it apppears that finally they have worked out that the Towns need doing before the villages !!! Lots of new places have appeared on their map yesterday also towns around Manchester. follow me @phonemast
Hmm not sure about that, Vodafone and O2's downfall is that they don't have any 3G coverage in rural locations. Theoretically, the 3G masts in towns and cities can be improved (HSDPA etc, like 3's are) and they can focus on putting 4G/3G masts in rural areas first, expanding their rather scant data network.
Ohh good! Better coverage and service is heading my way at last! It's been long enough, although i'm more interested in 3G than 4G (cos i like to make phonecalls as well, since it is also a phone as well as mobile internet device ;-) )
Voda/o2 4G Now live in more of Essex including Rochford and Basildon also Bicester in Oxfordshire also Dundee and Berwick lots of masts being upgraded on the run up to xmas
If anyone is interested, Vodafone will be launching their 20GB SIM Only plan soon. It's going to be £42pm so not exactly great value.
Also, Vodafone will be following O2 shortly and making all their 4G phones sell only with 4G plans. It's not a free 4G for all type thing, just a 4G included with most tariffs type thing.
As I said. Vodafone have now launched their new SIM only plans with 500MB of 4G data from £14pm up to 20GB of data for £40pm.
Vodafone will soon be selling their RED plans with 4G included at no extra cost as well as enabling all Vodafone RED customers for 4G free of charge.
I thought it was easy to charge less than EE, apparently not. It's only £1 more expensive than EE's 500mb plan but seriously, who would pay this much for so little?
O2 and Vodafone's networks are just bizarre. On the M11 you go between GPRS and 4G, whereas EE has full 3G the whole way it's just weird!
Voda and O2 just didn't invest in 3G outside towns and cities at all. Orange and T-Mobile/3 did. Until 2009/2010 many people thought that only 2G was needed, as voice calls was 90% of use. It was really Android and iPhone that pushed more people to want 3G.
T-Mobile pushed this back in 2006 and then in 2008 forming MBNL with 3 worked wonders for both, by 2010 the T and 3 networks work significantly better for any data services than the others.
I don't even think Orange was that bothered about 3G, or upgrading all sites to support higher speeds.
Even in London, Orange had loads of legacy sites with no more than EDGE.
Teaming up with T Mobile and becoming part of MBNL worked wonders and Orange subscribers must have seen a real improvement in most places. Obviously not where old Orange sites were decommissioned!
I'm a few miles outside Folkestone and although we've always had good O2 coverage (2G then 3G900), the villages in the valley I'm in have never had any Vodafone coverage.
Going by Vodafone's coverage map, it says they are going to bring 3G and only 3G to the area in the next three months. Seems odd if you are adding a new transmitter to only put 3G on it?
Well I hope that you have all had a nice Christmas, I have and been busy driving all over the place to catch up with various family members and friends.
On Boxing Day I had a good catch up with my brother in law who works in Vodafone network operations and planning team, He was telling that Vodafone have some very big ambitious plans in 2015 for 4G. They are planning on increasing the rollout quite fast in conjunction with O2 they have over 100 planning applications ready to be lodged after the new year with a variety of councils and lots more that being looked at soon.
So expect a lot more new places to gain 4G coverage with I think he said at least 85% by end of 2015.
They are also revisiting lots of already covered areas and installing 2600 equipment for carrier aggregation and LTE cat6 speeds he did give me the list of places that will be getting 4G+ next cant remember them all but know Leicester,Coventry and Nottingham around me were on the list and again hoping to expand that further to at least 50% coverage. Also they are doing quite a bit of capacity increases early in the new year in busy areas of London,Birmingham,Manchester,Leeds and surprisingly Teeside as they can see that due to high usage speed has dropped so looking to fix ASAP the power is also due to be turned up on the base stations as well.
I asked him about VOLTE he said that this will happen in some form in 2015 but is unsure on which handsets and if it will be on all the 4G network as seems some doubt about it in some areas.
They are looking into getting 4G 2600 smalls cells installed in retail stores like they have for 3G this is waiting on the C&W network upgrades that are currently happening as they want to demo products better.
They have a few new services planned based around VOLTE I think called Call+ with video messaging and mailboxes and upgrades to their message + service. On the business and corporate side few things changing there with increased service levels and services for them.
It was a very interesting chat and update so things look promising with huge amounts of money being set for network upgrades. In fact he said one of the biggest issues they are having at the min is getting enough 4G equipment and qualified network engineering staff to do the upgrades. In the lead up to Christmas network freeze he was even spending two days a week out of the office doing network configurations on upgrades so the sites could go live.
I don't even think Orange was that bothered about 3G, or upgrading all sites to support higher speeds.
Even in London, Orange had loads of legacy sites with no more than EDGE.
it was good until the FT acquisition. There were quite a few 1.8mbps masts around here in 2008/2009 when I was getting 9mbps+ on T-Mobile, and I gather these are all the ones that were switched off in the last couple of years (in hampshire anyway).
