always get a 3G signal apart from in the town centre.
But Orange is the best for me, and I'm not saying that because I work for them, I always get a good 3G signal and fast speeds.
I currently have my iPhone 4 with Tesco and the signal is so weird, one minute you get full 3G, then nothing (that's without enforcing the death grip).

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Can you please post your speedtest.net results here, I am curious about orange, but im really intrested in what DVC 1985 said, as several other users have reported shocking performance on giff gaff, I will post my speed test when I get a chance.
BTW speedtest provide a url to your results that you can just copy and paste here.

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One thing you might want to know:
Vodafone are trialling 14mbps mobile data later this year, the kind of speeds that the GS2 was built for, and currently the only phone in the UK capable of using these speeds.
Get a Sim Only contract from them to get 1gb of mobile data.

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Mr_Mjolnir said:
One thing you might want to know:
Vodafone are trialling 14mbps mobile data later this year, the kind of speeds that the GS2 was built for, and currently the only phone in the UK capable of using these speeds.
Get a Sim Only contract from them to get 1gb of mobile data.
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That is cool to know, but they already won in my test on performance, maybe they should redirect some of the funds away from increasing performance and more to increasing coverage !
PS I doubt they will allow 14 mbps on their phone sims, I bet it will be restricted to the broadband dongles, I know o2 dongles get better results than I posted earlier.

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ice_coffee said:
That is cool to know, but they already won in my test on performance, maybe they should redirect some of the funds away from increasing performance and more to increasing coverage !
PS I doubt they will allow 14 mbps on their phone sims, I bet it will be restricted to the broadband dongles, I know o2 dongles get better results than I posted earlier.
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Pretty sure they will allow it on phone, the number of phones that will actually be able to use that speed will be small so it won't matter too much. The current dongles can already use up to 14mbps, but the realistic max. is 10.8(both stated on the dongle box), and of course the real-world max will be around 7.2, which is what most phones can currently use.
AFAIK there is no limit imposed on the sims, and no plans to add any, but of course the realistic speeds are never the maximum possible.

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well with att and my current SGS1 i get 6.5mbps on speedtest.net, and have actually personally seen download speeds of 9300kbps using TubeMate

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Network 3 have been awesome since I joined
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App

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I live in Belfast and Vodafone is the best for data here. 3G availability widely and it's pretty fast. Used my mate's o2 Desire yesterday (compared to my girlfriend's VF Desire) and I ran out of patience with it.

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As promised here is an example speedtest with 3, it surprised me too
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Im jealous of 6.5 mbps, it's also nice to see confirmation about o2, it wasn't just me, I might publish my findings in other parts of the forum as it does not only apply to samsung galaxy s'
Edit as promised more speedtest proof
This is o2 payg with full signal strength in west london I repeated the test several times as I couldn't believe my eyes
Edit more from speedtest this time I have managed to borrow a virgin contract sim (uses T-Mobile) same as the o2 test west London full signal

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was with o2. their speed are terrible around my area less then 0.5 mbps. now i am considering three, they have very good 3g coverage and best of all their AYCE data.

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I would also like to vouch for Orange. The speed appears to vary depending on the signal rather than the network as a whole. For example in central london I was getting super fast 3g (streaming live sport and even tethering it to the laptop to get live sport) but in Northampton the 3g was quite slow. In Leicester the 3G is moderately quick but in some areas (despite being in the centre of the city) I didin't get 3g at all.
So in conclusion its the network coverage that varies rather than any kind of cap or poor service network wide.

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benjatt said:
I would also like to vouch for Orange. The speed appears to vary depending on the signal rather than the network as a whole. For example in central london I was getting super fast 3g (streaming live sport and even tethering it to the laptop to get live sport) but in Northampton the 3g was quite slow. In Leicester the 3G is moderately quick but in some areas (despite being in the centre of the city) I didin't get 3g at all.
So in conclusion its the network coverage that varies rather than any kind of cap or poor service network wide.
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Fair comment, maybe I was to quick to dismiss orange, I already knew t mobile was pants, please post up speed test results.

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Yea I just gave my subjective opinion so I'll put up the speed tests in the next week or so (I'm away at the mo)
Oh and I meant to ask - was there a particular thread you were referring to about the poor t-mobile/orange data?

