Looks like some planning applications are going in by Cornerstone for Cornwall now.
At least one says it's replacing an Ericsson RBS3107 with a Huawei 3900AL - I'm guessing the latter can be configured to do 2/3/4G? The documentation has Vodafone branding all over it, does that mean this is Vodafone's cabinet?
All the ones that went in for Stoke were from some company called Mono and had vodafone logo on the side of them. I assumed this was cornerstone agreement, however now learning its not the case and vodafone are going on their own here - could be sign of something similar in your area?
Mono consultants are working on behalf of Vodafone and O2 these sites will be both voda and O2. Voda are doing the west of the UK and O2 the east (mostly)
Only just thought to look at vodafone's coverage checker. All the planned coverage for my area has 'mysteriously' reappeared, with some recent improved coverage near me. These updates are consistent in their inconsistency ;-)
o2/voda 4g is live on a lot oF masts in Newport Wales now and on one mast in Cwmbran located in Croes-Y-Mwyalch Farm Malthouse Lane,Llantarnam that covers a wide area of Cwmbran,
Also I was out in a rural part of Wales in the Monmouthshire countryside yesterday and had vodafone 4g
Speaking of O2. I believe there is an article going out tomorrow where it shows how O2 have switched over to "Digital Contracts" for consumers in store.
It saves 12 minutes in sign up time and allows consumers to sign up and agree to T&C digitally and then their contract gets uploaded to the cloud (rather than printed out) so they can always access it.
Thanks Jon.
A most excellent video.
What anorak do you wear and where can I buy one? Haha
I think what I got from that as on overall generalisation is that EE is mostly the fastest, VO2 are not far behind but most surprisingly for me, Three seemed to be really slow.
Boy am I glad I live in an area where it's mostly cows and sheep using the bandwidth so I often see 90 meg in the middle of nowhere!!
But thanks again for this most informative vid!
Great vid, interesting to see the range of places.
For me EE 4G is at DCHSDPA speeds despite it being double speeded. Vodafone and o2 are roughly equal at around 25 - 30 but they cover a big area of Bolton from 20m mast. Three haven't 4ged yet but 3g hits 28 on a good day. It seems as though the other networks have mostly got their backhaul sorted to deliver good speeds, except o2 in central london and three anywhere with more than 3 people.
Thanks Jon.
A most excellent video.
What anorak do you wear and where can I buy one? Haha
I think what I got from that as on overall generalisation is that EE is mostly the fastest, VO2 are not far behind but most surprisingly for me, Three seemed to be really slow.
Boy am I glad I live in an area where it's mostly cows and sheep using the bandwidth so I often see 90 meg in the middle of nowhere!!
But thanks again for this most informative vid!
Three was indeed very slow. And I noticed this a couple of weeks ago which prompted me to do some more testing. I'd love to know the reason why.
What was surprising is that even by EE's HQ, Wembley (sponsored by EE) and the City of London where EE has got (supposedly) the fastest possible speeds - it was not anything like the 70-90Mbps I can get at times near home.
Sure, a Cat 6 device might have worked better but any hopes of getting near 100Mbps on EE yesterday were quickly erased.
Mind you, the uplink speeds were still quite exceptional for EE.
I'm surprised EE didn't return higher speeds at Wembley Stadium.
Me too. Only last week they were demonstrating Cat 6 LTE and speeds of over 300Mbps!
Of course that would have been a staged test, using local equipment within the venue and perhaps if I'd gone inside the stadium I might have been a marked difference.
I did do a few other tests off camera, but never got anything wildly different (faster or slower) so it was a fair test. But, I'd set myself the rule at the outset that everyone got just one shot - or else I'd have been doing testing and filming all day, and having to publish ALL the results so as not to end up giving an unfair picture.
I think this is more real world as most people just expect things to work.
I think this is more real world as most people just expect things to work.
Doesn't that raise the question of what speed people need for things to work. I'd say latency becomes more important then than the speed past about 15mbps.
Doesn't that raise the question of what speed people need for things to work. I'd say latency becomes more important then than the speed past about 15mbps.
Yes, and I should have added the ping times to my data.
