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Vodafone coverage in London
[Deleted User]
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Just wondering if anyone else is finding Vodafone's 3G coverage in central London to be particularly poor? My 3G signal will regularly drop especially inside buildings. Where's all their 3G 900!!!
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Just for reference i was testing coverage there earlier this week. I agree with this testing in London.
http://www.rootmetrics.com/uk/compare-operators/united-kingdom/london/london-october-2012/
Three came out tops however i found the combined force of EE not far behind.
They drove 2,292 miles and tested 102 indoor locations. Some will try to spread a myth about 900 Mhz this and that, but the truth will out!
In a very busy data and even to some extent voice area like inner London the key to good speeds and successful calls is more transmitters covering a smaller area, rather than fewer covering a larger area. EE & Three tend to have more transmitters in urban areas than O2/Voda currently which works out better as they are less overloaded. So at peak times coverage stays the same or reduces only slightly and data speeds stay high.
It is true that technically 900Mhz has better in building penetration at the same distance and cell deployment pattern as 2100Mhz, but of course this is taken into consideration when the planning is carried out and mitigated by the 2100Mhz plan requiring more cells to do the same thing, this also has the bonus of adding much more capacity, but at greater cost, however MBNL deliberately trimmed down costs as much as possible and EE / 3 RAN share to reduce costs further.
So say a 3G 900 cell is over loaded, will the device switch to another cell? Say a normal 2100 3G mast? I find my 3G signal fluctuating very rapidly between 5 bars to 1-2 bars most of the time. When I have full signal I check field test mode and I'm in 3G 900 but when I have very low signal I'm on standard 3G. But the majority of the time I'm in standard 2100 3G
It'll cell breathe
http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/definition/cell-breathing
Very interesting link. My local 3G 900 cell must be really overloaded
3G 900 has less spectrum right now than the normal 3G 2100 that Voda and the other networks use as it has to share the same frequency with 2G (which still has the priority on 900)
So it doesn't take much to overload the cell thats in 900 mode..
Not in less populated areas no, it only becomes a capacity issue in urban areas where a lot of transmitters are required at lower power. They can extent geographical coverage over wider areas and more cheaply with 900Mhz.
This site is useless many areas across West London currently have no 3G network or shows 4 bars yet you are unable to access any internet services etc. Yet the site above shows a fine signal.
A lot of the these issues started in September / October, I've given up complaining to Vodafone now. I live in a nice area just 15 mins from Central London and the only time I can use the web on my I Phone 5 is when I log into my own Wi Fi.
Right now i'd say it shows Voda & o2 too well... As for example O2 switches down to 2G well before it loses 3G/has a poor signal i've found. So it looks as if they have great coverage.
everyday going to work i find that reception is great, but data is slow and sometimes it just very fast. even Edge is always slow for me on voda.