Thanks to those of you that responded to my request for help, I’m ready to declare some findings!  I would state right now, I’m sure this is far from a totally fair test.  I would have to travel round the UK, placing each providers SIM into my phone and testing them all in the exact same location, same conditions and at the same time for it to be totally fair.  This isn’t possible though, so hopefully I have enough results to make some decent conclusions.

I will keep adding to the maps, so please continue to submit your results, hopefully we can help others looking for information on network speeds.  Lets get on with the results.

Orange

My current provider and inspiration for this testing.  Many of the results submitted are my own from around London.

Ave Download: 1.11Mbps
Ave Upload: 0.28Mbps
Ave Ping: 217
Down – % above 3Mbps: 0%
Down – % above 1Mbps: 63%
Upload – % above 1Mbps: 0%
Ping – % below 100: 13%

Without doubt, the poorest results of all providers.  I would add to that, around 5-6% of the time I was testing, I couldn’t even connect to test!

The red numbers signify they are the lowest of the testing group.  If there had been any highest, they would be green.

Vodafone

Results started slowely, but Vodafone ended up the most submitted.

Ave Download: 1.66Mbps
Ave Upload: 1.19Mbps
Ave Ping: 204
Down – % above 3Mbps: 18%
Down – % above 1Mbps: 53%
Upload – % above 1Mbps: 53%
Ping – % below 100: 13%

I was surprised here as I thought Vodafone had won something previously to do with data speeds a couple of years back, but they seemed rather inconsistent in our results.  Some great speeds, Vodafone clocking a 7.03Mbps download in one result from Chesterfield and a 3.51 up near Plymouth.  At the same time, their downloads only peaked over 1Mps 53% of the time, worse even than Orange!

Three

The pre-testing favourite by many. I got a Three SIM to do some testing myself.

Ave Download: 2.86Mbps
Ave Upload: 1.17Mbps
Ave Ping: 113
Down – % above 3Mbps: 38%
Down – % above 1Mbps: 83%
Upload – % above 1Mbps: 63%
Ping – % below 100: 42%

Threes results speak for themselves.  Over a third of the time you will have greater than 3Mbps download and almost two thirds of the time, over 1Mpbs upload!  Add to this, close to half the time, the results showed a ping below 100 and these numbers just can’t be matched.  You could argue the upload figures are flattered by one solitary monster 3.86Mbps upload from Stevenage, almost twice as much as all the other results on Three, but even then, the average stays over 1Mbps.

Now the problem, there are many reports of poor customer service from Three and possibly even worse for us, at present it has huge issues with not being able to connect to Google services.  Google.com, Gmail (app or website), Google Talk, Google Plus and more are all rendered useless on my device at the moment, Three just doesn’t let me connect.  They have acknowledged an issue, so hopefully they’ll get it fixed soon.

GiffGaff

Many people still haven’t heard of GiffGaff, using the O2 network and low price PAYG SIM’s, they’re a dark horse in this race.

Ave Download: 2.46Mbps
Ave Upload: 0.96Mbps
Ave Ping: 133
Down – % above 3Mbps: 26%
Down – % above 1Mbps: 84%
Upload – % above 1Mbps: 63%
Ping – % below 100: 42%

I got myself a GiffGaff SIM for testing and they seemed very consistent, beating even Three for percentage of tests over 1Mpbs at 84%.  You could argue this is the most important figure of all.  Generally you’re just browsing and checking mails, if you can be sure you’re going to have a connection over 1Mbps, not much more is need, right?

O2

Hosting the GiffGaff network, I wasn’t even sure if I should measure these separately… but I have, so here you go!

Ave Download: 2.35Mbps
Ave Upload: 0.77Mbps
Ave Ping: 165
Down – % above 3Mbps: 33%
Down – % above 1Mbps: 80%
Upload – % above 1Mbps: 40%
Ping – % below 100: 40%

As expected, the results are similar to GiffGaff, but not quite as good.  Maybe to do with more people using O2?  The download reliablity seems very good, but upload speeds not really matching Three and GiffGaff.  If you don’t think that matters, try uploading a video to YouTube and see how your web browsing suffers!

T-Mobile

At time of writing, I only have 7 test results, so the averages may not be all that reliable.

Ave Download: 1.28Mbps
Ave Upload: 0.39Mbps
Ave Ping: 133
Down – % above 3Mbps: 0%
Down – % above 1Mbps: 71%
Upload – % above 1Mbps: 0%
Ping – % below 100: 29%

Many people seem to think the merger of Orange and T-Mobile is all done and everyone’s using the same network.  No, no we aren’t.  The only time you will swap over to the other network is if you’re forced down to a 2G connection.  3G networks are still very much separate, which is odd considering how bad they both are, to a similarly poor level.

Conclusion

For a few years now, I’ve always searched around for the fastest and most reliable home broadband, as it’s a very important part of my life.  Over the past two or three years, mobile data connectivity has moved up in importance too and it actually surprises me that I’ve not done this investigation before now.  It took some really bad experiences with Orange’s connectivity to make me get out there and look.

So, how do they rank?  Based on results only, from worse to best, here is how I think it looks -

Orange & T-Mobile – I don’t think I can ever recommend them again.

Vodafone – have some improving to do in consistency

O2 & GiffGaff – decent results

Three – their speeds, both up and down, simply cannot be matched.

So, which would I recommend?  GiffGaff.  There are just too many horror stories floating around about Three’s customer service.  I contacted them via e-mail once and Twitter twice and didn’t get any kind of response.  The fact you can’t connect to Google is huge. I want to be able to use them, but this is a deal breaker.  I have a month of unlimited data for £15, if this runs out and they haven’t fixed it, I will be using GiffGaff.

**Update** On the day of writing this article, they did finally call me and to his credit, the chappie sounded like he really wanted to help.  In fact, twice he said he would check some things and call back… and he actually did!  Also, the Google issue would appear to now be resolved, after 3 or 4 days of the issue, so not too bad.

GiffGaff have a very active community and they will apparently reward you for participation by giving you credit on your SIM.  Along with this, you can get £5 for every person you refer to try a SIM, and free GiffGaff to GiffGaff calls, making the £10 a month for unlimited data even more appealing!

So, if you’d like to try GiffGaff, even if it’s just to do some speed testing in your area, you can use this link to get us both £5 of credit.

Having said this, if Three can fix their Google issue, I will likely roll the dice on them simply because I like to know I’m on the fastest connection and don’t mind paying a little more for it.  I will probably keep the GiffGaff SIM though, in case things go pear shaped!