Digicel 3g 4g wimax lte vs lime 3g 4g lte

[876]

I think Garry and his team needs to go. The old lime crew is the downfall of that company. Those people who sit on their #$%= and do nothing.

They want to turn the company away from their initial core business of landline and Internet towards mobile. A lot of silly sales such as the alleged sale of their earth station off molynes to digi/sportsmax.... acres and acres of real estate including their sports club to their competitor. Makes no sense. Lot of weird decisions

[Tech Junkie]

They use revenue from Jamaica market to develop the other markets, while we in Jamaica have 3G the other markets have 4G

[Tech Junkie]

Caricel back in action....

[GPRS Internet]

Caricel back in action....

???????????????????????????.

[Tech Junkie]

Have anyone purchase any of the devices offered by Caricel? Would like to see some tests...ping, speed etc

[Tech Junkie]

Would also like to know what there coverage like

[Dr.dre]

My friend had one using on Christmas eve off Molynes road, it only had 2 bars and i got 2mb download speed 1.XX up,ping was 30+. The only thing i was impressed with was the price which my friend says is less than 12k for the entire year.

[Dre']

Would also like to know what there coverage like

Currently Kingston (seem to be all), Spanish Town and the outskirts and some areas in Portmore from my testing.
Ping rate is okay, However the current mobile device is throttled at 7 Mb up and down however still unlimited.

Check their Original Thread for more details: http://www.techjamaica.com/forums/sh...vices-provider

Most information regarding one of their modem starts from page 18 and continues.

[khat17]

I can't believe I haven't commented in this thread at all. I'll be honest - I haven't read anything else - just the topic and going to post.

So let me start off with this.

TESTING GROUND
I'm an IT tech. I'm based in Mandeville but, I travel between Kingston, St. Andrew, St. Catherine, Clarendon, Manchester, St. Elizabeth, Westmoreland, St. James and Trelawny. As for the amount of travel I do - it was over 600 kilometers last week and over 900 kilometers the week before. So I move around a lot.

THE NETWORKS
I have a company assigned phone (DIGICEL) and a personal dual-SIM phone which has both providers in it. I primarily use FLOW/LIME/CWJ with my phone and occasionally switch over to DIGICEL if I purchase a plan. My office phone is straight DIGICEL and is used exclusively for work communication. This includes email (and downloading attachments for work), WhatsApp and general surfing.

DIGICEL
The "Bigger, Better Network" does live up to its name where calls are concerned. They do predictive call forwarding (to the cell towers) much better than FLOW. Most of the time you'll see 4G service unless you go into some deep bush. I also have some DIGICEL WiMax modem experiences which I'll get into later. Of course, if you go somewhere that there's a cell tower you'll get signal. Data is..............iffy with DIGICEL. There are times you get 4G on the phone but it gives you far below par service.

FLOW
The choice to be with them was purely business. I hate CWJ, but since the Liberty Global takeover, things have actually gotten worse IMO. I've been seeing more HFC problems than when it was straight FLOW or even when it was CWJ in the background. Anyways...........the data service on FLOW seems to be more solid to me. I'll get more into this later on as well. The calls are horrible with FLOW. They have not been able to properly hand-over a call from one cell tower to another. Multiple times you get dropped calls. The data - as I said - is solid. Even in cases where you get EDGE and DIGICEL has 4G the service on FLOW EDGE is faster.

PARISHES
I'm going to give feedback based on driving through the different places.

KINGSTON+ST. ANDREW
Everything works better in Kingston. Both networks perform well. Speeds are good. I've not used LTE on either network so can't speak to that, but the 4G service is excellent. I'll have to check my FLOW phone next time to see - think it should auto connect to LTE right? Should also note that large companies in the corporate area did research maybe 15 years ago and found that FLOW/LIME/CWJ did better in buildings in elevators than DIGICEL. I have no recent data on this.

PORTLAND
Went there to spend some time. DIGICEL boasting 4G while FLOW had EDGE. DIGICEL can't browse or load a page. Taking forever. FLOW on EDGE loads the pages far faster.

