Tag: 4G

New realme 8i – with bang for buck features

Say hello to the latest value offering from realme, the 8i Before I start, let us get the elephant out of the room – This phone is not a flagship killer, bleeding edge, top of the line or revolutionary, nor is it meant to be. What it does …

EE now connecting 94% of all roads

There’s EE 4G now available on more than 322,000 miles of roads in Great Britain. It’s thanks to 160 new EE 4G sites built this year and a general expansion in the coverage. EE have also extended coverage of UK national parks, with more than two thirds of …

Three 5G now available in 154 locations

  There’s now over 800 Three sites beaming out 5G to 154 different locations in the UK, and Three have a distinct advantage with this new technology – a 100MHz block of contiguous 5G spectrum. The result, so far, appears to be the fastest median speeds on the …

Couple save over £500,000 by NOT using wired internet

It’s doubtful that mindsets will change overnight, but getting broadband into your home or business no longer means sticking to a wired provider. With 5G on the horizon, the mobile networks are poised to take a substantial slice of the market – potentially delivering faster speeds in more …

5G …. from a plane!

You may have accidentally left your phone on during a flight and, if you’re a geek like me, you may have spotted that sometimes – for a brief moment – you get a mobile signal. Even 7 miles up, your phone can lock onto the odd network mast …

4G Coverage. Coming to the Moon!

NASA have selected Nokia to setup an actual mobile phone network on the Moon. Key points involve reducing power, size and cost whilst delivering reliable lunar surface communications with high data rates. As part of a potential future sustainable human presence on the Moon, a super-compact, low-power, space-hardened, …

Disney and Vodafone to create a new kids smartwatch

Choosing a smartwatch for your child can be a tricky thing. Sure, you can get them a fitness tracker but, for full peace of mind, you might want them to wear something more. Vodafone and Disney are currently working on something which could appeal to a lot of …

Asda Mobile follow Virgin Mobile in switching to Vodafone

Last year Virgin Mobile announced a switch from EE to Vodafone masts. The virtual network will be moving customers over later next year, and they’re not the only virtual network to do it. Asda Mobile has announced that they will also be moving away from EE masts, and …

Find your local mobile mast – 2020 Update

With 5G masts being thrown up at a rapid rate and concerns over signal or safety, there’s always been a keen interest in where local mobile masts actually are. Back in 2011 we started looking into this, and back then the mobile networks were reporting where all their …

Fancy a contract-free £15 plan with 100GB of monthly data?

That’ll do. More than enough data, eh? Yes, amongst the SIM-only deals on iD Mobile I tripped over a sizeable 100GB 30-day plan which costs a mere £15 monthly. There’s data rollover for unused data, data boost, inclusive roaming, fast 4G and bill capping. The network uses the …

EE delivers The Full Works for iPhones

EE have launched, or perhaps had to launch, a new plan for iPhone customers today. There’s rumours on the street that Apple weren’t too happy about customers having Britbox and Amazon so a new plan has now been created. Either way “The Full Works Plan” for iPhone gets …

Another Shared Rural Network mast goes up.

The Peak District is, without doubt, a beautiful place. However, getting a phone signal in such a scenic and protected area is pretty tricky. However, with to government pushing for mobile networks to work together more, 4G mobile coverage in rural Longnor is now available via Vodafone. As …

New connected laptops coming to EE

It’s certainly been a while since a network got in touch to tell us about a new laptop they’re ranging. EE are taking the Windows-powered Lenovo Yoga C640 4G laptop. It’s the first in a range of connected laptops available on EE and, if you choose one of …

The real Huawei. Behind the scenes of their massive Chinese HQ.

The UK have been bullied and pushed into removing Huawei kit from mobile and data networks. Some call it a deeply political decision, with an American trade deal up for grabs and a massively successful Chinese company holding the number two spot in smartphone sales. The big U-turn …

No new Huawei mobile kit after December 31st. All gone by 2027

In a move that is likely going to cost UK mobile networks (and therefore, their customers) billions, the UK government has today announced that mobile providers will be banned from buying any new Huawei 5G equipment after the end of this year. This will delay the rollout of …

EE to deliver air-to-ground 4G for the emergency services

EE, working with Nokia, have announced the world’s first 4G Air-to-Ground network. The A2G network will support 300,000 emergency service personnel, providing high speed 4G broadband services, with a range from 500 feet up to 10,000 feet above ground. It’ll deliver seamless connectivity between ground operations and air …

Wait, what? 5G caused the coronavirus?

On Monday Ofcom published the results of 5G testing which proved that radiation levels in the UK were at “tiny fractions” of safe limits. However, this testing comes against a backdrop of conspiracy theories, critical stories on click-driven newspaper websites and totally unsubstantiated claims on Facebook. The latter is …

Find your local mobile mast – 2020 Edition

Update – We’ve recently posted an additional update to this story here. Many years ago, mobile networks gave the location of their masts to Ofcom. That was back in 2011 though, and after a bit they ditched it. Mobile companies didn’t have to map the location of masts, …

EE wins Best Network again

Yet again EE have grabbed the top spot in performance as part of the RootMetric’s testing results. The network, now owned by BT, is obviously pretty happy about all, with BT CEO Marc Allera telling us.. We’re continuing to invest in our network to help keep our customers …

Mobvoi’s TicWatch Pro 4G Now available

This is £249.99 and available here. It’s only available in black and measures 45.15 x 52.8 x 12.6. It’s made from polyamide and glass fibre with a stainless-steel bezel and an aluminum back cover. The screen is a 1.39″ AMOLED (400 x 400 px) + FSTN LCD with …

5G Planning consultation ends. Will less red tape mean more masts?

