Midband speedtest Megaathread

editorsean

Vodafone 4G in Ballybofey, Linear & Multithreaded at about 5pm:



HTTPS traffic on their network seems to have higher priority as it consistently gives several Mb higher, whereas Meteor always gave me the same between HTTP and HTTPS based tests. Linear test (TestMy doesn't support multithreaded over HTTPS):



Three for comparison about the same time, linear & multithreaded:



I must try a HTTPS test again on Three. Up until a few months ago, HTTPS traffic was about 10x faster than HTTP traffic (like 1Mbps vs 10Mbps) and then whatever they tweaked (around the time the Three forum got flooded with bad speed complaints), their HTTPS throughput fell down to that of HTTP. Before that happened, a simple workaround to get a fast connection was to establish an OpenVPN based VPN connection (e.g. HMA) which pipes everything over HTTPS and web pages loaded up a heck of a lot quicker on the phone. I'm not sure what protocol/port Ookla's speedtest.net uses as its test results were like the HTTPS test results I got on TestMy.

jay93

Just a quick test on Three 3G from a modem I had I bought €5 credit to get a small Internet bundle to see if they improved and so far it's looking ok still wouldn't switch my phone from Vodafone since I get 4G everywhere with them.

jay93

Just done a test on 4G on my phone there I'm inside and have 2 bars of signal at home

jay93

Another one from Three pretty much says it all in the test...

jay93

Now it's fine again.

editorsean

On Monday just before I left work at 5pm, I did two speed tests on Three in Ballybofey, one over HTTP and the second over HTTPS:



Vodafone seems to also throttle HTTP to some extent. By the time about 10MB is downloaded, the speed drops off to some extent, but still a heck of a lot faster than Three. The following HTTP and HTTPS tests were run about the same time today on Vodafone 4G, but just outside Dunkineely on my way home while travelling with someone.



It's worth noting that Ookla's Speedtest runs all its tests over port 8080 unless the port is blocked by a firewall. For comparison, HTTP and HTTPS traffic are carried over ports 80 and 443, respectively.

ED E

ED E wrote: »

Move to northern europe lads.

New record today. I think I'm hitting the limit of the 801, need to nuy an 810 based phone.

jay93

ED E wrote: »

New record today. I think I'm hitting the limit of the 801, need to nuy an 810 based phone.

Nice which carrier are you with?

jay93

Full bars 4G in my town I'm closer to the mast so it's better than it would be in my house where I only get 2-3 bars.



Vodafone are operating on band 20 LTE here.

jay93

Some band 3 LTE testing in drogheda. My area only has band 20 LTE.

jay93

Scruff

same sh1t happening on my meteor 4g again: Signal quality increases from 1 to 3 bars but speed go down the toilet :mad:
dl hit the floor, upload increased by x3


Had to force usb dongle to go to 3G to get better speeds. ffs!


Must get a Vodafone PAYG sim to check 4g in my area. if i can get near Jay93's speeds i might have to swallow the x2.5 price difference to my meteor package..

jay93

Currently in the USA for a few months did a speed test yesterday on T-Mobile USA which will be my carrier Til I come back to Ireland. This is the current speeds I get some areas are slower.



This was taken on full bars of LTE / 4G

jay93

Scruff wrote: »

same sh1t happening on my meteor 4g again: Signal quality increases from 1 to 3 bars but speed go down the toilet :mad:
dl hit the floor, upload increased by x3


Had to force usb dongle to go to 3G to get better speeds. ffs!


Must get a Vodafone PAYG sim to check 4g in my area. if i can get near Jay93's speeds i might have to swallow the x2.5 price difference to my meteor package..

You could test out Vodafone to see how their service is. In my experience with them they have the best 4G coverage and speeds around the country

funnyname

I can get a 4g signal from Vodafone on my phone but only when I'm hanging out the window.

I bought the following to test on a payg data sim I also got from Vodafone.

Huawei Unlocked E3372 LTE/4G 150 Mbps USB Dongle - Black

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B011BRKPLE?