The good thing is that data worked every time, which is an improvement over a year ago. O2 was very poor then, and I didn't test Vodafone so can't say if it would have been poorer too.
I just thought I would post my experience with o2 4G (Tesco).
I've only been in a few areas with 4G coverage as it is fairly limited when compared with EE's rollout in my area.
My first observation is how well 4G 800Mhz propagates. I believe Colchester only has 1 street side mast active at the moment but coverage is impressive considering this is the only mast. The same can be said about the mast which had recently been switched on In Clacton. Nearly complete town coverage from this single mast. Speeds seem fairly respectable as well. OK the peak speeds are no where near what EE is capable off however it seems to be minimum 15-20Mbps up to 40 ish which is more than enough.
It will be interesting to see how the coverage compares once they have upgraded all the sites in my area.
there is plenty of 4G on Vodafone in Hatfield... you should have waited for the handset to find some! the tests are incomparable otherwise! although Voda did do quite well just on 3G!
In Winchester 4G on O2 is fairly widespread now and covers the city fairly well. Typical speeds are around the 20Mbps mark; I think the highest I have got is 50.
there is plenty of 4G on Vodafone in Hatfield... you should have waited for the handset to find some! the tests are incomparable otherwise! although Voda did do quite well just on 3G!
When will Voda install any 3G in north east scotland? Inverness through to Aberdeen, outside the major towns there is no 3G at all. GPRS works but at 0.01mbps its almost pointless. EE and Three both have very good 3G/HSPA, and EE has 4G now in Inverness, Aberdeen and even in Aviemore.
Tavistock in Devon (pop 11,000) appears to have VF 4G, but Exeter/Plymouth (100,000 and 200,000 ish) are not yet deemed worthy
IIRC there was some place in Devon that was a not-spot but one of the networks installed a mast and went straight to 4G while doing it. I can't remember if this was Vodafone and Tavistock though
(I wonder how long it will take to do Devon/Cornwall/Somerset - they seem to have otherwise blanketed Dorset in 4G - I know Cornerstone has been busy submitting planning permission applications to Cornwall Council)
When will Voda install any 3G in north east scotland? Inverness through to Aberdeen, outside the major towns there is no 3G at all. GPRS works but at 0.01mbps its almost pointless. EE and Three both have very good 3G/HSPA, and EE has 4G now in Inverness, Aberdeen and even in Aviemore.
Tell me about it, they don't even cover most of the towns with 3G.
Voda cover
Aberdeen, Fraserburgh, Peterhead, Inverurie
That's it.
If you are on O2, you can add Ellon and Huntly to the list.
Pathetic.
There's a reason you can't zoom out on O2 or Voda's 3G coverage layer, and you can on EE's. And I've said it before, but Voda should not show 2G coverage in any form if the 3G layer is selected. It's intentionally misleading for those less in the know.
Tell me about it, they don't even cover most of the towns with 3G.
Pathetic.
There's a reason you can't zoom out on O2 or Voda's 3G coverage layer, and you can on EE's. And I've said it before, but Voda should not show 2G coverage in any form if the 3G layer is selected. It's intentionally misleading for those less in the know.
Yes the red layer on the Vodafone coverage map is just dishonesty. At least in NE scotland the Vodafone GPRS and voice signal is very good, and works everywhere, but GPRS is still horribly slow, for corporate emails :-/
Comments
All the ones that went in for Stoke were from some company called Mono and had vodafone logo on the side of them. I assumed this was cornerstone agreement, however now learning its not the case and vodafone are going on their own here - could be sign of something similar in your area?
Also I was out in a rural part of Wales in the Monmouthshire countryside yesterday and had vodafone 4g
It saves 12 minutes in sign up time and allows consumers to sign up and agree to T&C digitally and then their contract gets uploaded to the cloud (rather than printed out) so they can always access it.
http://jmcomms.com/2015/03/04/4g-lte-network-testing-around-london-2015/
A most excellent video.
What anorak do you wear and where can I buy one? Haha
I think what I got from that as on overall generalisation is that EE is mostly the fastest, VO2 are not far behind but most surprisingly for me, Three seemed to be really slow.
