Insane speeds and gigabytes of traffic: what the mobile Internet from MegaFon is capable of

In August, MegaFon came to Lifehacker's editorial office with a strong statement: “We have the fastest Internet in Russia! We've even been awarded the Ookla Speedtest Awards four times for cool speeds.Fastest Mobile Network Russia. By the way, the last one in 2020 ”. Allegedly, the Internet is so powerful that it catches even in a remote village, even in an elevator, even under the ground. Plus, traffic can be distributed free of charge to as many devices as you like.

Lifehacker's editors decided to check on themselves whether the mobile Internet from MegaFon is so cool. We selected five people from different cities of Russia, came up with five challenging tests and ran a real stress test.

Challenge 1. At my expense!

The task is to meet with a group of friends and give them the internet. Everyone should load their phones to the maximum: watch videos, use applications, make calls via video. We gave this task to the senior project manager Elea Sibishova (Ulyanovsk).

Elya Sibishova

I have been using MegaFon for 5 years, my tariff is “Turn on! Choose ”with 20 GB package. Last weekend, my friends and I went to a party outside the city in a very cool, but very remote place from civilization - Gipsy Cape. This is a youth space on the territory of the Russkiy Bereg eco-park in the waters of the Staromainskiy Bay. Incredible sunsets, campfire gatherings, pilaf, night dances and much more are an integral part of this lamp-based place.

But parties are parties, and Instagram is on schedule! There always comes a moment of general calm, when everyone wants to lie around and poke on their phones. At that very moment, I decided to test my tariff and distribute traffic to three friends. So we:

1. Watched a movie.
2. Hung up on TikTok and Instagram.
3. We talked via video link with friends from Moscow who could not come to us.

The test drive went well. The only thing, the film was not always loaded in 720p, a couple of times the quality dropped to 480p, and once to 360p, but we were still able to watch it.

Challenge 2. Hello, I'm on the subway!

We assigned the lead sales manager Sergei Grigoryuk (Moscow) to complete this challenge. He needed to make several subway rides. During the first one, contact someone via video link. During the second one, watch some video in maximum resolution. During the third, complete any work task.

Sergey Grigoryuk

I tested the stability of the Internet connection in the subway. The first task was video communication. A colleague who is resting in the village of Krasnodar Territory agreed to support the experiment. The first attempt was not very successful: the picture is pixelated, although the status bar clearly showed LTE. It turned out that underground communication is better than in the village, and the interference was on the other side. We phoned again and talked, the connection quality was excellent.

Next up is streaming. Previously, to watch videos in the subway, I did not hesitate to connect to Wi-Fi, so the scenario with the mobile Internet was new to me. First I tried to watch the series on Megafon TV, after which I switched to YouTube. Everything worked flawlessly.

For work tasks, the Internet speed is enough underground. Correcting something in Google Docs, replying to mail or in instant messengers - everything can be done quickly and easily.

Challenge 3. Obliviate!

The task for the head of the key account department Irina Novikova from Vladivostok: forget that once watched the potterian, and re-watch the franchise's favorite movie on a laptop using a mobile the Internet. Necessarily in the highest quality. Then call someone by video link.

Irina Novikova

Before the experiment, I was not a MegaFon user, but for the stress test I took a SIM card with the “Everything” tariff from the “# Without overpayments"With the volume of the Internet 25 GB. One of the main criteria when choosing an operator and a tariff for me is high-quality mobile Internet: the need to share your traffic with friends or distribute it to a laptop for working outside the home or in case of home disruption the Internet.

On weekends, the weather was rainy, and I didn't really want to leave the house. I just decided to complete the challenge. Moreover, the home Internet did not work well again: apparently, due to the large number of users. I distributed the mobile Internet from MegaFon to my laptop and launched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in maximum quality. The picture made me very happy, and I was able to watch the whole movie without freezing.

I also became convinced of the quality of the Internet after making video calls to my loved ones, who live more than 8,000 km away from me. The connection was perfect: no squares in the picture, the sound did not lag behind, my words were not echoed.

Challenge 4. Embankment office

Changing the home office to the Neva embankment is not a bad idea, we thought. And they offered the author of Lifehacker Natalya Kopylova to work like this one day. Using the mobile Internet from MegaFon, she had to complete various work tasks: surf the Internet, talk to colleagues at Zoom, download a heavy program, and so on.

Natalia Kopylova

Under the terms of the challenge, I had to go to work on the embankment of the Neva. To be honest, I was very afraid of failure, but only because of the weather. Just choose a sunny day and start dressing like a wall of rain outside the window. And I was sure of the speed of the Internet: I have been using MegaFon for a long time and have worked in different conditions - from a train to Peterhof. But challenge is challenge, so I loaded my laptop into my backpack and headed for the embankment.

It is important for me that the Internet is stable and fast, because you never know what jungle the development of a theme will lead to. Ten minutes ago, you were reading Rosstat tables and the texts of bills, and then suddenly you flip through strange Instagram accounts or take notes on YouTube videos. And if you've already entered the flow state, then it's a shame to fall out of it, just because the pages are refreshed for too long.

Fortunately, nothing like that happened to me. The speed did not disappoint, even when I downloaded GIMP - an image processing program. Not that I needed it right on the waterfront, I just wanted to create even more stressful conditions for checking the Internet. But he handled it, as he did with the Zoom conference.

In general, in this challenge I was the first to surrender - I got hungry and got ready to go home. I will not say that I felt any difference between mobile and home Internet. I really missed the smooth, lump-free chair.

Challenge 5. Total loading

The final check was entrusted to the head of the news department, Viktor Podvolotsky, from Kirov. He needed to distribute the Internet to his laptop and simultaneously download the first season of "Game of Thrones" to his smartphone. It was necessary to check not only the quality of the connection, but also the time it would take for the series to load.

Victor Podvolotsky

In Kirov, for once, normal weather has settled, so I decided to spend the weekend in the garden. The Internet on my main SIM card from another operator does not catch there at all, so I had to prudently download something into the memory of my smartphone in the city even before the trip. Here I completed the challenge using the MegaFon SIM card with the tariff “All"Line" #NoOverpayments ".

I downloaded Game of Thrones (by the way, I did not watch it) through the MegaFon TV application. I chose the maximum Full-HD quality and put it on download. In parallel, I was distributing the Internet from my smartphone to my laptop, on which I watched videos on YouTube. To my surprise, the video quality was almost always 720p without any lag. Only a few times it automatically dropped to 480p, but not for long - quickly returned to the HD-mark.

With this load, I downloaded the entire first season of Game of Thrones in about 2.5 hours. Almost all this time, YouTube was working on the laptop, where I managed to watch the latest issue of "vDudya" and the video of Anton Ptushkin. The speeds were really surprising, the Speedtest on the smartphone showed up to 95.6 Mbps for downloads and 26.4 Mbps for downloading. To be honest, my home Wi-Fi doesn't always work that way. But on a PC it could have been better: Speedtest showed only 2.99 Mbps and 10.36 Mbps. But, as I said, there were practically no problems with playing videos.

And also "MegaFon", as it turned out, catches in the garden outside the city: 3G, the speeds are small, but in order to stay connected in messengers, more than enough.