5.7Mbps upstream as opposed to the artificial limit of 56kbps upstream currently imposed on much of the infrastructure now? Pull the other one, it has bells on!

3's mobile broadband has been going down the toilet for the last 6 months and the inherent problem is that most cells simply don't have the backhaul to cope with existing speeds/customers.

Raising headline speeds sounds good but until the basics are addressed it will still be rubbish. I for one won't be holding my breath, nor will I be renewing my existing contracts with 3.

Hayling Island isn't an out of the way Rural place and so should be covered in the 95% figure? Or does 95% relate only to phones?

Or have I missed something technical here?

I would love to excited about this prospect, but everyone and anyone I have shared experiences of 3's network coverage leaves a lot to be desired. I can barely get a decent voice signal, let alone high speed internet access!

And 3 customer service? hahaha, pull the other one!

Now if they could only ensure I get speeds faster than 2 KB/s in an evening (while the connectin app says I have a HSDPA connection), I'd be happy...

Couldn't give a cr_p, mate...until service providers stop deliberately misleading the consumer and misadvertising limited, bottlenecked access as unlimited internet access* I really don't want to know.

Instead of increasing the current speed, how about increasing honesty levels?

*Where is the soapbox icon?*

I signed up with their 15GB package and for the life of me could not get more then 100kbps. I changed areas and got jerked around by their support so badly. They even tried to convince me I would have to pay a disconnection fee even though I was in my 3 day trial period. They also tried to convince me that 3 wireless router isn't supported and that my modem was buggered and that I need to send it in to be fixed which would have locked me into the contract for 18 months. The store manager was good, and told me that they are having lots of issues with speed in the London area and to come back in a few weeks and he'll let me try out a modem before signing up. Why couldn't the support be honest instead of wasting lots of my time by making me jump though hoops?

According to our bill we were downloading for 5 whole 24hr days with speeds of 12Mb per second. Ahem.

I am unfortunately on this joke of a "broadband" at the moment. There is no way I have EVER had 3.6Mb/s out of this....not a chance. I suspect that the 3.6Mb/s refers to the total bandwidth available to the entire London population.

During the day I can get download of around 40KB/s, as soon as it gets to 6pm-11pm, your lucky if you get more than 6KB/s, although at 3am I have had speeds of 130KB/s.

If you have a choice, AVOID 3G INTERNET AT ALL COSTS. It's like "broadband" was back in 2001. Of course, on the plus side, you can use your tiny bandwidth almost anywhere in the UK - parks, trains, in the car, etc etc. But make sure you have proper internet at home, bloody BT and their 18 month minimum contracts.

Joke icon, as 3 are having a laugh....but I don't find it very funny

If I could get 512kbps, I would be happy.

As it stands, I'm lucky to get 56 at in Exeter City Centre with 5 bars of HSDPA.

I was in the North East last week and was getting 1200kbps with 2 bars of HSDPA.

Sod the 14.4Mbps - just get the 3.6Mbps working.

The key issue here is that UK mobile operators are fighting in a saturated voice market but are being driven to continue acquiring new connections for data.

So everyone and your dog want's to flog you a netbook or USB modem. Meanwhile the 'clever' marketing bod's figure slapping 3.6Mbps or 7.2Mbps on the front of the box will fool people into thinking the service will be similar to a 2MBps or 8MBps ADSL connection.

Marketing people are thick as pig shit, and judging from most people moaning so are most consumers. Wake the hell up and remember the different between b and B. Bit and Byte people. Jesus

So just to confirm for you all: a HSDPA device capable of 7.2Mbps will achieve (in ideal RAN conditions) download speed of about 900kB/s. Similarly a 3.6Mb/s will get around 450kB/s.

It's still misselling if they call it broadband! I'm happy for then to call it mobile internet, although mobile web would be better, but broadband it is not.

I'm guilty (!) of not wanting to live crammed together with other urban dwellers here in bonnie scotland so...like many of our other fellow Brits my BT-wholesale provided BB is utter onanism.

So I was really interested to hear that a cell tower within sight of my home was a) on the 3 network and b) their wireless router and dongle bb offer might give me marginally better speeds than the current 100-125kbps.

Thank gawd I've read this and dodged what sounds like a bad experience ?!

Feeling your pain guys :0(

They can't even provide 1Mbit throughput on the high speed service they offer at the moment so how the hell they think they're going to provide 14Mbit is beyond me. Just because you can connect at it doesn't mean a damned thing.

Also, I'd like to have coverage in my area. The nearest coverage is 15 miles away. Orange are providing HSDPA in my area, so why not 3?

Temporarily seconded to 5 miles from Manchester, 50ft from the transmitter - 128Kbps down/1.5Mbps up. Unless it's 2am-11am weekdays, when 3Mbps has been noted, the upload speed is virtually always faster than down. Post-4.30pm and weekends, lucky to achieve 225Kbps down. Then there's the apparent traffic shaping to speed up webpage loading; and all this before the ongoing network-sharing with 3.

Oh, and just for general reference, O2 [home] Broadband is now utterly-overcontended at the local exchange too.

I live in Glasgow and travel the EU quite a bit and have a company-supplied Orange data card and a 3 PAYG dongle of my own. Everywhere I go, 3 is the better. If i'm over in the EU, I pay the same rate as I pay in the UK with 3 which is great.

I think if anyone expects mobile data to be in the same league as landline, they must be soft in the head. If what you want is e-mail on-the-go and a bit of surfing, PAYG 3 dongles are the business!

Paris, coz she knows that 3 is the best number

What's this BS?????

""HSDPA device capable of 7.2Mbps will achieve (in ideal RAN conditions) download speed of about 900kB/s.""

No, in good RAN conditions you'll get around 5.5Mbps application throughput (which is why 3 market 3.6 Mbps (Air Interface) as 2.8Mbps (Application))

provided the backhaul is there. In a loaded NW 64QAM will still get you around 1.4 bits/s/Hz meaning that the sum of the users in a cell should get a sustained 7Mbps.

""slapping 3.6Mbps or 7.2Mbps on the front of the box will fool people into thinking the service will be similar to a 2MBps or 8MBps ADSL connection.

Wake the hell up and remember the different between b and B. Bit and Byte people. Jesus""

You were being ironic, right, or do you have an 8 megaByte per second ADSL link???

"As it stands, I'm lucky to get 56 at in Exeter City Centre with 5 bars of HSDPA."

Yeah, sorry about that, I've been using 3 on my laptop all day, and I probably stole all the bandwidth. I typically get somewhere between 480kbps and 1400kbps as a general rule which is good enough for me.

Based on usage just in the city centre also...

"If what you want is e-mail on-the-go and a bit of surfing, PAYG 3 dongles are the business!"

i got a 1 gig a month deal from at half price for £5 a months its not that quick 1/3rd of a meg per second

3's coverage area does seem wider than the others mind, if not as fast

Im happy with it

Anonymous scottish coward, in the wilds of the highlands

"Thank gawd I've read this and dodged what sounds like a bad experience ?!"

it might be worth you giving it a go if you order online you've got a 3 day trail period in the first 2 weeks of it arriving

the 2.8mbps is sharded amongst everyone connected to that cell tower ive found it works ok in sparsley populated rural area such as lincolnshire and northumberland where there arent to many people to connect to it

its better than dial up just dont expect to much of it