back to article Roll up for El Reg's 3G/4G MONOPOLY DATA PUB CRAWL

In January I was in the pub with Richard, an old school friend I hadn’t seen for 30 years and whom I was keen to impress. Then he asked one of those seemingly simple questions. “Simon,” he said. “You’ll know which 4G network I should be on”. Just 10 words but a whole heap of trouble. And like any good pub conversation, it led …

  1. Natalie Gritpants

    Suspicious behaviour

    Wandering around highly populated areas with a rucksack with aerials, it's a wonder you didn't get a couple of bullets to the head.

    1. Jedit Silver badge

      "it's a wonder you didn't get a couple of bullets to the head."

      Be patient, EE had to see the results before commissioning hitmen.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Suspicious behaviour

      Wandering around highly populated areas with a rucksack with aerials, it's a wonder you didn't get a couple of bullets to the head.

      That's because they don't look like Brazilian electricians.

      1. Anomalous Cowturd
        Trollface

        Re: Suspicious behaviour

        But they're brown.

        They must be tourists terrorists!

  2. 2460 Something
    Happy

    Brilliant.

    Of course you cannot just stop there .. every city which has its own monopoly board must be tested!

  3. JDX Gold badge

    Beer?

    3 photos in pubs, not a drink in sight in any of them!

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Re: Beer?

      Perhaps the American visitors couldn't get their head around 'real beer' after all, they come from the land of Bud, Coors and Miller Lite.

      Will the next installment reveal their preferences. It is London Pride or some other ale?

      1. venezuelan beaver cheese

        Re: Beer?

        As a transplanted Manchester lad having lived in the colonies for neigh on 20 years now I can attest to the 'Merican habit of calling Budweiser et al. "beer". Appalling to say the least. Thankfully a growing trend toward craft beers is slowly changing their tastes. My current favourite is Bad Wolf Brewing's Cascade IPA.

        1. Peter Simpson 1
          Pint

          Re: Beer?

          Budweiser and its ilk are for the working class. Its main advantage is that it's cheap and sold in units of 24 cans (about enough for a large working class man to get a decent buzz on).

          The upper classes (around here) order Sam Adams or something even more obscure.

          1. TRT Silver badge

            Re: Beer?

            A pint of Budweiser is like making love to a beautiful woman on the deck of Festival Pier.

            Both fucking close to water.

            1. JDX Gold badge

              Re: Beer?

              Sam Adams is mainstream.

              And beer pretension is just daft. Nothing wrong with lager.

              1. jeremyjh

                Re: Beer?

                Nothing wrong with it at all. As long as it's decent lager.

  4. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Pint

    That's one hell of a project

    Congratulations on taking on such a monumental task, and on keeping the necessary focus to bring it to completion.

    It is controls like this that keep the networks in line, although it doesn't seem - for the moment at least - that the networks are not performing adequately.

    May this initiative spawn many siblings !

  5. Chad H.

    So, any chance I can invite you guys to Glasgow for a Clockwork orange* CRAWL?

    *Backronym to come.

    1. Alfie
      Pint

      RE: Clockwork Orange

      Now that sounds like a plan!

  6. Alistair Dabbs

    Do not pass Go

    Which jail did you choose to test from?

    1. Simon Rockman

      Re: Do not pass Go

      Pentonville

  7. Sir Sham Cad

    Pubs

    Please also provide the names of the pubs used for testing in each location so that I know which establishment to frequent when I need to maximise my beer to noise ratio and get the best connection when I need to make an urgent drink ^W, phone call when about town.

    Thanks.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What about tradition?

    So many pubs, a CRAWL, but no beer? Honestly ..

  9. Joe Gurman

    Interesting, but....

    ....is this really a test of anything more than how well Galaxy S4s do in London? What about all other marks of 4G phones? Different chipsets? Antennas? Plastic vs. metal enclosures? Inquiring minds &c.

    1. Swarthy

      Re: Interesting, but....

      In any proper test, you have one variable at a time. This is why many papers have the ubiquitous "more research needed" at the end; this one has "more beers needed".

      There may well be another Pub Crawl to distinguish the makes of phones on one network.

    2. Alex Rose

      Re: Interesting, but....

      @Joe Gurman

      The test is to try to work out which network is better. To do that you absolutely want to stick to one type of phone, as if you used a different type of phone for each network then you aren't comparing apples with apples.

      1. Simon Rockman

        Re: Interesting, but....

        [Satire]* We used Samsungs not Apples

        *http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/18/facebook_experiments_with_satire_tag/

  10. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

    Vitally important question

    Which network won on "Free Parking".

    And where exactly did you find that in London?

    1. jonathanb Silver badge

      Re: Vitally important question

      Brent Cross shopping centre has free parking.

    2. David Cantrell

      Re: Vitally important question

      Outside my flat. And O2. Hope that helps!

  11. xyz Silver badge

    All I know is....

    ....I took a 3 all you can eat plan for £28pcm back in Feb....result of my testing is EFFIN' AWESOME.

    4G (30 odd MB) at home and around the streets in London, H+ (13Mb) at my girlfriend's in the middle of nowhere Bedfordshire where her BT landline toils at 3Mb. Feel at Home in France and Italy (please, please do Spain). And unlimited data tethering. If I had any friends, I'd even be inclined to phone them using the bundled minutes and texts. You could've borrowed my phone for the testing and we could have gone on a right bender with the cash you saved.

    1. Simon Rockman

      Re: All I know is....

      When you use data to a level where you are stress testing the network with multiple threads and doing it all day you find that even the most generous fair usages policies can kick in. Managing this was a major undertaking.

      Simon

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