Dave Liquorice wrote:
I have a sneaky feeling it's not that simple. I'm not aware of any
app that can tell you "which network is best" and it's such an
obvious thing for an app I'd expect there to be loads about if it was
easy/possible to do. Yes there are (Android) apps that'll give all
manner of information about the network you are connected to but I
don't think you can get the same information from a network you
aren't/can't connect to.

If you have a phone and go for 'manual network selection', perhaps because
you're roaming, it shows you all the available networks.

I'm not 100% that happens if you have a local SIM which already knows which
networks it can use. Roaming does still work for emergency calls, so there
must be some degree of that plumbing in place. But if the 'survey' box has
a roaming SIM in it (often they're from Isle of Man or Jersey or
Lichtenstein or something) then it will see and connect to all networks.
(which is useful as you might actually want to do a speedtest rather than
simply assess signal strength).

I think you can get more out of a USB dongle you're explicitly controlling,
rather than an Android phone where Android is in the way.

Aren't Chromebooks little more than WIMP dumb terminals? With out a
reasonably fast and reliable 'net connection and you can't do much as
everything is "in the cloud".

Yes, but then people do email in the cloud these days (Gmail and friends),
Google Docs, etc. Arguably that's less surprising to a beginner than having
to manage files on their device. It does obviously depend on having a
decent network connection.

Theo