Hopefully, Vodafone will get cracking on its 4G network to deliver some top-notch speeds and perhaps take the strain off the existing 3G network, resulting in speed gains for existing customers. Vodafone's a relatively inexpensive option in terms of data pricing, but that's not much good in value terms if you can't access that data at a decent rate. Conclusionįor all the talk that Vodafone has made about improving its network, the sad truth is that we're yet to see it consistently working out in the field. We didn't quite manage that, but it was close, meaning that if you do happen to be in an area where Vodafone's network was pumping down the data at an acceptable rate, it should last a good long time. Vodafone reckons that the Pocket WiFi Extreme is good for up to 10 hours of battery life. The Pocket WiFi Extreme doesn't offer extreme speeds, then, but what it does offer is excellent battery life. In Glenelg, it did manage a very respectable 11.55Mbps down, but that's only just over a quarter of the claimed peak speed, and every other Adelaide test saw it struggle and fail to even manage a 1Mbps downstream connection. Aside from our Glenelg and Hornsby tests, it sat in either last or second-last place. Unfortunately, across most of the rest of our test sites, the Pocket WiFi Extreme couldn't hold up that part of the deal. Third might not seem that great, but Vodafone's data pricing is quite inexpensive, making it appear to be good value. Our initial results were very pleasing we kicked testing off at the Hornsby location, where the Pocket WiFi Extreme came in a very respectable third, and only by a slim margin at that. Vodafone has made a lot of noise about the amount of work it's put into its network since the whole Vodafail debacle, so we were extremely keen to see how well the network would stand up to our test regime.
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Tests were run three times in each location, and then averaged to find ping, download and upload averages for each device. We've tried to mix up our locations as much as possible, with our six sites covering a family home in Hornsby in Sydney's north (outside any 4G zone), Darling Harbour in the Sydney CBD (for an outdoors 4G test, because the 1800Mhz frequency used by 4G LTE has some in-building issues), in Glenelg Library in Adelaide (because it has thick walls and is a busy public space), in a coffee shop in Adelaide's Rundle Mall (because again the walls are an issue, as well as public congestion) and finally in departure lounges at Sydney and Adelaide airports, as they're awash with travellers checking mobile devices prior to boarding their planes.Īll testing was performed with the app running on Google Chrome on a MacBook Air with no other internet-reliant applications running and no extensions installed. Why capital cities and not regional zones? Partly, that's a factor of time, but also so that we could get a picture of 4G zones - and right now, Optus is concentrating mostly on capitals for its 4G - as well as the issues that congestion can introduce into a network. So we hit the road and tested seven different mobile devices across six sites to try to get a more complete picture of mobile broadband performance in two capital cities. There are a few key metrics for any mobile broadband network, but testing them is perilous stuff, simply because there's so many variables that can affect one test in one location.
It's a web-based interface, as you'd expect from a Wi-Fi router, and it's cleanly and logically laid out, with links to Vodafone's own help pages and a simple summary of current connection conditions. One thing that Vodafone has had over its competition for some time is a quality interface for its mobile products, and the Pocket WiFi Extreme is no exception. Vodafone's current testing figures suggest that when it can get 4G up and running, it may have a solidly fast product, but the Pocket WiFi Extreme's sitting in a last-generation technology space compared to the long-term evolution (LTE) offerings of Telstra and Optus. At the time of writing, Vodafone has only commenced testing 4G - and only in Sydney - rather than offering a consumer-end product, and that means the Pocket WiFi Extreme's version of Extreme is constrained by what you can do with 3G networks, with the Pocket WiFi Extreme topping out at HSPA+ speeds, typically expressed at around 42Mbps peak download.
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