Mobile internet speed vs. Landline; is the advertised difference allowed?


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I recently had a discussion with my mobile provider on their download speeds; they're advertising with 14.4MB down but the effective download speeds - also according to speediests - is around 5 MB on 3G.

When I do a speedtest with my landline ISP (150 MB down) I get a 150 MB down effectively.

So, why is there - apparantly - a difference in speeds on mobile and landline? And why are mobile operators allowed to advertise with speeds they cannot accomplish?

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In both cases it's up to the max speed.

However mobile companies advertise with 14.4 MB (and deliver around 5 MB), whereas regular ISPs advertise the max speed and deliver the max speed.

I think mobile companies are in a way misleading on this... why not advertise with 5 MB down and deliver it?

Or will th?t not be sold to the customer for - practically - the same prices as ISPs do? But with the difference that landline ISP deliver 10 times the speed, based on 14.4, in case of 5 MB it's even 30 times.....

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In both cases it's up to the max speed.

However mobile companies advertise with 14.4 MB (and deliver around 5 MB), whereas regular ISPs advertise the max speed and deliver the max speed.

 

 

As Nashy said,

 

Don't they usually advertise "speeds up-to *insert speed here*"

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In both cases it's up to the max speed.

However mobile companies advertise with 14.4 MB (and deliver around 5 MB), whereas regular ISPs advertise the max speed and deliver the max speed.

I think mobile companies are in a way misleading on this... why not advertise with 5 MB down and deliver it?

Or will th?t not be sold to the customer for - practically - the same prices as ISPs do? But with the difference that landline ISP deliver 10 times the speed, based on 14.4, in case of 5 MB it's even 30 times.....

 

As you've said, it's up to a certain speed, and then in the fine print they outline why you may not gain the maximum speed.

Comparing mobiles and and land based connections is not really the way to go, they are both completely different, however, issues causing slower speeds in some instances can be crossed over:

- Congestion is the biggest issue with both.  The more people, the less speed.

- If you're talking phone lines (DialUp and ADSL), the copper in the ground plays a very, very large part.

Given you're saying 150MB, I assume you're talking about a cable connection, using fibre.  Fibre is very, very good with bandwidth, so it's very easy to say, you WILL get this speed.  Usually you will find with fibre connections, you will get faster than the advertised speed, because they factor issues that maybe faced in your area into the speed.

But as I said first up.  Stating "Up to" is what your line is set up to be capable of, be that via the ISP throttling the connection, or the technology available in your area.

With mobiles it is very hard to give an exact speed.  Because 10M to your left maybe slower than 10M to your right, depending on the coverage available, the other users in the area, buildings around you, buildings you're in, what the building is made of, the weather on the day, how far the towers are from you etc. etc.

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Contention? Environmental factors? Just because a speedtest doesn't show you what you "should be" getting doesn't mean your not. What about the hops between your network and the speed test servers. Signal strength on 3G? Its best effort at the best of times. Saying that I get good speeds on my 3g mobile already.

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