Nedis Valueline 3m USB 3.0 A Male to USB A Female Flat Extension Cable

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00DC2MI7G?

The flat usb cable is so that I can hang the dongle outside a velux window and still close it.

However when I ran speedtest I got the following results and when I check the dongle connection, it was only ever saying it was connected to UMTS or HSPA+



But when I hung out the window with the dongle attached directly to the laptop I got the following speeds



Is there anything I can do to get these speeds all the time with the dongle outside and connected via a lead?

Regards

FN

Ten Pin

funnyname wrote: »

Is there anything I can do to get these speeds all the time with the dongle outside and connected via a lead?

Regards

FN

Try an active / repeater USB extension cable. Signal over USB depends on length of cable and passive cables max out at 5m. So you're probably losing some speed (signal) at 3m of cable. Active USB cables aren't cheap though and flat ones will cost more, if they're even available.

funnyname

I tried an ordinary USB extension lead and it worked fine, window also closed so it's a bit dumb that I worked out for the flat lead first. All OK in the end tho.

pizzahead77

100 Mb/sec down on Three's 4G+

Heraldoffreeent

pizzahead77 wrote: »

100 Mb/sec down on Three's 4G+

Hi Pizzahead, where in Dublin is that?

jay93

pizzahead77 wrote: »

100 Mb/sec down on Three's 4G+

That's quite impressive for Three pitty they don't just make their regular 4G more widespread and keep the speeds up on that first though

jay93

T-Mobile USA operating on band 4 LTE 20MHz

warlikedave

pizzahead77 wrote: »

100 Mb/sec down on Three's 4G+

Very nice - may I ask what you mean by 4g+ rather than 4g may I ask?

jay93

Three have started rolling out 4G+ just like Vodafone have a few months before them. It's got a speed of up to 225Mb/s on Three. I'm not sure how they achieve this it's possibly carrier aggregation (combining two or more LTE bands together)

ED E

jay93 wrote: »

Three have started rolling out 4G+ just like Vodafone have a few months before them. It's got a speed of up to 225Mb/s on Three. I'm not sure how they achieve this it's possibly carrier aggregation (combining two or more LTE bands together)

LTE CAT4 gives you 150Mbps, once you bump up to CAT5 then you get a 300Mb cap so if the tower is really quiet hitting 225 isn't impossible.

warlikedave

That is excellent news indeed, didnt realise they have started rolling out cat 4 already. Thought vodafone were the only ones with a cat 4 network in ireland. Am getting 30 to 40 on a b593-s22 at the moment with a three sim - that is a cat 3 router: wonder if getting a cat 4 router will be worth it?

Are three experimenting with cat 5 as well may I ask?

-=al=-

Any word with Meteor upgrading their service?

Also, I persume 4G+ doesn't work on the b593-s22, right?

jay93

ED E wrote: »

LTE CAT4 gives you 150Mbps, once you bump up to CAT5 then you get a 300Mb cap so if the tower is really quiet hitting 225 isn't impossible.

Thanks yeah I was thinking they would be using CAT5 for their "4G+"

jay93

-=al=- wrote: »

Any word with Meteor upgrading their service?

Also, I persume 4G+ doesn't work on the b593-s22, right?

Haven't heard anything about meteor yet three may be launching faster LTE networks but their LTE footprint is way smaller than Meteors. The b593 is only LTE CAT 4 which is up to 150Mb/s downlink so it wouldn't support CAT 5 "4G+"

warlikedave

jay93 wrote: »

Haven't heard anything about meteor yet three may be launching faster LTE networks but their LTE footprint is way smaller than Meteors. The b593 is only LTE CAT 4 which is up to 150Mb/s downlink so it wouldn't support CAT 5 "4G+"

Are three selling a cat 4 or cat 5 router may I ask?

jay93

T-Mobile USA in Southfield Michigan never got a result as high as this in Ireland on Vodafone but the LTE band used in this area gives higher bandwidth than it would where I live in Ireland.