Giffgaff terrible 3G speeds during the day.

Ixon

Ixon

Ixon

Associate
Joined
30 Apr 2003
Posts
1,489
Location
Wigan
If your thinking or planning on going Giffgaff don't bother.

For the past couple of months now their 3G speeds have dropped from an average 3Mbps during the day down to 0.53Mbps, yet after 1am their speeds suddenly jump back upto around 7Mbps. :confused::confused:

2 reasons for this.

Reason 1 Giffgaff has started to throttle it's data during the day.
Reason 2 O2 has limited the bandwidth available to Giffgaff.

Giffgaff have said they don't put any restrictions on it's network, but then again why would they admit this as they will loose customers.

Another interesting thing is that both O2 & Tesco don't suffer from the terrible data speeds during the day.

So something is not right atm with Giffgaff, a lot of people have complained about it, but Giffgaff have kept totally silent over it.

http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Co...you-get-has-it-got-worse-lately/td-p/12005946

I've just ordered a £15 PAYG sim from Three, as I'm going to give them a second chance as last time i was with them on a 12 month sim only deal i had nothing but problems, this way with PAYG i have an easy option out if anything goes wrong with the signal again in my area which took them months to sort out last time.
 
Switched from 3 to giffgaff last year and was pleased with their unlimited internet packages and i have also experienced the slowdown on 3G. Time for a new sim only hunt i am afraid.
 
I've been on Giffgaff for about 3 years now, apart from a few months that i switched to a sim only deal with Three, in all that time giffgaff data speeds where decent during the day around 3-5Mbps, then suddenly over the past couple of months it seems like it now being throttled during the day to speeds that i wouldn't even consider 3G.

I'm due a lot of payback from Giffgaff so will keep the sim going until I'm paid up in June, after that I will either stick with Three IF i have no more problems with them or move to Tesco.

Oh as for Giffgaff 4G offering that is also beyond a Joke.
 
Same story here, used to get 3.6mbit/s up and down (obviously capped as O2 would see upto 14mbit and it was hard lining at 3.6 on giffgaff) which I didn't really mind as it was more than useable but last few months lucky to get into the 100s of kbit/s.

EDIT: Just noticed LTE was lit up on the status bar, didn't think there was 4g here... 1mbit/s up/down with a full 4g signal.........

EDIT2: Stuck O2 SIM in and got 43ms ping 41mbit down, 9.6mbit up, compared to 920kbit (call it 1mbit) and twice the latency on gg. I'm a bit confused as there isn't supposed to be 4g here and never seen LTE lit up here before lol.

Its 5am when posting so shouldn't be congestion issues :s
 
Last edited:
Same here, they used to be pretty decent for 3g speeds, however recently it's just been so slow so I've now changed to Three as GiffGaffs 4g offering is also terrible. Happy with my move so far :)
 
I'm on Three and have been for the last 2 years. Out in the sticks where I am the service has been great with an average 6Mbps down and 2Mbps up with pings around 100ms. Then in the last couple of months the best I've had is 1Mbps down, 0.04Mbps up and pings around 1000ms, often as not a lot worse :mad: which is all a bit disappointing. Signal strength is good by the way at around -80dbm. I've also had no end of dropped calls. I'm told by support all is well here (they usually say the mast is been worked on in my area and it'll be better in a week :rolleyes:)

I was all set to sign for another year sim only contract with Three but not so sure now. No point going Giffgaff here as O2 are terrible anyway. I'm wondering if they have all gone down hill unable to cope with ever increasing demand? For the time being whoever I sign with it'll be a 30 day contract for the time being.
 
I think I am going to do the same as well. £12.90 for all you can eat sim from Three. I am going to get one ordered soon.

Just done a speed check today and got 0.74Mbps on GG.
 
I'm finding giffgaff 3G totally appalling as well. 3Mbps if I'm lucky, 0.5 if I'm not. And that is in central London on a good signal. I've decided to move to Three, just have to get the timing right.
 
I'm going to give 4G giffgaff a try first to see how it goes, but I'm tempted to move to Tesco. O2 offers the best coverage for me so I would prefer sticking with them, 3 is just too patchy.
 
Day time speeds on gg with a full hsdpa+(3g) signal (200m from O2 mast) = 156kbit/s down, 282kbit/s up, 615ms latency. Guess its about time to call a spade a spade and cancel.
 
Giffgaff has gone really down hill. Speeds have gone from 4.5mbps to 1 Mbps download speed if I'm lucky its 1. Sometimes its 0.5

I'm off to 3 in a few weeks

I too made a thread about slow speeds 3 months ago and then made another last month. I'll I got was the same old reset your phone blah blah blah.

My friend tested 3's 3g outside my house with the speed test.net app and got 18.5 Mbps

Giffgaff owe me £60 payback but I think I'm going to just leave it and Oort my number its that poor. I used to promote them aswell
 
Last edited:
AlecR said:
I'm pretty sure giffgaff have the lowest priority when an O2 mast is congested. Perhaps that's the issue?
Click to expand...

I don't think the O2 mast is congested - I've got an O2 sim as well from my phone (use giffgaff for data only on my tablet) and O2 speeds are ok - latency has only gone up from ~40-43ms last night to 50-55ms daytime but hardly any change in speeds a little more spiky but not to a degree that would indicate a problem.
 
They are all dreadful outside the hours of midnight to 6 am I have tmobile 02 giffgaff sims, T mobile is like 56k any time after about 6 am and before late at night.
GiffGaff is only good for their call bundles and another thing about giffgaff I went in supermarkets and all the shops in my town (in london) and none of them had even heard of giffgaff let alone did the credit.

You see giffagaff does unlimited net and calls (to other giffgaff) for a month for £12 so all the ghetto people are using it as their main internet.
 
Last edited:
Same problem here. Its a shame as I was always happy with giffgaff but the 3G is just useless now. Need to change but not sure where to go as I don't want to use 3.
 
mark43 said:
Same problem here. Its a shame as I was always happy with giffgaff but the 3G is just useless now.
Click to expand...

Yes. In other respects I'm happy with Giffgaff. With a goodybag I get the equivalent of a monthly contract allowance, and then on top of that is pay as you go, and I can be sure that I'll never end up with a big bill. I don't know where else I can get that. With a Three SIM monthly rolling contract for example, if you go over the allowance then costs are charged to your account and could be huge. Maybe Three pay as you go but with add-ons is a possibility.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom