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Articles for Category Tag - 3G

Ofcom UK Seeks to Expand Range of Indoor Mobile Boosters

19th May, 2021 (22 Comments)

A few years ago the UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, took the decision to licence exempt certain “mobile phone repeaters” for indoor and in-vehicle (low gain) use (here), yet today only the kit from Nextivity (Cel-Fi) is known to officially meet their requirements. But their new proposals could be about to change all that.

Ofcom Spring 2021 – Full Fibre Covers 21% of UK and Gigabit 37%

12th May, 2021 (9 Comments)

Ofcom’s latest Spring 2021 update for UK broadband and mobile networks has revealed that “full fibre” (FTTP) coverage has grown to 21% (up from 18% in Sep 2020) and 37% or 10.8 million homes are within reach of a gigabit-capable (1000Mbps) network (up from 27%). But sadly 4G coverage has not improved and there’s no mention of 5G.

Ofcom Preps Strategic Review of UK 4G and 5G Mobile Networks

11th May, 2021 (7 Comments)

Ofcom has today set out the terms of reference for their future UK mobile strategy review, which will examine how the regulator can adjust their approach in order to improve 4G and 5G based mobile (mobile broadband) network connectivity for consumers and businesses over the next 5 to 10 years.

Opensignal Name Best 4G and 5G UK Mobile Networks for Q1 2021

14th April, 2021 (11 Comments)

The latest April 2021 Mobile Network Experience Report from Opensignal has measured the 4G and 5G (mobile broadband) performance of all four primary operators – EE, Vodafone, O2 and Three UK – to determine which delivers the best connectivity. Overall EE leads the pack, but it’s not a clear-cut victory in every category.

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UK Ranks 78 Out of 230 Countries for Price of 1GB Mobile Data

9th April, 2021 (5 Comments)

A new study has analysed 6,148 mobile data (mobile broadband) plans from across 230 countries in order to compare the cost of a 1GB (GigaByte) data allowance, which found that the United Kingdom has seen its position fall from 59th last year to 78th in 2021, with an average price of USD $1.42 per GB (up from $1.39).

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Farmers See Small Improvements in UK Mobile and Broadband

10th February, 2021 (9 Comments)

The National Farmers Union (NFU) has published the results from their annual (2020) survey of 430 members, which found that just 20% of farmers had access to fixed “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) speeds (up from 17% last year) and 11% have no indoor mobile signal at all (better than the 15% recorded last year).

EE Still in the Lead as Best UK Mobile Network for H2 2020

20th January, 2021 (17 Comments)

The latest biannual H2 2020 study of mobile network (4G and 5G) performance across the United Kingdom by RootMetrics has found that EE (BT) continues to be the best overall operator. On top of that they also delivered the fastest median (average) broadband download speed of 43Mbps (similar to 42.6Mbps in H1).

Vodafone UK Finally Starts to Add SMS Support to WiFi Calling

5th January, 2021 (37 Comments)

It’s been a long.. time coming, but Vodafone has now confirmed to ISPreview.co.uk that they’ve finally started to add the ability to send and receive text (SMS) messages via Wi-Fi Calling, which is important news for those who no longer have the option of using a femtocell based Sure Signal (3G) router. Just O2 left to go.

UK Mobile Operators Confirm No Change to Free EU Roaming

29th December, 2020 (32 Comments)

As expected all four of the UK’s primary mobile network operators, including Three UK, Vodafone, O2 and EE (BT), have now confirmed that they have “no plans” (yet) to remove free roaming when the UK fully leaves the European Union on Thursday 31st December 2020 this week.

Three UK Sees Average Mobile Data Use Per Customer Hit 15GB

17th December, 2020 (18 Comments)

Mobile operator Three UK has today revealed that the average 4G and 5G data usage (mobile broadband), per customer, per month on their network smashed the 15GB (GigaBytes) barrier for the first time in October 2020 – this is said to reflect a 50% increase in data usage since the start of 2020 (10 months).

O2 Reveals Top UK Cities with Highest Mobile Data Consumption

17th October, 2020 (8 Comments)

Mobile operator O2 (Telefonica) has revealed a list of the top 10 most data hungry (mobile broadband) UK cities for September 2020, which sees Bradford top the list after it saw data consumption on their network jump by 50% when compared with the same time last year. Meanwhile Coventry came a close second (47%).

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Ofcom Reveals Key UK Mobile Network and WiFi Usage Trends

8th October, 2020 (2 Comments)

Ofcom and crowdsourced benchmark firm umlaut have examined a sample size of 200,000 Android using UK mobile users between January and April 2020 to identify key trends. For example, people were connected to 4G for 82% of the time in urban areas, but only 76% in rural ones (most of the rest was spent on 3G).

Q3 2020 Opensignal Study Reveals the Best UK Mobile Networks

6th October, 2020 (9 Comments)

The latest October 2020 Mobile Network Experience Report from Opensignal has once again named EE as the best overall UK mobile network operator for 3G and 4G (mobile broadband) performance. The operator was also the first to win the new Games Experience category, which looks at areas like latency, packet loss and jitter.

Tutela’s August Data Ranks UK Mobile Operators by Performance

23rd September, 2020 (4 Comments)

Crowdsourced benchmarking firm Tutela has just published their latest analysis of mobile broadband (4G) focused network performance for the United Kingdom, which predictably finds that EE continues to come top in all but one category and Three UK trails far behind the pack due to a legacy of 3G.

Lord Vaizey’s Comical Anecdote for Poor Rural UK Mobile Cover

23rd September, 2020 (16 Comments)

The UK’s former Culture and Digital Minister (2010 – 2016), Lord Vaizey of Didcot, gave his Maiden Speech this week in the House of Lords, during a debate on the new Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill. As part of that he included an amusing anecdote about the impact of his earlier inability to solve rural mobile coverage.

Ofcom – Full Fibre Broadband Grows to Cover 14% of the UK

10th September, 2020 (13 Comments)

Ofcom has today released their Summer 2020 update for UK broadband and mobile networks, which reveals that “full fibre” (FTTP) coverage has grown to 14% or 4.2 million premises (up from 12% in Jan 2020) and 2% (590,000 premises) are still unable to get speeds of 10Mbps+. Geographic 4G coverage is now 67% (unchanged).

Vodafone UK Suffering Disruption to Mobile Network

1st September, 2020 (35 Comments)

Some customers of mobile operator Vodafone UK are reporting that another network outage is currently taking place, which appears to be disrupting both data (mobile broadband) and voice connectivity on their 3G and 4G networks (not enough feedback to say if 5G is affected but that seems likely).