Coverage Checker

What's the difference between coverage and speed?
Coverage tells you whether you've got a mobile broadband signal in your area. The stronger the signal, the better your internet access. Coverage is affected by lots of things: how close you are to our nearest mast, where you are (on a hill, behind a tall building, in a basement etc), the type of building you're in, and sometimes severe weather.

Speed is how long it takes for information to get to and from your computer. This affects how long it takes for pages to load, or how long it takes to send an email or open a document. The slower the speed, the longer it takes for things to happen.

Why are speeds important?
The faster your speed the quicker your internet pages will load: so with faster speeds you won't have to wait so long for your favourite sites to come up or to open emails.

Speed is measured in megabits per second (mbps). It's affected by lots of things: your coverage, the time of day, severe weather, the device you're using to access the internet and what else you're doing online at any one time.

What speed will I get?
Normally in good coverage you can expect about 1 mbps with our mobile broadband. Home broadband gives an average of 4 mbps. You can get speeds of up to 4.5 mbps, depending on where you are, but on average most T-Mobile customers should be able to get speeds of about 1mbps.

It's the same as home broadband isn't it?
Not really. If you've got good mobile broadband coverage, you'll usually get about 1mbps, but fixed broadband may give you about 4mbps. You won't notice this difference for normal internet browsing (which is what mobile broadband was designed for) but you will notice it if you're trying to download or stream lots of music or TV or play online games. If you want to do this kind of stuff we recommend you do it on fixed line broadband.

The Mobile Broadband Coverage Checker is telling me that I've got limited coverage. What does that mean?
You might be able to get a very weak or intermittent connection but the experience may be slow and limited to sending emails and browsing very basic web pages.

Why is mobile broadband coverage different from 3G coverage?
Mobile broadband needs a stronger signal than 3G to work well. Our signal gets weaker the further away from a mast it is, so mobile broadband coverage is less extensive than 3G.

All the major cities have good coverage though, don't they?
We've worked hard to get good mobile broadband coverage in the key cities in the UK, but even within these we can't provide 100% coverage. That's why doing a coverage check for your postcode is so important.

I don't know the postcode of a location that I want to find the coverage information for.
Just go to Royal Mail's postcode finder and enter the street you're looking for.

What other things should I consider before I buy?
Our customers usually use our mobile broadband indoors, at home, at their friends and family's homes, on holiday or at work.

It's important to remember these things about locations:

• Type of building - The coverage checker assumes you're in a normal building, but things like thick stone walls or modern insulation can affect the indoor signal strength.
• Where you are in the building - The less our mobile broadband signal has to get through the better the experience will be, so the closer you sit to the window the better.

What other things might affect the mobile broadband experience?

• The time of day - our most popular surfing time is in the evening, so this might affect your mobile broadband speed.
• Your laptop - if you've got lots of temporary internet files on your laptop, it can slow things down, so make sure you delete these regularly.
• Weather - severe weather conditions like strong wind or rain can temporarily affect your signal.
• Network updates - if work is being done on the network then you might experience brief interruptions in service.