EE Data usage

[George Kennedy]

Evening all, I'd like to canvass opinion on EE data usage. For the last five years we have used 3 to provide us with our on board mobile broadband. We have the 15GB monthly contract for £15.98 and it has served us very well since we use an average of 300MB of data per day for email and internet. We might occasionally use YouTube but don't use it for tv or films. Our only complaint is that where we keep our boat, the connection speed is relatively slow, no more than 1Mbps. Checking the coverage map for EE showed that there should be a 4g signal in the area so I ordered a free sim to try it out. I had to top up the sim with £10 to get 1GB of data but once that was done, the result was astounding, speeds as high as 28 Mbps, almost as high as our home broadband connection!

Unfortunately, our 1GB of data allowance lasted only five hours even though we didn't do anything different in our usage. All of the equipment is unchanged so I don't understand why the data use should be more than treble, it may be faster but the total amount required to load a web page is going to be the same regardless of the speed.

A 15GB per month contract with EE is £20 per month which is more expensive than 3 but still acceptable given the speed and coverage however at the apparent rate of use we would need the 50GB per month package at £50 and that is definitely not acceptable.

Does anyone else have a similar experience with EE?

The set up that we have is a TP-LINK wireless router with a USB ZTE 4G modem with an external antenna.

[Keeping Up]

We're fairly light users but started using EE PAYG sims a couple of years ago. The amount of usage seems to be very similar to the awful Vodafone service we had before, just a lot faster, so we find we get through about 1.5 GB per month.

[MoominPapa]

I have the EE 15G-per-month service. Data usage as reported by EE seems to tally pretty much exactly with the data usage recorded

by the 3G dongle I'm using.

 

 

MP.

[Paul C]

You didn't do a bunch of Windows updates or Google Drive (or similar cloud storage) synchronisation did you?

[Jo_]

Doing the speed tests themselves is a data heavy activity! I'm not being daft, it really is. And when the speed is a high as an elephant's eye (which is can be with EE - it's 38mbs down and 42mbs up at a bridge where we often moor!) it's tempting to keep doing them just because it's so amazing!

[AjW]

Hiya,I've just taken out the EE contract, so can't comment on data use, I'll check later. If you order through Broadband Genie you can get the Osprey WiFi router and 15GB contract for £15/month.

[Ssscrudddy]

Doing the speed tests themselves is a data heavy activity! I'm not being daft, it really is. And when the speed is a high as an elephant's eye (which is can be with EE - it's 38mbs down and 42mbs up at a bridge where we often moor!) it's tempting to keep doing them just because it's so amazing!

 

I concur with this ^^. It seems the higher the speed the more data they use to test that speed.

Edited April 27, 2015 by Ssscrudddy

[Jo_]

Hiya,I've just taken out the EE contract, so can't comment on data use, I'll check later. If you order through Broadband Genie you can get the Osprey WiFi router and 15GB contract for £15/month.

 

You can also get the Osprey and 6Gb which lasts for 90 days for £49.99 (online from EE) on PAYG for those who aren't using mobile broadband all the time

[Ssscrudddy]

 

You can also get the Osprey and 6Gb which lasts for 90 days for £49.99 (online from EE) on PAYG for those who aren't using mobile broadband all the time

People have complained of poor connectivity with this device, ie in a strong signal are but the device cant acquire the signal. Also security issue, where pressing a button displays the password, so anyone can pick it up & use it.

[Lady Muck]

We've got an older Huawei dongle from when EE first introduced 4g - we do burn through data - but that's our jobs plus a 4g connection for you, currently using about 80gb a month.

 

The only comment I'd make is three throttle the internet connection so much, some things on websites didn't load properly, perhaps now on unthrottled 4g connection this isn't a problem anymore and therefore your data use has gone up? We couldn't use three for work, it was too slow, my partner couldn't do his web admin using their throttled connection.

 

The comment about sncying a cloud drive is true - I accidentally copied a 5gb folder into my Dropbox, thanks to 4g speeds, it had burned through 3gb of data allowance by the time I noticed it. Furtunatley we are on the Dan and Phil free 100gb sims at the moment!

[wirren]

BT do a sim only - 4G

20GB, unlimited minutes, unlimited texts & access to BT wifi .... £25 for non BT customers BUT only £20 if a BT customer.

 

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/products/4g-sim-only-plans/bb.html

 

Mark.

[GUMPY]

BT do a sim only - 4G

20GB, unlimited minutes, unlimited texts & access to BT wifi .... £25 for non BT customers BUT only £20 if a BT customer.

 

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/products/4g-sim-only-plans/bb.html

 

Mark.

But will it work in a MiFi?

[George Kennedy]

Thanks for all of your replies.

Moominpapa: That's encouraging to hear.

Paul C: only using two ipads, no app updates done or apps downloaded, no cloud activity of any breed.

Jo & Ssscrudddy: only two ookla tests done - Honest!!!

Lady Muck: i agree that the speed is higher than on 3 3g but the total data to load a page will be the same unless 3 use some compression that EE don't

Lady Muck: tell me more about the Dan & Phil sims please.

Wirren: I saw that and as a BT customer it looked attractive especially since BT use the EE network.

Loddon: i wondered about that, they don't offer a data only sim and they don't offer a free/PAYG SIM to test it out either.

 

Maybe I should try the connection using a 3g modem to see if restricting the data speed improves things.