We could very soon see more masts and much higher ones too. It comes as the government ends a consultation into 5G planning restrictions, with proposals including the deployment of radio equipment and strengthening existing masts without approval. It also looks at adding more masts nearer to highways …

Flip off. The Nokia 2720 is back, and now with 4G!

Many moons ago we had a wide variety of phones. There was a big selection in different shapes and sizes. Now, they’re mostly all the same – a big screen and a slate design. However, lately we’re seeing folding phones and, in a way, it’s a nod the …

Better coverage in the country. The Shared Rural Network.

A figure you may not see in many headlines is the fact that just 66% of the UK landmass has 4G coverage from all four mobile operators. With all this talk about 5G, it’s surprising that we’ve not got a higher 4G coverage. Of course, the operative term …

Watch out, mobile connectivity actually IN the Tube coming soon

The oldest underground system in the world has only very recently had WiFi installed. It means that the majority of mobile users can, via their network provider, hook into a free WiFi connection as they travel under London on the Tube. Trouble is, it only works on the …

Three customers now pulling an average of 10GB per month

Admit it, looking at a mobile phone package which delivers 2GB per month is going to give you cold sweats. You know, part-way through the month, that you’re going to be worry about visiting sites or checking anything on the internet because your data is bound to run …

EE responds with unlimited 5G too

When EE launched their 5G plans we noticed that the example 5G plans were £10 more expensive than the same 4G ones. After a bit of digging, there were bigger disparities, so we had to question – why? It’s something that Three couldn’t understand either, and they announced …

Honor 20 Pro – First Impressions

Now, normally this is where I would be talking about the unboxing of a new phone and would introduce you to video where I do just that. However, in the case of this phone, I’ll be doing something more. The reason is quite simple. It has been done …

EE named as best mobile provider 2019

Rootmetrics, a US based company founded back in 2008, has one sole purpose – to provide mobile network performance information. Today they have published the results for 2019 testing of the UK networks. By using a batch of store-purchased Samsung Galaxy S9  smartphones, the testing itself was conducted …

Samsung Galaxy Watch Active2 announced

  I’ve still not really got “into” smart watches, but the new Galaxy Watch Active2 could well change my mind. For a start, it’s a very sexy looking thing and, whats more, it’ll do 4G connectivity too. There’s also two sizes – a 44mm and 40mm diameter watch, …

A PROPER real-world 5G test

Whenever I look for 5G speed test, there’s usually YouTube videos showing blistering speeds. That’s expected, right? Well, yes. But I wanted to do some proper tests. How to do that? Well, first of all I’m not going to sit right next to a 5G mast. I’m also …

Vodafone 5G Roaming goes live, and it’s the same price as 4G

There’s 55 cities and towns across Europe where you can now get Vodafone 5G roaming. That’s more than any other network. So, if you’re off on your holiday and you have a Samsung Galaxy S10 5G or the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3, you can roam for no extra …

O2 announce 5G launch plans

The network that runs giffgaff, Sky Mobile and Tesco Mobile is to start rolling out 5G in October. As with the other 5G UK networks, they’ll be concentrating on areas that need the speed boost the most, with key areas of Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, London, Slough and Leeds …

Vodafone UK launches the 5G GigaCube

Imagine if you found a home broadband provider who could offer you super-fast internet speeds for £30. Sounds good? For that you get 100GB of data to use and there’s no line rental or TV and calls package. No engineer, no waiting. This, then, is what Vodafone have …

The big Vodafone announcement. Limits are history, baby!

With all these 5G launches happening, it’s easy for things to get lost in the fog somewhat. However, what Vodafone announced recently is really rather interesting. Instead of offering yet more packages with present limits, they’ve instead announced packages which let you grab as much data as you …

Samsung Galaxy Watch 4G now on Vodafone

For a mere £22 per month you can now take calls, receive messages, take some calls, listen to music and get notifications – even without your phone – on a watch. The Galaxy Watch 4G is now available on Vodafone UK and it’ll use the very same data …

Three 5G testing under way. Cloud network in place.

Wait though, because it’s not all about 5G. Three are also boosting their 4G, with 3G spectrum now being refarmed for 4G. They’re upgrading the 4G antenna masts on thousands of sites, with Croydon recently seeing new antennas and a reallocation of 10MHz of 3G spectrum (leaving 5Mhz …

Compared – 4G vs 5G

There’s no doubt about it, 5G is going to make an amazing difference to your data speeds. The throughput is astonishing and we’ve seen examples of entire movies being downloaded in seconds. There is, though, two very important changes that 5G will cause. The first, rather obviously, is …