mobile broadband

How to get better mobile broadband speeds

Here are a few suggestions on making sure you get the best speeds from your mobile broadband provider, whoever you currently use for mobile broadband, or even if you're looking into going mobile through your laptop.


First things first - there are varying speeds for mobile broadband and providers have different limits for these speeds, at the time of writing this the fastest is Vodafone mobile broadband which supports 7.2Mbs speeds; then there's 2.4Mbs which 3 mobile broadband is capable of; after that comes 1.8Mbps of which T-Mobile, Orange and O2 can supply.

As with anything the weakest link will be where the connection speed is let down, some of these weak links include the mast speed; and of course the usb modem speed...

Not all usb modems were created equal is something to keep in mind. While you may have a 7.2Mbps mobile broadband speed if the usb modem isn't up to par then you will be getting inferior speeds.

Obviously depending where you are in the country you may receive varying connection speeds, this is called your signal strength. A weak signal strength will show a slow connection, a strong signal will show a faster connection to your mobile broadband provider.

Sometimes it may be similar to a mobile phone in that going nearer to a window could increase the signal strength. It is possible to get a usb signal strength booster. Something worth noting is that the signal will change from time to time.

When the rest of the UK log on to use the internet using their mobile broadband connections it can slow down speeds aslo. This is because it is a service which is shared between others. This is something all the major networks are working on to improve.

Something you might not have known is that people making mobile phone calls will take priority over data/internet users using mobile broadband by the same provider. So there's a few tips for how to get better mobile broadband speeds!