Of course T-Mobile wouldn't be capping transfer speeds to make their EE 4G offering more attractive
Throttled customers rage over Virgin Mobile UK's tight cap
Virgin Mobile UK's experiment with throttling is turning into nightmare as customers across the network complain of fragmented data services barely suitable for email let alone the promised 2Mb/sec. The wireless mobile comms brand, which is run by Virgin Media in the UK, only recently started capping mobile data speed at 2Mb/ …
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Thursday 7th March 2013 13:55 GMT GettinSadda
Looks like...
EE: So, are you going to buy our new 4G service?
Cust: No, I'm fine on 3G
EE: {fiddle-fiddle-tweak} So are you sure you don't want 4G?
Cust: Hmm, 3G seems a bit slower these days, but it's good enough
EE: {more-tweaking} You sure?
Cust: Wow it's slow on 3G these days, but still OK
EE: {clunk-fiddle-kludge} Absolutely sure?
Cust: What the... this 3G is useless! How much did you say 4G was?
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Thursday 7th March 2013 14:08 GMT Phil O'Sophical
Re: Looks like...
Hmm. Sounds awfully like the Sky HD situation. HD pictures look better on a standard definition CRT TV than standard defintion pictures do, so clearly the SD channels are being compressed way below the levels that are needed to provide a good picture. Is that to make HD look even better & justify the extra cost? That is the question...
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Thursday 7th March 2013 16:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Looks like...
Re: Sky HD
We have a 40" LCD TV, maybe we sit too far from the TV because the other half can't tell the difference between SD and HD (eg. BBC 101 v 143).
The demo units in the likes of Tescos which swipe between SD and HD to show the difference do look a bit exaggerated, with SD running through RF and virgin media-style compression levels, vs the HD half which has the brightness and sharpness levels turned up.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 19:09 GMT Anonymous Coward
As an Orange customer, who they are trying hard to rebrand as an EE customer I have noticed that data quality has dropped in some areas. I get weekly emails telling me to come over to EE, sign a new contract, get 4G, home telephone, broadband etc etc. Hmm but I live outside of any major conurbation... Though I can get a phone signal if I lean out of the bedroom window.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 13:30 GMT Christopher Slater-Walker
What is the point?
Exactly what is the point of a 4G contract if the maximum bandwidth is being restricted in this way? I thought it was all about "super-fast" mobile data, not "reasonably fast/comparable with your average domestic ADSL service" mobile data. Especially given the price the networks are charging.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 13:34 GMT Rampant Spaniel
The last paragraph sums up the issue perfectly. If you openly sell a capped reliable service then thats fine, if you sell a service then cap it, in some cases refuse to comment on capping, and not actually manage to deliver the reliability that was the alledged reason for the capping, then you are a berkshire hunt. Vote with your wallets.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 13:42 GMT El Presidente
Vote with your wallets
If a service provider offers a service with specific features, then unilaterally changes those features, that's most likely a breach of contract and a buyer would be free to walk away. The capping down to to 2Mb/s is a significant change, whatever the spin they are putting on it.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 14:14 GMT Rampant Spaniel
Re: Vote with your wallets
@Richard81
You may not have had a specific speed mentioned in your contract (not least because speed will vary with conditions and contention on a wireless contended service) but their sales material was full of comments like Y times faster than 2.5g and up to 6mb downloads.
They made a song and dance about 3g speeds now they are hoping everyone will forget that. The bottom line is they have fundamentally changed the product they sold you. Their contract can stipulate they are allowed to do so, that doesn't make it a fair clause.
If they are so sure it will result in a better service they should let you leave if it doesn't.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 17:37 GMT ecofeco
Re: Vote with your wallets
Try walking away. Those contracts are very one-sided and it isn't your side.
I had a mobile company hound me for months after walking away from an expired contract. They didn't seem to understand that it had, well, expired. I never paid them and had to send many nasty letters to cease harassment. I still sort of wished they had continued. Could have paid for my retirement.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 15:29 GMT Dave 62
I guess this explains why loading some pages is very hit and miss and streaming even just audio is completely out of the question?
I'm a bit new to all this smartphone business so I don't know what I should expect as a consumer but I know it's possible to stream movies on netflix with other networks so unless Virgin is the budget brand of mobile interwebs (akin to TalkTalk for the proper variety) they should be able to manage it to.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 15:54 GMT Skrrp
Mixed results here
I know that the T-Mobile network has been flaky for me recently. Some periods of outage of up to 20 mins where it shows signal bars but refuses to shift data.
Speed tests just now:
Bournemouth (physically closest): 2Mb down, 1Mb up
Maidenhead (closer to gateway): 3Mb down, 1.8Mb up
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Thursday 7th March 2013 16:12 GMT gautam
Be prepared for the worst
This is what highly leveraged takeovers do. Never in the consumer's interest.
The new overlords wants a return on their investments, and this is one way they start in cost controls and hopefully sell more/better/faster data!
Capitalism, 21 century style. Someone buys and everyone pays. (Bankers involved).
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Thursday 7th March 2013 17:31 GMT Stu_The_Jock
3G speeds . . work fine here
Having read this I decided to test my mobile provider. On my tablet via 3G I got 9.84Mb down and 1.66Mb/s up. Turn on the wireless and the mobil apps craps itself as it tops off at the 20Mb/s cap in teh app each way. . . and with 8GB/month for about £28/month equivalent (249 NOK) It's pretty reasonable priced too.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 19:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Out here ...
... in rural 'ampshire, the connection on my nokia 3310 is terrible, the WAP pages are loading real slow.
On a serious note, I don't think I've *ever* got a decent speed on 3G - I'm with 3 which is marginally better than Orange.
Then again, I'm kinda used to it - best ADSL speed I can get is 4mb/s and BT have no plans to rollout 21cn to the local exchange.
Am I missing anything? Not really, Netflix works OK.
Probably multi-tasking - watching streaming movies when the other half is surfing/downloading is pretty much impossible.
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Thursday 7th March 2013 22:58 GMT Glostermeteor
Good thing im on a 30 day rolling contract
Im with Virgin Mobile, so far I havent had too much of a problem but thats mainly because there are plenty of wifi hotspots that I use. I am on a 30 day rolling contract with Virgin Mobile however if things are bad I can just leave. Buying phones sim free and getting sim only deals is much cheaper and more flexible!
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Friday 8th March 2013 09:19 GMT Logicalstep1
Badly Capped
Don't get me wrong I only pay £5 a month (deal with my mobile years ago), but I have noticed that my '8 meg' connection constantly struggles to even stream ITV's crappy video feed these days. Iplayer always stutters as does HQ YouTube.
Not content with providing a sub standard broadband service EE have recently put up my mobile contract by 3% and not content with that, I get a letter through telling me they are raising the price of my phone insurance by 1.99, form 6 to £7.99 an increase of 33%!
I think that's classed a material change to my contract, lets see if they agree :P
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Friday 8th March 2013 10:08 GMT David 135
They temporarily remove the cap, and things are OK for a bit...
According to a post by one of their reps on the forums, this morning they've got EE to temporarily remove some network controls, including the speed cap, to see if that helps with the data problem. Having run a speed test afterwards, I'll say it does - I'm getting results at least 3x what I was getting previously, and more importantly getting reasonable response times for page loads, etc, at least right now.
Virgin, if you reintroduce the speed cap in something remotely resembling it's previous form, I'll be switching to another provider, you can be sure of that. I'm paying for an unlimited data contract that allows tethering and has no Fair Use Policy. That is the ONLY reason I switched to you recently. If you can't or won't provide that, then you won't have my custom.