Whether you're on Android, iOS or Windows
Phone you'll see the same thing in the upper
right of the screen - a few bars representing
your cell signal strength and a mysterious
letter. Sometimes it says E, sometimes it says
3G, sometimes it says H.

But it's not just alphabet soup - each term
indicates what kind of data network you're
connected to, and these different networks
will provide very different internet connection
speeds.
In this article, I'll share with you what I know
about each of the networks currently
operating in the UK - what they're called, how
fast they are and what you can do on them.
Let's get started!

LTE - Long Term Evolution (4G*)
LTE provides the fastest data network
connection at the present time, in theory
offering speeds of up to 100 Mb/s. LTE is
faster than many home broadband connections,
and as such allows for rapid downloads,
streaming of Full HD videos or music, and very
rapid page loads. giffgaff is currently
preparing to upgrade its network to LTE, but
for now you won't be seeing this icon on your
phone.
*LTE is confusingly often associated with the
term 4G. In reality, the 4G standard is one
that hasn't quite been reached yet - that would
require speeds of 1 Gb/s, about ten times
faster than current LTE networks.
The proliferation of the term is unfortunate,
but until true 4G networks are available then
you can just take the two terms to be
synonymous in practice.
H+ - HSDPA Plus
HSDPA Plus is the fastest data network
currently supported by giffgaff, at around 21
Mb/s. In many versions of Android "H+" is
shown, but on Android 4.4 it is just displayed
as "H". H+ allows you to easily stream HD videos
and is comparable to the average home
broadband connection.
H - HSDPA (High Speed Downlink
Packet Access)
HSDPA is a slightly slower version of HSDPA+,
offering data speeds of around 7.2 Mb/s. This
is about the minimum speed for reliably
streaming video content at HD resolution, and
still offers pretty good web surfing and music
streaming.
3G - 3rd Generation (aka UMTS)
3G data networks were the first to support
video calling, with download speeds of up to 2
Mb/s (although initially speeds of only 384 Kb/s
were supported). It was at this stage that
mobile internet got decent, and we saw an
explosion of new capabilities for mobile phones
in the early 2000s (like email, vis a vis
BlackBerry).
E - EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for
GSM Evolution)
EDGE can be thought of as 2.75G, offering
speeds of up to 384 kb/s. EDGE was developed
as a cheap way for carriers to upgrade their
2G networks to nearly 3G speeds, without
needing to build all-new infrastructure. EDGE
is relatively uncommon in the UK, but you do
get it from time to time and it's generally
enough to look something up if you have the
patience. Interestingly, this means that EDGE
came after 3G even though it's a slower
standard.
G - GPRS (General Packet Radio
Service)
GPRS is a little faster than the earlier GSM
standard which first popularised data
connections. For that reason, GPRS is
called 2.5G - an improvement on 2G, but not
quite big enough to require a new number.
Data speeds are around 115 kb/s, which is
enough to load a simple webpage or maybe your
train timetable (if you have a consistent
connection and some patience).
This was the first "always-on" data service,
and the oldest one that you'll connect to using
an Android, iOS or Windows Phone. While older
networks exist, you aren't likely to come
across them these days and it's best left for
the historically minded.

That chart really puts into perspective how
rapidly mobile internet speeds have improved in
the last decade or so - we've seen about a
1000x increase in internet speeds. With LTE-
Advanced and other 'true' 4G networks on the
horizon, capable of streaming 4K video and
probably some stuff we're not even aware of,
we're not due to slow down any time soon!
Signing off
I hope you found this article useful.

source: http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Blog/G-H-E-3G-and-LTE-Making-sense-of-cell-network-alphabet-soup/ba-p/10735263

so H is faster than 3g. now I get why I hardly see 3g on my phone while I download at up to 3.1 mega byte per second on H using ADM

Nice info, thanks.

Isryl02:
Nice info, thanks.

You're welcome

Baddestguyp:
so H is faster than 3g. now I get why I hardly see 3g on my phone while I download at up to 3.1 mega byte per second on H using ADM

Bro pls which has a faster download speed, ADM or UC browser?
Because i useally use uc and get a maximum of 1.3mb/s.


@OP thanks for the Info

Skykid1208:




Bro pls which has a faster download speed, ADM or UC browser?
Because i useally use uc and get a maximum of 1.3mb/s.


@OP thanks for the Info

where did u get ur uc browser, mine gets max of 800kb so adm pro is faster on my phone

Baddestguyp:
where did u get ur uc browser, mine gets max of 800kb so adm pro is faster on my phone

It came with my phone.
I once downloaded adm pro but i don't realy know how to use it,can you pls tell me how you use ur's?

Skykid1208:


It came with my phone.
I once downloaded adm pro but i don't realy know how to use it,can you pls tell me how you use ur's?

its simple now, open adm browser, find what u want to download and click. it will create an empty file first before downloading