Teaming up with T Mobile and becoming part of MBNL worked wonders and Orange subscribers must have seen a real improvement in most places. Obviously not where old Orange sites were decommissioned!
Yes, at this point Orange customers benefited from the T-mobile & 3 investment into MBNL and the prediction that smartphones would be popular. :-)
I've heard rumour that Voda will have 4G down here in Plymouth around April to June 2015.... Dunno if there is any truth in that though. Mind you, if it's 800MHz 4G the rollout should be better indoors than 3 and EE. Most places here you lose 4G if you go inside.
I've heard rumour that Voda will have 4G down here in Plymouth around April to June 2015.... Dunno if there is any truth in that though. Mind you, if it's 800MHz 4G the rollout should be better indoors than 3 and EE. Most places here you lose 4G if you go inside.
If my office ever completes negotiations, I'm hoping we will get upgraded to 4G with voda, as their 2G network is great for voice, but almost no 3G when I'm driving around the country means I have to use my personal EE phone as a hotspot to get my corporate apps to work :-/ 4G would solve that.
Well I hope that you have all had a nice Christmas, I have and been busy driving all over the place to catch up with various family members and friends.
On Boxing Day I had a good catch up with my brother in law who works in Vodafone network operations and planning team, He was telling that Vodafone have some very big ambitious plans in 2015 for 4G. They are planning on increasing the rollout quite fast in conjunction with O2 they have over 100 planning applications ready to be lodged after the new year with a variety of councils and lots more that being looked at soon.
So expect a lot more new places to gain 4G coverage with I think he said at least 85% by end of 2015.
They are also revisiting lots of already covered areas and installing 2600 equipment for carrier aggregation and LTE cat6 speeds he did give me the list of places that will be getting 4G+ next cant remember them all but know Leicester,Coventry and Nottingham around me were on the list and again hoping to expand that further to at least 50% coverage. Also they are doing quite a bit of capacity increases early in the new year in busy areas of London,Birmingham,Manchester,Leeds and surprisingly Teeside as they can see that due to high usage speed has dropped so looking to fix ASAP the power is also due to be turned up on the base stations as well.
I asked him about VOLTE he said that this will happen in some form in 2015 but is unsure on which handsets and if it will be on all the 4G network as seems some doubt about it in some areas.
They are looking into getting 4G 2600 smalls cells installed in retail stores like they have for 3G this is waiting on the C&W network upgrades that are currently happening as they want to demo products better.
They have a few new services planned based around VOLTE I think called Call+ with video messaging and mailboxes and upgrades to their message + service. On the business and corporate side few things changing there with increased service levels and services for them.
It was a very interesting chat and update so things look promising with huge amounts of money being set for network upgrades. In fact he said one of the biggest issues they are having at the min is getting enough 4G equipment and qualified network engineering staff to do the upgrades. In the lead up to Christmas network freeze he was even spending two days a week out of the office doing network configurations on upgrades so the sites could go live.
I've noticed that Vodafone 4g has slowed down a lot in Glasgow in the past couple of months. I wish they would 4g the other local mast to me as well.
Any news on 2600 in Glasgow. Must be soon surely. According to the Vodafone website most of the masts in Glasgow were revisited numerous times in recent months. Why the latest upgrades were not done during the initial upgrade period is beyond me.
If my office ever completes negotiations, I'm hoping we will get upgraded to 4G with voda, as their 2G network is great for voice, but almost no 3G when I'm driving around the country means I have to use my personal EE phone as a hotspot to get my corporate apps to work :-/ 4G would solve that.
Get your company to supply you with an EE 4G MiFI.
Paulker- I am pretty sure that he mentioned both Glasgow and Edinburgh going 2600 in early 2015 and I suspect due to the size of the city it again will be in line for capacity increases soon. At least they are recognising that the speeds are dropping due to increased use/subscribers and are planning action to remedy.
Although I don't know for sure in Glasgow but in my local area of Leicestershire when Vodafone engineers need to revisit a 4G mast for planned maintainance it is normally to configure new or upgraded C&W based backhaul or tweak the settings.
You may often see a number of masts close together being down for maintainance at the same time this is generally when they are doing software upgrades on the base station equipment, This involves an engineer taking the mast out of service plugging laptop in and updating the software then getting it all working again before moving onto the next one, if all goes to plan should take about an hour so can often do 5 or 6 a day depending on mast locations as obviously if on top of a tower block takes longer than a lamppost style street one.
When they add 2600 equipment that is normally a 48 hr timescale but is almost how always completed the same day but then test 2600 for 24hrs before turning it off if not in a launched area like round Leicester
Comments
Hmm not sure about that, Vodafone and O2's downfall is that they don't have any 3G coverage in rural locations. Theoretically, the 3G masts in towns and cities can be improved (HSDPA etc, like 3's are) and they can focus on putting 4G/3G masts in rural areas first, expanding their rather scant data network.
