As a smartphone user, it’s essential to choose a good data plan. Find out how much data you need and how download speeds will affect your experience.

Nowadays, the most important component of your mobile phone tariff is the data plan that allows you to access the internet when you’re on-the-go.

Your data plan is used by almost every single app including e-mail, messaging, social networking and gaming applications. It’s also used when you’re browsing the internet and when you’re watching videos online.

When choosing a data plan, you’ll need to consider two main things:

  1. How much data you need each month: This determines how much content you’re able to access on your phone each month.
  2. The download speeds you need: This affects how quickly you can access your content (e.g. 4G speeds or 5G speeds, etc). It may also affect the types of content you can access.

Please select an article in order to find out more:

Mobile Data: How Many Gigabytes (GB) of Data Do You Need?

If you're choosing a new mobile phone plan, you'll need to figure out how much data you need. Find out how long each gigabyte (GB) of data will last.

August 27th, 2024

Download Speeds: Comparing 2G, 3G, 4G & 5G Mobile Networks

You can access the internet on your smartphone using either a 2G, 3G, 4G or 5G connection. Find out how download speeds compare.

November 23rd, 2018

Your Comments 19 so far

We'd love to hear your thoughts and any questions you may have. So far, we've received 19 comments from readers. You can add your own comment here.

  • James Brook said:

    We have a Vodafone unlimited Max sim in a router supplying broadband to our office, as the rural location has limited landline options. With an outdoor receiver, we have had up to 20mb download. However after three weeks and 90GB used, speeds have dropped to <5mps. Do you think this is a network restriction because we are a high speed user and draining the network?

    • Ken replied:

      Hi James,
      Thanks for your comment. As far as I know, Vodafone shouldn’t be throttling on the Unlimited Max SIM card. Data usage of 90GB over three weeks also sounds OK to me (for comparison, networks like EE and O2 will only care when you go above 600GB-650GB per month). It’s possible that the mast has become more congested, or perhaps it’s now picking up a signal from elsewhere?
      Ken

      • James Brook replied:

        Hi Ken

        Thank you for your reply. Since I complained to Vodafone about this last week, they said they would get an engineer to check the supply, we have had a better speed, but a wide range of 1-26mps. So not totally confident that we are going to get a reliable service, will see how it goes for a while.
        Regards

  • Colin said:

    If you get a mobile Sim from a comparison site are the speeds limited on that sim rather than if you went straight to the provider and got a sim from them directly.
    example: EE through a comparison site rather than EE is itself

    • Ken replied:

      Hi Colin,
      Thanks for your comment. No, there’s no difference in download speed when taking the same SIM card direct from a network, or through a comparison site. On EE, the key thing to watch out for is just whether you’re getting an EE Smart or EE Essential plan.
      Hope this helps,
      Ken

  • Chris said:

    This country (UK) has an abysmal record when it comes to regulating corporate megalomaniacs. Too much corruption and vested interests within the house of lords.

    Tragically, and possibly;y terminally for the future, we lost the fight for net neutrality. So these vile companies can run roughshod over the consumers and play as fast and lose as they like with the current near non existent rules.

    Ofcom is a joke outfit set up to placate the masses, the illusion of fairness is the name of the game, utterly shameful.

    Nothing will change. You looking at all this madness getting a whole lot worse.

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