Getting nothing done quickly with mobile data

Sometimes I really do despair with the state of the mobile experience here in the UK.

This evening I’ve been in Swindon and then in and out of London. Something must be going on with all the networks. Or maybe I got out of the wrong side of bed and ended up carrying around a special type of ‘no signal’ electrons. 

I haven’t been able to get anything done. 

When I travel to London I usually take the train. I flip on the MiFi unit (or occasionally tether) and expect a few areas where internet is rather patchy. Once I’m in greater-greater-London (i.e. Woking and onwards), it usually doesn’t matter what network I select: They are all invariably half decent. I usually have the best throughput from EE. But they’re all ‘ok’. Good enough to get a bit of internet navigating done and send/receive email.

Tonight though? Nothing. Nothing doing. I don’t know what’s been going on. 

I’ve spent almost two hours (one hour each way) staring at “Connecting…” and “Resolving host…” status messages on Google Chrome.

Whatever the cause for my dire experience this evening (and I’m looking particularly at EE, Three and O2), it has been useful to remind me just how much I value persistent connectivity. 

I’ve been ‘connected’ the whole time. What’s App has been working. Indeed, messaging hasn’t been the problem for me. Tonight I’ve been wanting to actually do stuff on the web, either through my mobile browsers, apps or via the MacBook’s desktop browser. And it’s those heavy tasks that have been failing miserably. 

I have had to give up getting any of the tasks I’d planned to get done. It’s seriously annoying. It’s a learning experience though. I can’t wait to get in from of a fixed connection.