4G on my mobile. Any use?

mickledore

mickledore

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For reasons unknown to man O2 have today decided to upgrade my 3G mobile to a 4G service. Totally free of charge, or so they say.
What are the benefits? It's unlike a telecoms company to be giving anything away for free, so what's the catch? I don't have the option to revert to 3G.
Will this be of any benefit to me, or ultimately just cost me more money?
 
It will just give you a faster data service, when 4G isn't available it will roll back to 3G.
 
4G is faster. Most internet users want faster internet so by putting you on to a 4G service O2 will be hoping to retain you as a customer.

Although from their point of view, 4G is also more expensive so although it may not be costing you more at the moment when you come to renew your contract they'll be offering you a new 4G contract at an inflated price.

Also be careful how much data you use. With much faster download speeds it's much easier to use up all your free data limit and run up a bill by using extra data.
 
Although from their point of view, 4G is also more expensive so although it may not be costing you more at the moment when you come to renew your contract they'll be offering you a new 4G contract at an inflated price.
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My contract runs out in early January. Thought they might be playing dirty tricks with me.
I do try and look for wifi hotspots whenever possible, so long as it's not the Sky "Give me your e-mail address and I'll bombard you with spam" service that's in most pubs. Makes going to Costa coffee almost worthwhile!
 
This is what I get with O2 4G service in Edinburgh - super fast data service!

minor downsides are slight increase in battery usage but not much and the ability to rip through data allowance quicker because i now stream content to my phone
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Speed, you get more speed, and as we all know speed is good, when it comes to the internet.

On my 4g phone I can turn the 4g off if I ever felt the need, but hey, why on earth would I do that, give me the speeeed :D:D
 
When I renewed my contract with EE in September they upgraded it to 4G and I got a cheaper contract with more benefits.
Sadly I can't get 4G at home but then I rarely use the phone web allowance anyway
 
Most people moan that there data isn't fast enough. Some moan when they get a free speed boost it would seem.
 
4G is scary fast I am working away in Erskine and have the EE mobile MIFI jobby with the 30gb a month contract and as a test a few months ago near the end of my month i had bags left so i did a hooj 4gb download over it and it took 14 minutes....
 
speeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed!

4g on 3 just got turned on near the stable.... its faster piglet on wiz :)
 
A poor attempt at an outrage thread IMHO. Your network gets modernised (well behind the USA, Asia and most of EU) and you try moaning about it the wrong way round. You'll get faster service and pay the same - what is the problem?
 
I live in Cornwall, occasionally I get 3G but it's a good job I don't have to rely on it. 4G is a temptation of the Devil that doesn't really exist, well, not here.
 
Ricardodaforce said:
Most people moan that there data isn't fast enough. Some moan when they get a free speed boost it would seem.
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daugirdas said:
A poor attempt at an outrage thread IMHO. Your network gets modernised (well behind the USA, Asia and most of EU) and you try moaning about it the wrong way round. You'll get faster service and pay the same - what is the problem?
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All I read is the OP trying to make sure that they are informed on what the change means - and asking for people's real world experiences on the upgrade.

For what it's worth, your phone will almost certainly have an option to only use 3G if you so wish, but 4G is wonderful. In London (on EE), my 4G is significantly faster than my wired broadband connection - I've hit 50mbps+. The latency also seems to be significantly lower, and I get the impression that battery life has actually improved over using 3G (this is likely to be more phone specific, area specific and user specific though).

Even for only sporadic users of internet connected services, it offers an impressive improvement over 3G.
 
The biggest benefit with 4G is actually to the airtime providers not to the user. They can get faster throughput allowing them to better server data. I'm with 3 and have an excellent 4G service (40Mb plus) but I could always stream any video etc that I wanted just as well on 3G+ so I don't really see much difference. It amazes me that some providers (not 3 thankfully) charge extra for 4G in light of who benefits. Coverage is far more important than speed for many users.
 
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my last O2 contract was £27 a month for unlimited texts and 750mb of data. My new contract (which includes 4G) is £38 month which includes unlimited texts and 5 or 6gb of data.
I presume the the additional £11 covers the extra data and probably some hidden 4G charge but ultimately it fits in with what I am prepared to pay and it gave me a current handset so its a win all round for me.

Incidentally since gaining 4G I have never defaulted to 3G outwith natural step down due to reduced coverage. Outwith the house I have 4G on constantly.
 
All I read is the OP trying to make sure that they are informed on what the change means - and asking for people's real world experiences on the upgrade.
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Yep. Sorry to cause everyone so much angst.
 
mickledore said:
My contract runs out in early January. Thought they might be playing dirty tricks with me.
I do try and look for wifi hotspots whenever possible, so long as it's not the Sky "Give me your e-mail address and I'll bombard you with spam" service that's in most pubs. Makes going to Costa coffee almost worthwhile!
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You download the free sky wifi app, install the new wifi profile, and never have to manually log in or give your email address.
 
-Rob- said:
4G is faster. Most internet users want faster internet so by putting you on to a 4G service O2 will be hoping to retain you as a customer.

Although from their point of view, 4G is also more expensive so although it may not be costing you more at the moment when you come to renew your contract they'll be offering you a new 4G contract at an inflated price.
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It's actually cheaper and more efficient for the network to supply data over 4G when compared to 3G, so it's in their interests to get people over onto 4G. This is even more true for O2 as their 3G network is quite poor (and hasn't seen the level of investment for upgrades it's needed for many years) when compared to competitors like Three and EE.
 
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