If you live in London and have a compatible handset then you should notice a big improvement with O2s 3G coverage.

http://mediacentre.o2.co.uk/Press-Re...twork-2f8.aspx

And have a capable handset:-

http://www.reghardware.com/2011/03/18/o2_3g_900mhz/

Sneaky edit?

They started rolling it out in January, they switched it on in a few places last week - that's all.

I wonder if a handset is capable of using 900mhz on 2G does that mean it can use 3G on 900mhz?

I don't know the technical specifics of this which has me curious.

Oh yes!

No, different technologies I'm afraid unless it states in the specs that the phone can use 3G in the 900MHz Band (not just 2100MHz). Good to see that O2 are rolling out 3G in the 900MHz band, if it's anything like my experience with Telstra's NextG (3G 850MHz) service & coverage it'll be worth looking forward to - but please, I hope they also run it out to places where there is currently no 3G service from O2 sooner than later - my current O2 signal here is good, but it's GPRS only.

BTW, to check if a phone is 3G 900MHz compatible, go to www.gsmarena.com and select a manufacturer, then check the box for 900 in the UMTS section in the filter near the top of the page (between 850 and 1700, make sure you don't select GSM by mistake!) That should then give you all the phones by that manufacturer that can handle 3G in the 900MHz band, but some of these are only compatible on European sold models of the phone - the same phone sold elsewhere (particularly the Americas) may have 850MHz capabilities rather than 900MHz.

Wish I could remember who argued with us that this would be years away.......hard to feel smug

304 of them apparently

Funny how they announce just as I leave giffgaff due to poor data speeds. I might be back in a couple of months now. All I know is, I'm in London (though O2 might disagree) - I get low 3G signal on O2 and HSDPA on 3.

Perhaps not enabled in my bit of london yet.

They could do with making sure the rest of the country is covered first, instead of treating anyone who doesn't live in a major city or town as second class.

To be fair 3G900 will help both. It will be handy in rural areas in terms of longer distances can be covered by a single cell site. It will also help in london through better building penetration (by the signal).

London, being such a dense area, lets them have a positive impact on a large number of customers for a comparatively smaller investment. Also remember this is a data-only upgrade, O2's network in London has been seriously bad in recent years, it fell over a few times. I think mainly it has been due to overwhelming data demand from iPhones. If you do a news search you will see that executives from O2 have apologised on a few occasions about the woefully under-capacity network in London.

The main advantages the 900MHz band has over 2100MHz for 3G is...[LIST][*]Better in-building penetration - should be most noticeable in built-up areas (where outdoors 2100MHz 3G may be fine but struggles indoors especially at ground floor level) but everywhere can benefit from this.[*]Better coverage from a single mast - main benefit here is for rural coverage where 2100MHz 3G is deemed uneconomical - approx. four 2100MHz base stations are needed to match the coverage area of 900MHz 2G in rural areas on average. In addition, UMTS does not have a 35km radius limit that GSM has so in very desolate areas its possible to mount that base station on a mountain mast to cover a very wide area not dissimilar to a medium-powered TV transmitter (200km has been proven from aircraft, real world ground level results are likely to be less than half of this). For urban areas, 900Mhz would likely be better suited to microcells and picocells rather than macrocells.[*]For the same transmitting aerial above ground level at the same centre frequency with the same output power, the 5MHz UMTS block will give better coverage than the 200kHz GSM allocation (in the absence of on-channel interference) as UMTS can work down to lower signal levels approx 10db better than GSM in good conditions, though UMTS' coverage can be affected by cell breathing particularly during peak times.[/LIST]There is a price to pay for 3G deployment in the 900MHz band however, and that is reduced spectrum available for 2G (GSM) services. This can be partially offset at least by adding 1800MHz spectrum at the same site (both O2 and Vodafone have small allocations) if spectrum is available to deploy. Adopting Half-Rate speech coding is also an option for 2G calls, though this results in lower call quality.

Thanks Redcoat, that was a good read.

Can someone explain to me how having a reduced 2G service is bad? As the way I see it is it's being replaced with this newer version of 3G which offers a better signal and wider coverage, wouldn't that be good for all? So if you could only pick up 2G before this should now mean you have a better chance of getting a 3G signal right?

I imagine there's still a lot of people who don't have 3g phones and wouldn't be happy if they're forced to upgrade to newer 3g phones.

are any other networks going to be using 900MHz if not doing so already?

Would they be the same people who will complain about the digital switchover on the telly?

Probably, my grandparents belonging to that group.

Personally i think it's a good idea and always found even back in the days of 2g, the 900mhz networks always had the better signal in rural areas or indoors.

Ah that makes sense then why some people would be unhappy with this change.

Have to say that 3G coverage in the office where I work in ther centre of Birmingham is now rock solid, I look forward to the changes been rolled out elsewhere.

hope vodafone role out 3g900, otherwise they will be left behind all networks

I imagine they will, it's a relatively cheap way for them to expand coverage. Often today's kit can already do it and it's a case of just software upgrades in some areas.

Vodafone are the only ones doing 7.2Mbps on the HSDPA right? Do all the rest just offer 3.6Mbps? Did I read Vodafone were beginning to offer 14.4Mbps?

I reckon, in keeping with their premium brand, they will be the first to roll out LTE.

It's a far greater number of people than you imagine.

All of the carriers except 3 are still selling 2G phones.

Majority of the networks in urban conurbations offer 7.2Mbps where as the 14.4 service is usually reserved for large locations e.g. London and Manchester.