ST. CATHERINE
Both networks do well here, but DIGICEL has the upper hand driving to places like Guy's Hill for example. There are more sections along the road where FLOW has no service than DIGICEL. In these areas DIGICEL also has better internet service and will browse (extremely slowly) on EDGE than FLOW. The latter usually doesn't browse at all on EDGE in these areas.

CLARENDON
If you ever go into some deeper places like Kellits and Frankfield, you'll find that FLOW surpasses DIGICEL here. You're more likely to have dropped calls on DIGICEL and no data.

MANCHESTER
In this area it seems like DIGICEL rules. Places with less signal will more likely give you voice and data service on DIGICEL than on FLOW.

ST. ELIZABETH
A simple matter of driving from Mandeville to Santa Cruz will give you more dropped calls on FLOW than on DIGICEL. The data service on FLOW is better however. You'll lose less calls over WhatsApp on FLOW than on DIGICEL. The deeper you go into the bushes (depending on the area of course) you'll find that FLOW is better.

WESTMORELAND
If you drive along the main roads then data is better on FLOW and calls are better on DIGICEL. If you go through the bushes however (New Market to MoBay for example) then data and voice drop out for both networks. If you drive through the DEEP bushes, then there will be places where both networks have no signal at the same time.

HANOVER
The same applies as above. It depends on which deeper bush you decide to drive through. FLOW is overall better for calls through here surprisingly (Sav to Lucea via the bush). If you drive around through Negril however, DIGICEL is probably going to hold up better for voice. Through the Negril area DIGICEL doesn't cut out at all on either voice or data. FLOW may have the occasional dropped call.

ST. JAMES
Service here is good in the towns and poor out of town. Over the years both companies have gotten better. DIGICEL has actually gotten worse with WiMax. A relative has been using their WiMax modem for years in the same spot. So much so that the modem left an impression in the spot it was in. Then all of a sudden service quality dropped (from 3 bars to fluctuating between 1-2). When called they said nothing changed. Replaced the modem for them with a newer model - same issue. Switched the relative to FLOW ADSL - no problems since. Just the occasional lightning and frying of the modem.

TRELAWNY
If you're going on the main roads then both networks do about the same. They both cut out a few times, but DIGICEL seems to be stronger with calls - FLOW with data (seems to be a trend here). If you're going through the bushes then DIGICEL is by far the winner where voice is concerned. Some sections of the road there's no signal at all on either network - but this lasts longer for FLOW than DIGICEL (Falmouth to Christiana). Some sections of the road turn into complete dead-zones (St. Ann/Ocho Rios to Alexandria) and some sections of the road you'll find that - again - DIGICEL beats where voice is concerned (Brown's Town/Runaway Bay to Alexandria).

SUMMARY
Overall, DIGICEL beats FLOW where it comes to stability and voice. FLOW beats DIGICEL on the data front. Tests are done with both my work phone and personal phone on the different networks. There are times when outages (power) seem to affect DIGICEL more than FLOW where the mobile data networks are concerned as well. But these are just my experiences over the past 15+ years of being on the road. Other persons may have different views and experiences, but that's kind of the same thing such as I like Seagate and you like Western Digital. You may use my findings and compare to your own, and hopefully this will help in choosing what you want. Thing is this: have either a dual SIM phone or two phones. You never know where you may end up and one phone as no signal at all. If you want to make calls - better to go with DIGICEL. If data is your concern - go with FLOW.

Now I'm dying for CARICEL to get rolled out in the other parishes that I visit. I don't go into Kingston as much anymore, and to be honest, I've been using my personal FLOW data to get work things done. DIGICEL sucks when it comes to data. Can't even load my office email more time - whether on the phone or tethering on 4G. I have more luck with FLOW on EDGE. But that's just me.

[BNOVA]

Thanks for that report Khat. I know most of those places you are talking about. Pity you could not put a more precise time frame on the data but I suspect you are more or less very correct in your assessment.