Not got 4G? There's a reason we aren't called 'Four', sniffs Three

"In fact, it thinks 3G connectivity is not all that different from 4G."

I am on three atm and tbh im getting 20mb/s connection... I speed tested someones EE connection at work and they got 30mb/s.

I don't see the benefits of an extra 10mb/s bandwidth on a phone... Granted though it could help three more if they upped to 4G because they allow tethering, Which would benefit though's who use their phones for their laptops internet gateway. I would concentrate more on stronger signals tbh.

Tethered to Three in rurual Warwickshire...

... getting 6Mb/s down, 1.5 up with a latency of 80ms. Bandwidth better than my Sky Broadband, latency only 10-15ms worse. Using around 8GB/mo and paying 15GBP for it PAYG.

I'm certainly not going to leave Three to get 4G!

I'm with 3 myself

And I can honestly say I've never had a problem with them. Unless I'm in rural Cambridgeshire, and then they suck worse than a busted Dyson.

I use three and love them - their sale's line is crap but then most others are as well. I also get better bandwidth on my phone and tethered than my broadband (Sky).Coverage is also excellent...I've used Vodafone, o2 && EE and going from Exeter to Paddington Three blows the others away!!!

I'm a very happy 3 customer. 3G speeds are amazing and more than enough for mobile use. My average is 13 Mbps download & just over 2 MBps upload, which is excellent.

I'll echo the comments above...

I'm a contract Vodafone punter; their 3G service is patchy at best - I hardly have a 3G signal where I live in south London, and going through Newbury, where their headquarters are, is often an exercise in aggravation. I'll grant that their 2G signals are better, but when you pay for the extra bandwidth to get a gig a month, you do tend to expect better. 3, on the other hand, have been outstanding. I use one of their PAYG dongles on my notebook, and like those above, they've never let me down.

As to 4G, given that most reviews of 4G-capable phones state that there's a massive problem with the battery consumption of those devices, why on Earth would I want a device that needs charging every six to twelve hours? The added connection speed that 4G seems to offer - coupled with the limited number of areas that it's being set up in - just doesn't seem to make the added battery aggravation seem worth it, frankly.

My Vodafone contact expires in seven or eight months time; it's therefore quite obvious who'll be getting my business at that time.

zoom zoom

i just did a test with speedtest on my sony xperia z currently on O2s HSDPA+ network - got 13.3mb download and 2.2mb upload! That's twice as bloody fast as my fixed broadband connection at home...which quite frankly, annoys me a little bit.

We've had 4g for a while stateside. I'm no huge advocate for it but in theory there are two advantages, lower latency (although this may not be an issue for people) and the fact you can fit more data in the same spectrum in the long term so there i potential for either lower costs or higher allowances for the same cost.

The reality is probably nowhere near that, many won't notice the latency and providers are unlikely to pass on much benefit because they are recouping the rollout cost, so 3g probably does look good right now. That will probably change in the future. 3g looked pretty naff compared to 2.5g edge when it rolled out. Yay sucky battery life and expensive videocalling (but now its on an iphone its cool!) etc.

What matters to virtually anyone is the actual achieved speed and coverage - not what it's called - i.e. LTE or HSPA+ etc. I'd rather have a high speed 3G signal 'most' places than a patchy LTE signal - I have a EE LTE MiFi and an equivalent DC-HSPA one with a Three SIM and another with Vodafone - quite often see similar speeds from each (certainly up around 20mbit/s) - although the EE one usually gets higher upload speeds.

Difference is the Three one gives up to 15Gb/mo for £15.99 whereas the deal I have with EE gives 5Gb/mo for that cost.

why would you need retentions, no need to leave.

"The network also claimed 900,000 net additions in users last year, while contract churn fell from 1.7 per cent in 2011 to 1.5 per cent in 2012. All of which is hard to imagine if you've ever hard to deal with its ironically named "retentions department". Ahem."

Although if you've used it's vastly superior network for data (which is all I care about) you'd have zero reason to call retentions - they retain customers like me by providing really really good 3G service. I've zero interest in 4G right now - coverage is patchy, the only provider out there sucks bad, and actually I find 12-15 meg download speeds and 2-4 meg up off my mobile perfectly decent.

Oversold & Overhyped

I think 4G or LtE or whatever, is just being oversold, both by the Goverment and Operators alike to shaft the consumers in the end.

Ridiculous pricng and overhyped speed. Like someone said, Whats the point if you are gonna use up your data at 3 or 50 times the speed? IS it so much use in the real world?

Doubt it.