Data coverage in Winchester – The Full Investigation

“Anyone else in SO22/SO23 Winchester experiencing extremely poor 4G speeds? I’ve been struggling for months with poor 4G speeds in Winchester (in the city centre mainly).” 

This was the beginning of a thread on the Vodafone community network which spans years.

User highpriest first complained about the issue back in 2018, and it has yet to resolve itself almost seven years later.

The data connection in Winchester is patchy at best and non-existent at worst. 

I investigated three main areas: The University of Winchester (King Alfred Campus), Winchester Cathedral, and the High Street.

I downloaded a speed tester app on my phone, turned on my data, and saw where it took me. 

For reference, a slow internet speed (download speed) is usually considered anything under 10 or 15 megabytes per second (Mbps), but a good speed for most activities is over 20Mbps.

The average speed for EE mobile broadband, according to OpenSignal, is 47.7Mbps download, and 9.8Mbps upload. How does Winchester compare?

THE UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER.

This is where I began. I, along with quite a chunk of the city population, have been annoyed with the poor data connection for quite a while now, but it was when I actually tested how bad it was that I realised how big of an issue it was.

In our campus newsroom, the app failed to work on mobile data.

The wi-fi connection wasn’t much better.

The download speed didn’t even get above 1Mbps – the 20-second average according to my app was just 0.06Mbps, and the upload speed couldn’t even register. 

I then ventured outside – perhaps it was just the fault of being in the building.

But outside the campus chapel, braving the baltic February winds, my mobile connection froze once more.

The average download speed was a measly 4.67Mbps, and the average upload was 0.12Mbps – despite my phone claiming it was connected to 5G.

Here, I also talked to second year student Izzy, who said the poor connection gave customers at her part-time job one more thing to complain about:

“So many people complain because they can’t get on the wi-fi because the signal is so bad…You can never get it anywhere. They try to get a discount, and when they can’t get it, then they’re angry at me. Do something about it, Winchester!”

WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL.

Out of the three places I investigated, this had the better data connection.

It’s a lot less busy than the other two locations on a Monday afternoon, but it still isn’t up to scratch.

At most, it reaches a download speed of 17 Mbps – before swiftly dropping to an overall average of 11 Mbps.

When I talk to two French tourists, they’re really not impressed.

They tell me they thought it was just because they were in the Cathedral, but after leaving, it became evident that the mobile coverage was simply just bad.

Another Winchester student comes by, and I ask him how he finds the data connectivity in the city centre.

“I think it’s pretty rubbish,” he says.
I managed to get a good enough connection to stream a YouTube video here – but it was low quality and took a while to load. 

WINCHESTER HIGH STREET.

“When you go into the town more, it doesn’t really connect with anything,” another Vodafone customer tells me.

While the original poster at the beginning of my investigation has since changed provider, this young woman hasn’t.

“I struggle when I need to text people, or meet up with others,” she says – so she usually tries to connect to various public wi-fi networks, though she explains these usually don’t work either. 

When I test the data strength – it doesn’t work.

The app doesn’t think I have any internet access at all.

I move around a bit to find a spot where it works, and try again.

This time, I get a download average of 8.44Mbps and an upload average of 3.60Mbps.

Far below where it should be. While it could be understandable that such a busy area would be a bit overwhelmed, that doesn’t negate the inconvenience for vendors in the street, people trying to send texts, or even those who live nearby, as one older woman points out;

“I live in the centre… I find that, in the evenings, it gets a lot slower, when everyone is home, and everybody starts using it.”

User strowger on the original Vodafone thread also commented in 2019 that they had performed their own speed tests living in the centre – 07:30am resulted in 4.25Mbps download speed, and 5.07Mbps for upload speed.

They then repeated it at 7 at night, and got results of 1.65Mbps down, and 1.26Mbps up.

This was compared to their best results in Newbury – at 108Mbps down and 40.9Mbps up.

The original poster highpriest responded with a test at Badger Farm, calling the download speed “practically useless”.

Many Vodafone employees have offered many possible causes or solutions in the thread over the years – a community manager under the username TJ suggested in 2019 that due to a local mast “undergoing some work at the moment”, which they said may be the cause of “a little extra disruption”.

User sappercaptain shared a message they had received from customer support in 2019, stating that there was maintenance work scheduled for November of the same year which should have helped, and it also linked to a status checker – which currently claims that Winchester has a near complete “good” coverage. 

highpriest also claimed a few months ago that they had written to the previous MP Steve Brine “numerous times” about the issue, as well as both Hampshire County Council and Winchester City Council, but “of course nothing happened”.

Overall, one thing is for certain: the data connection in Winchester is weak and in serious need of improvement, regardless of the data provider.

And unfortunately for us, this almost seven years long thread suggests it won’t be solved any time soon.