Testing information published by Vodafone

The recent adjudication by the ASA regarding recent advertising released by Vodafone has led to it trying to make it clear that it was lack of information rather than actual speed that got them into trouble.

A statement from Vodafone broadband said “The ASA has today published its adjudication on Vodafone UK’s mobile broadband advertising. The ruling does not question the factual validity of Vodafone’s ‘fastest and most reliable’ mobile broadband advertising claim, which is based on a study commissioned from LCC, the world’s largest independent wireless engineering company, nor does it challenge the validity of the LCC results. The LCC study involved independent mobile broadband testing across the UK, between March and May 2008. However, the ASA is recommending, that these claims are supported with further qualification to enable readers to understand the basis of the claims. Vodafone UK has agreed do this.”
Actual test results have now been published by Vodafone. The first test result was the timing of a 2MB download compared with other providers and the result found that Vodafone had an average of 13:54 seconds, T-Mobile averaged 16.15 seconds, 02 averaged 20.17 seconds, Three averaged 21.44 and Orange came in with 23.99 seconds. These results show that the average download rates for the providers were between 683Kbps and 1.2Mbps. The next test was the time taken for a single webpage to open and Vodafone took 6.7 seconds which compared to 02 taking 7.45 seconds, T-Mobile taking 7.8 seconds, Three took 12.7 seconds and Orange took 25.67 seconds. The test lasted 10 weeks and took place in 140 locations such as shopping centres, airports, service stations, train stations, hotels and business parks. In total 28 000 test were carried out over this period.

They have also published some actual mobile broadband testing results. One test was to time how long it took to download a 2MB file. Vodafone averaged 13.54 seconds, T-Mobile 16.15 seconds, O2 20.17 seconds, Three 21.44 seconds, and Orange 23.99 seconds. Doing the sums reveals the download rates varied between 1.2Mbps and 683Kbps. Opening a single webpage was also measured, with Vodafone taking 6.7 seconds compared to 7.45 seconds on 02, 7.8 seconds on T-Mobile, 12.7 seconds on Three and 25.67 on Orange.

The high levels of competition currently in the marketplace are seemingly reflected in the talks about speed between the mobile broadband providers. It is unlikely in the current market that users will be buying purely based on price as the cost of most mobile broadband products are very closely matched. The end of fixed line broadband does seem quite a way of judging by the results of these tests, but it could be an alternative that may suit some peoples need in certain parts of Britain and could even beat ADSL for speed for some users.