Cardiff Among Worst For 3G Coverage
Have you ever wandered around Cardiff, then having that urge just to tweet something hilarious that you've just seen that you needed to share with your friends, only to be filled with the waters of frustration due to how slow your connection is?
Well, you are not alone. In a recent study compiled by the broadband comparison website Top10.com, Cardiff is among the top ten for the slowest 3G connection in the UK. That said, there is no real statistics for the rest of Wales.
In the analysis, thousands of 3G speed tests were conducted by users of the iPhone-only application Streetstats, so all tests were carried out on the handsets created by Apple.
Milton Keynes tops the list of slowest towns for 3G, with only 1.73Mbps (or megabits per second) for its average speed. Meaning that, with an average speed of 1.73Mbps, it would take ten seconds to load this page, or over two minutes to download an application.
Behind Leicester and Huddersfield (with speeds of 2.01Mbps and 2.17Mbps respectively), Cardiff is named the fourth slowest town in the study, with an average speeds of 2.18Mbps. The full list can be seen below.
On the opposite end of the stick, Peterborough leads the fastest 3G connection league with 3.6Mbps, with Carlisle (3.5Mbps), Eastbourne (3.47Mbps) and Stoke (3.35Mbps) behind it. Other towns that have fast speeds include Dundee, Brighton, Derby and Reading, with all towns having an average speed of over 3Mbps.
Director of Top10.com, Alex Buttle, has said "There's clearly a disparity when it comes to 3G connectivity across the UK. Despite efforts by the government and mobile operators to increase the speed of 3G services, there is evidently still a long way to go."
That said, some coverage may have been improved since this survey due to O2 recently beginning to use portions of the radio spectrum to add extra 3G capacity. It is also expected that Vodafone will also switch over parts of the 900MHz range.
An auction, conducted by the government, will be held next year to sell off further radio spectrum to allow mobile operators to introduce faster 4G services. But before that, Ofcom will release its own study of mobile broadband coverage later this month.
The Ten Slowest Towns for 3G
1. Milton Keynes - 1.73Mbps
2. Leicester - 2.01Mbps
3. Huddersfield - 2.17Mbps
4. Cardiff - 2.18Mbps
5. Liverpool - 2.21Mbps
6. Blackburn - 2.23Mbps
7. Stevenage - 2.23Mbps
8. Hull - 2.35Mbps
9. Stafford - 2.37Mbps
10. Birmingham - 2.43Mbps
Source - BBC Technology News
2 Comments – Post a comment
SirClucky
Commented 22 months ago - 2nd August 2011 - 15:12pm
vERY INTERESTING INDEED! Marshmallows! "Clic!"
Even Dundee has faster than Cardiff? The Valleys are clearly blocking signals .. and that's why aliens can't leave voicemails with us.
It's a Vodafone conspiracy!
You go o2!! x
Tansi
Commented 21 months ago - 3rd August 2011 - 10:52am
Ah this is a great article. I really enjoyed reading this. It's nice to learn something new when you wake up in the morning.
Keep up the good work :)