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Vodafone Launch 4G to South Coast + M3
M1kos
Posts: 660 Forum Member
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Vodafone have Launched their 4G services (according to their coverage map) for Central Southern England, The Partial rollout covers Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Eastleigh, Havant, Bognor Basingstoke, fleet Andover and the M3 corridor, Southampton appears to have been omitted for now but does have some coverage with more cells coming on line in the next few weeks no doubt
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I hadn't looked at the coverage map for a while and it seems they have fixed 3G900 so 3G now shows something sensible compared with the previous gamma ray like prediction!
Wish they'd extend 4G into Derby.... At this rate by contract with them will be finished!
Amazing, shame it stops at Basingstoke, as the other way stops at Woking, so those of us in the Camberley / Farnborough / Aldershot area are out of luck.
I just checked with my unlocked MiFi which shows all networks on a scan, and sitting at home I have Three-3G, Three-4G, EE-4G, EE-3G (twice), EE-2G (once), Voda-3G, Voda-2G, and O2-3G and O2-2G all in the area.
Thanks.
I'm in the Oakwood area of Derby myself; I work in Ashbourne and the mobile data signal there is GPRS which renders my iPhone useless for anything web based!
How soon is "very soon"?
Which handset shows you that its 4G rather than just any Voda 2G/3G signal ?
I ask because my Huawei MiFi is the only box I've seen that shows separate lines for Voda 2G and Voda 3G etc, whereas all the phones just show "Vodafone - UK" :-/
Sony Xperia Z1 does.
EE/3 aren't much better though, they barely exist in the SW whereas VF and O2 aren't there at all.
Can always force the phone to LTE only (if available) and then do a scan.
Sadly Moto G 4G only has two options "3G" and "4G" which seems to be the equivalent of a 4G on/off switch.
Will have to investigate other models, sounds like Android customisation, rather than in the base AOSP feature set.
Download Radio Switcher from the Play Store.
or 4G switcher, there's loads of apps that all bring up the hidden service menu. There's actually a number combination you can dial in to bring it up without an app.
(FWIW, my EE iPhone shows my area is now 20x20 but nothing increased in speeds, so I guess they're doing backhaul upgrades before changing the colour on the map)
Out of interest if the Coverage Checker mentions planned maintenance to improve 2G/3G data does that mean the site is being upgraded for 4G, too?
Thanks for that; I'm getting more information from people on DS than I am with Vodafone.
According to the checker right now it looks like an over-night job (starting at 11.59pm on the 29th and ending at 3am on the 30th.)
Will have to wait and see, that's all.
What generally happens is you will have 3 days work to remove the old cabinets and then install new cabinets along with connecting up new backhaul and power supply if required. Once all that has been done they will leave it all working on 2G and 3G.
They will then come back about 2- 3 weeks later and will then do the actual mast replacement and get 4G working.
The only exception to this is when it is next to very busy roads or in an area where disruption is to be high as they need cranes to lift the masts and cabinets.
In this case they will often do this overnight between 9pm and 5am for 5 days with bigger work forces. I went to one install in Leicester on the main ring road where there was 2 civil workers digging holes,a crane operator and assistant,3 mobile telecoms engineers,to install all the base station equipment,2 aerial rigging engineers to climb masts and connect all up top, an electrician to connect all the electrics up and 2 BT Openreach engineers to connect all up to the fibre connections.this was all completed in 2 nights.
Dont forget that this is all for two networks as both Vodafone and O2 have own cabinets for 4G. A