O2 increases mobile broadband speed to 7.2Mbps

[Sean]

After a quick glance at O2's mobile broadband section, I see that they have increased their mobile broadband speed to 7.2Mbps. According to O2's modem choice page, this speed is available for both its E220 and E270 modems. However, the upload speeds vary depending on the modem: Up to 384kbps for the E220 modem and up to 2Mbps for the E270 modem.

As I have yet to see a speed test of over 1.5Mbps with any mobile provider (O2, Vodafone & Three), it makes me wonder if anyone will actually get any transfer faster than the original 3.6Mbps. However, for those who upload regularly (e.g. to a photo lab, video content, etc.), the new upload speed would be very useful.

Vodafone for some reason does not mention what speed they offer (at least on the pages I checked) and Three still advertises their speed as 3.6Mbps. So far, I have not heard of any official announcement about O2's speed increase and they don't have a press release about it either, at least not in their press release section.

The download cap remains at just 10GB per month.

[foggy_lad]

i recently escaped from my three contract after 8 months and even got a refund of the modem cost and switched to o2 where i have been amazed by the complete difference in speeds! three have a mast approx 300metres from me but i never got more than 1.2mbps even at their best off-peak times

after switching to o2 i am regularly getting over 3.5mbps and the nearest o2 mast is the esb mast in Carlow approx 2km away! well done to o2 for being able to properly manage their service and for not selling out to slave-rate customer care.

[Sean]

I'm glad to hear about your experience with O2 So far I only tried the O2 mobile broadband once when a colleague at work signed up a few months ago and took it to work one day (I think I got 1.5Mbps on the test here). However, she decided to cancel as she only planned using it at home and was unable to get 3G coverage at her house.

I am debating on whether to get this, even just as backup or when I need to upload a large number of photos to the photo lab. As I am a very light mobile user (a few outgoing phone calls a month) and the O2 broadband SIM appears to allow voice calls (see here), I think it would be worth switching to this once I use up my Speakeasy credit. I run PCLinuxOS on my Eee laptop and I have had no problem using a Huawei E220 Vodafone USB modem with this that I had a lend of, so hopefully the E270 will also work fine in Linux.

[foggy_lad]

you can always try it out for a month and if you dont get coverage or find contention is an issue return it as unsuitable.