Leading mobile broadband operator Vodafone has today announced a massive upgrade of the company’s telephone network which will in theory see mobile broadband speeds of up to 14.4 Mb per second available in the future. On paper this sounds an excellent proposition for the company’s mobile broadband subscribers especially when compared to T Mobile, which offers speeds up to 4.5 Mb per second with O2, 3 and Orange even further behind at 3.6 Mb per second. However, all is not as straightforward as it may seem!
While the theoretical upgrade to 14.4 Mb per second is an excellent move, in practice the vast majority of Vodafone mobile broadband customers will still receive speeds in the region of 1 Mb per second up to 5 Mb per second although some of the luckier subscribers may touch speeds approaching 11 Mb per second. The reason for this differential between the maximum speed and achievable speeds is centred round how far customers are from the nearest base station and how many people are on the network at the same time.
Even if speeds of over 14 Mb per second are not achievable in the short to medium term there are hopes that at worst the network should become more reliable which will hopefully attract more mobile broadband customers to Vodafone.