Chris

At the risk of sounding like a fanboy, there’s a reason I’ve always been with Orange/EE. Generally speaking they have better coverage in more places. They’re not the cheapest but you get what you pay for, and in a marginal signal area (as is my home location) it makes all the difference.

I now have 4g internet up and running at home with EE; it’s an unlimited data plan sold for phones, not modems (but a handy competition ruling means they can’t stop you putting your phone SIM in a modem if you want to). As a second number on my account, it is £37 a month (though I managed to get them to discount it to £25 for 18 months because their app mis-sold me a rate that was no longer available). I get great signal, and around 80mb down and 10mb up. Once I’ve installed my external aerial I expect that to improve further. That may seem like small beer to you lot on VM, but most non cabled streets relying on Openreach FTTC would fare little better.

Meanwhile, half a mile from here my neighbour got his 4g internet from Vodaphone. He pays less than me, but his speeds are utter crap, barely better than the ADSL line. There isn’t a Vodafone mast anywhere near here, as he’d have discovered if he’d done what I did before committing to purchase and spent a few minutes researching it. Cellmapper reveals that EE has a whole network of masts in the area providing good coverage despite the difficult highland terrain. Its user-submitted signal data shows where it works and where the black spots are, with an accuracy down to just metres in places. The other networks pretty much give up as soon as you leave the population centres.

Truly, you get what you pay for.