Devon is beginning with Bideford Barnstable and Ilfracombe soon to be live
As I said. Vodafone have now launched their new SIM only plans with 500MB of 4G data from £14pm up to 20GB of data for £40pm.
Vodafone will soon be selling their RED plans with 4G included at no extra cost as well as enabling all Vodafone RED customers for 4G free of charge.
500 for £14 , that's crap
I thought it was easy to charge less than EE, apparently not. It's only £1 more expensive than EE's 500mb plan but seriously, who would pay this much for so little?
Voda and O2 just didn't invest in 3G outside towns and cities at all. Orange and T-Mobile/3 did. Until 2009/2010 many people thought that only 2G was needed, as voice calls was 90% of use. It was really Android and iPhone that pushed more people to want 3G.
T-Mobile pushed this back in 2006 and then in 2008 forming MBNL with 3 worked wonders for both, by 2010 the T and 3 networks work significantly better for any data services than the others.
Even in London, Orange had loads of legacy sites with no more than EDGE.
Teaming up with T Mobile and becoming part of MBNL worked wonders and Orange subscribers must have seen a real improvement in most places. Obviously not where old Orange sites were decommissioned!
Going by Vodafone's coverage map, it says they are going to bring 3G and only 3G to the area in the next three months. Seems odd if you are adding a new transmitter to only put 3G on it?
On Boxing Day I had a good catch up with my brother in law who works in Vodafone network operations and planning team, He was telling that Vodafone have some very big ambitious plans in 2015 for 4G. They are planning on increasing the rollout quite fast in conjunction with O2 they have over 100 planning applications ready to be lodged after the new year with a variety of councils and lots more that being looked at soon.
So expect a lot more new places to gain 4G coverage with I think he said at least 85% by end of 2015.
They are also revisiting lots of already covered areas and installing 2600 equipment for carrier aggregation and LTE cat6 speeds he did give me the list of places that will be getting 4G+ next cant remember them all but know Leicester,Coventry and Nottingham around me were on the list and again hoping to expand that further to at least 50% coverage. Also they are doing quite a bit of capacity increases early in the new year in busy areas of London,Birmingham,Manchester,Leeds and surprisingly Teeside as they can see that due to high usage speed has dropped so looking to fix ASAP the power is also due to be turned up on the base stations as well.
I asked him about VOLTE he said that this will happen in some form in 2015 but is unsure on which handsets and if it will be on all the 4G network as seems some doubt about it in some areas.
They are looking into getting 4G 2600 smalls cells installed in retail stores like they have for 3G this is waiting on the C&W network upgrades that are currently happening as they want to demo products better.
They have a few new services planned based around VOLTE I think called Call+ with video messaging and mailboxes and upgrades to their message + service. On the business and corporate side few things changing there with increased service levels and services for them.
It was a very interesting chat and update so things look promising with huge amounts of money being set for network upgrades. In fact he said one of the biggest issues they are having at the min is getting enough 4G equipment and qualified network engineering staff to do the upgrades. In the lead up to Christmas network freeze he was even spending two days a week out of the office doing network configurations on upgrades so the sites could go live.
it was good until the FT acquisition. There were quite a few 1.8mbps masts around here in 2008/2009 when I was getting 9mbps+ on T-Mobile, and I gather these are all the ones that were switched off in the last couple of years (in hampshire anyway).
Yes, at this point Orange customers benefited from the T-mobile & 3 investment into MBNL and the prediction that smartphones would be popular. :-)
If my office ever completes negotiations, I'm hoping we will get upgraded to 4G with voda, as their 2G network is great for voice, but almost no 3G when I'm driving around the country means I have to use my personal EE phone as a hotspot to get my corporate apps to work :-/ 4G would solve that.
I've noticed that Vodafone 4g has slowed down a lot in Glasgow in the past couple of months. I wish they would 4g the other local mast to me as well.
Any news on 2600 in Glasgow. Must be soon surely. According to the Vodafone website most of the masts in Glasgow were revisited numerous times in recent months. Why the latest upgrades were not done during the initial upgrade period is beyond me.
Get your company to supply you with an EE 4G MiFI.
Although I don't know for sure in Glasgow but in my local area of Leicestershire when Vodafone engineers need to revisit a 4G mast for planned maintainance it is normally to configure new or upgraded C&W based backhaul or tweak the settings.
You may often see a number of masts close together being down for maintainance at the same time this is generally when they are doing software upgrades on the base station equipment, This involves an engineer taking the mast out of service plugging laptop in and updating the software then getting it all working again before moving onto the next one, if all goes to plan should take about an hour so can often do 5 or 6 a day depending on mast locations as obviously if on top of a tower block takes longer than a lamppost style street one.
When they add 2600 equipment that is normally a 48 hr timescale but is almost how always completed the same day but then test 2600 for 24hrs before turning it off if not in a launched area like round Leicester