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benjatt said:
Yea I just gave my subjective opinion so I'll put up the speed tests in the next week or so (I'm away at the mo)
Oh and I meant to ask - was there a particular thread you were referring to about the poor t-mobile/orange data?
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Yes it's the thread where a group of forum members on here have managed to prove that t-mobile are supplying heavily reduced data performance unless you phone them up and twist there arm into enabling pda data rates on your sim.
I can't remember where the thread is though !

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I was on O2 for 3 years until a month ago and I took their data speeds for granted.
In central London I was getting 3-4mbps solid no problems.
Went onto T-Mobile, the mast for which is pretty much next to the O2 one, best I could ever get is about 1.5mbps, averaging about 500-700kbps in exactly the same place. That was after ringing them several times to get the bloody 300kbps speed cap taken off.
I miss O2 and their overpriced contracts.

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renegade1488 said:
I was on O2 for 3 years until a month ago and I took their data speeds for granted.
In central London I was getting 3-4mbps solid no problems.
Went onto T-Mobile, the mast for which is pretty much next to the O2 one, best I could ever get is about 1.5mbps, averaging about 500-700kbps in exactly the same place. That was after ringing them several times to get the bloody 300kbps speed cap taken off.
I miss O2 and their overpriced contracts.
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from what your saying, it seems that contract O2 performs much better than PAYG O2, I guess this is poissible as contract phones use the apn mobile.o2.co.uk and PAYG is payandgo.o2.co.uk, this would allow them to split their service ? if any peeps on here are on contract O2 please post your speedtest results.

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im having a chat with o2 right now heres part of the conversation as im looking to get the sgs2 with them
You: sorry thats allowance i get allowances i work for talktalk broadband, what im looking for is download speeds
Shelley: Speeds of up to 21Mb per second.
Shelley: That better?
You: that hsdpa+?
Shelley: HSDPA. not +
Shelley: Would you like a link for all of the information you need?
You: yeh thanks, is that available on the mobile phone side? i know the dongles are faster, i know the sgs2 can support higher speeds but as far as i knew most networks actual speeds were upto 10meg, with only voda uk trialing 14meg later in the year, can you tell what speeds id get in my cell location
You: 3 tell me i can get 4meg
Shelley: Let me check for you.
Shelley: What i can make you aware is at the moment O2 is trialing a 4G network up and down the country, with estimated speeds of over 30MB/s. So you can expect massive speeds through this handset.
Shelley: How does that sound for you?
You: yeh wow thats cool
Shelley: Excellent!
theyre erecting a new mast near me yay lol - o2 = 4g = jizz lol

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StickyGeko said:
im having a chat with o2 right now heres part of the conversation as im looking to get the sgs2 with them
You: sorry thats allowance i get allowances i work for talktalk broadband, what im looking for is download speeds
Shelley: Speeds of up to 21Mb per second.
Shelley: That better?
You: that hsdpa+?
Shelley: HSDPA. not +
Shelley: Would you like a link for all of the information you need?
You: yeh thanks, is that available on the mobile phone side? i know the dongles are faster, i know the sgs2 can support higher speeds but as far as i knew most networks actual speeds were upto 10meg, with only voda uk trialing 14meg later in the year, can you tell what speeds id get in my cell location
You: 3 tell me i can get 4meg
Shelley: Let me check for you.
Shelley: What i can make you aware is at the moment O2 is trialing a 4G network up and down the country, with estimated speeds of over 30MB/s. So you can expect massive speeds through this handset.
Shelley: How does that sound for you?
You: yeh wow thats cool
Shelley: Excellent!
theyre erecting a new mast near me yay lol - o2 = 4g = jizz lol
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lol gota love o2 chat ...... this is hilarious
Shelley: Are you not thinking of getting this today and getting rid if Orange?
Shelley: They are not very good as a provider, they ripped me off. And i am not just saying that because i work for 02, i do not like them at all!
You: yes ive had enough with orange to be honest, too many dropped calls and incorrect bills, they gave me a gesture of goodwill of £50 a month or 2 back because the kept incorrectly billing me
Shelley: They broke their contract with me and wouldn't help me with a broken handset,
Shelley: Yes, same with me and over charging and i got a lot of bank charges which weren't in my account and so i was getting charges left right and centre for a handset i couldn't even use! So i told them to stick it!
You: not good, lol hahaha