Boy am I glad I live in an area where it's mostly cows and sheep using the bandwidth so I often see 90 meg in the middle of nowhere!!
But thanks again for this most informative vid!
For me EE 4G is at DCHSDPA speeds despite it being double speeded. Vodafone and o2 are roughly equal at around 25 - 30 but they cover a big area of Bolton from 20m mast. Three haven't 4ged yet but 3g hits 28 on a good day. It seems as though the other networks have mostly got their backhaul sorted to deliver good speeds, except o2 in central london and three anywhere with more than 3 people.
Thanks Jon.
I'm surprised EE didn't return higher speeds at Wembley Stadium.
Three was indeed very slow. And I noticed this a couple of weeks ago which prompted me to do some more testing. I'd love to know the reason why.
What was surprising is that even by EE's HQ, Wembley (sponsored by EE) and the City of London where EE has got (supposedly) the fastest possible speeds - it was not anything like the 70-90Mbps I can get at times near home.
Sure, a Cat 6 device might have worked better but any hopes of getting near 100Mbps on EE yesterday were quickly erased.
Mind you, the uplink speeds were still quite exceptional for EE.
Me too. Only last week they were demonstrating Cat 6 LTE and speeds of over 300Mbps!
Of course that would have been a staged test, using local equipment within the venue and perhaps if I'd gone inside the stadium I might have been a marked difference.
I did do a few other tests off camera, but never got anything wildly different (faster or slower) so it was a fair test. But, I'd set myself the rule at the outset that everyone got just one shot - or else I'd have been doing testing and filming all day, and having to publish ALL the results so as not to end up giving an unfair picture.
I think this is more real world as most people just expect things to work.
Doesn't that raise the question of what speed people need for things to work. I'd say latency becomes more important then than the speed past about 15mbps.
Fantastic video thanks for this. I particularly enjoyed your efforts on Oxford Street!
Yes, and I should have added the ping times to my data.
The good thing is that data worked every time, which is an improvement over a year ago. O2 was very poor then, and I didn't test Vodafone so can't say if it would have been poorer too.
hehe. Yeah, I thought I'd try and be clever and see if anyone noticed!
I've only been in a few areas with 4G coverage as it is fairly limited when compared with EE's rollout in my area.
My first observation is how well 4G 800Mhz propagates. I believe Colchester only has 1 street side mast active at the moment but coverage is impressive considering this is the only mast. The same can be said about the mast which had recently been switched on In Clacton. Nearly complete town coverage from this single mast. Speeds seem fairly respectable as well. OK the peak speeds are no where near what EE is capable off however it seems to be minimum 15-20Mbps up to 40 ish which is more than enough.
It will be interesting to see how the coverage compares once they have upgraded all the sites in my area.
When will Voda install any 3G in north east scotland? Inverness through to Aberdeen, outside the major towns there is no 3G at all. GPRS works but at 0.01mbps its almost pointless. EE and Three both have very good 3G/HSPA, and EE has 4G now in Inverness, Aberdeen and even in Aviemore.
Has to be an error surely? Inverness is only 70,000 people, everywhere north of there is tiny.
IIRC there was some place in Devon that was a not-spot but one of the networks installed a mast and went straight to 4G while doing it. I can't remember if this was Vodafone and Tavistock though
(I wonder how long it will take to do Devon/Cornwall/Somerset - they seem to have otherwise blanketed Dorset in 4G - I know Cornerstone has been busy submitting planning permission applications to Cornwall Council)
Tell me about it, they don't even cover most of the towns with 3G.
Voda cover
Aberdeen, Fraserburgh, Peterhead, Inverurie
That's it.
If you are on O2, you can add Ellon and Huntly to the list.
Pathetic.
There's a reason you can't zoom out on O2 or Voda's 3G coverage layer, and you can on EE's. And I've said it before, but Voda should not show 2G coverage in any form if the 3G layer is selected. It's intentionally misleading for those less in the know.
Yes the red layer on the Vodafone coverage map is just dishonesty. At least in NE scotland the Vodafone GPRS and voice signal is very good, and works everywhere, but GPRS is still horribly slow, for corporate emails :-/
(I doubt anyone with a 2G only phone really uses data much).