Tesco 4G

StevieJ

I am a little confused by what areas can access 4G and which areas can't. I live in Chester and I switched my tariff over to 4G on the basis that it was free but accepting the fact that it was not yet available in my area but would be accessible when I travel to othe areas. My contract date is today (2nd of month) and I received a text with settings changes relating to picture messaging etc (not sure why?). On a whim I thought I would check my download speed with speedtest, I checked wifi first, this was showing around 5 Mbps, I then checked Data and was surprised to be receiving a speed of 10 Mbps. I checked with the O2 postcode 4G checker (Tesco network) which confirmed that I can't access 4G. I then checked Speedtest again and it was showing 12 Mbps. I tried a couple of minutes of a Youtube video which played smoothly. I then checked how much data I had used and it was showing 80 mb.
Two questions, Is the O2 4G checker (and general info about availability) wrong? and does that Speedchecker use a large amount of data?

indesisiv

If i remember rightly speedtest.net uses about 20mb for each test, although it was a while ago when i looked this up.

And the speeds your are getting are quite feasible on 3G.

ZhugeEX

At the top of the phone there should be a "3G", "H" or "4G" icon.

3G and H are for when you're connected to 3G. You'll only see the 4G icon when you're connected to 4G.

3G can theoretically go up to 42Mbps so seeing a speedtest of 12Mbps is normal for 3G in this day and age.
And yes, Speedtest uses that data.

keith1950

Hi, 3G speeds vary widely..... I would suggest you are probably getting H+ which some people call 3.5G.

My main mobile is on 3.....it is not a 4G mobile....I can get anywhere between 5 meg at the slowest and usually around 22 meg at the fastest so you don't have to be on 4G to get 12 meg.

When I use a speedhecker I don't use a lot of data.

StevieJ

Thanks for that, if you can get those speeds on 3g why would you need 4g?

ZhugeEX

StevieJ wrote: »

Thanks for that, if you can get those speeds on 3g why would you need 4g?

Good question. At least on Tesco it's at no extra cost.

On other networks you have to pay a premium.
The one good thing about 4G is that once it's rolled out everywhere you will get a very fast consistent experience. For example, a low 4G signal will still net you a good speed where as a low 3G signal or 2G signal can be unusable for streaming or even browsing in some cases. Also 4G does come with other added benefits as well which we'll see more of in the future.

But is it worth the premium some operators have put on 4G? Well that's for the user to decide.