Three met it's 80% coverage commitment in 2004, just 18 months after launch, something O2 took a further 5 years to do, and with the regulator fining them for not reaching minimum 3G coverage promises. Even today O2's 3G coverage figure sits in the mid 80% and they have no interest in rural coverage.

3 now have a mostly 100% HSPA+ network covering 98% of the population, which O2 don't, 3 have a 4G partner in Samsung with a deal to roll out 4G, which O2 don't, and they have spectrum to launch 4G in September next year.

Whilst you might think a 25 base station trial covering just 1000 people is impressive, I'd say actually preparing to deploy with a partner and frequency like EE / 3 are is more impressive.

As many here have said, O2 were happy when they were pushing to re-use frequency (they didn't even pay market rates for) for 3G when other 3G operators paid full market rates. However, when another operator re-uses frequency for 4G they don't like it!

I also think if they hadn't tried to delay the 4G auction it wouldn't have been so much of an issue as it wouldn't have been over a year of exclusivity for EE, it would have been less, but O2 chose to try and delay the auction, so they have made it worse for themselves, that's greed for you.

Am I not right in saying that the two networks that have objected to the condition that all LTE licensees receive part of the 800MHz band being attached to the 800/2600MHz spectrum auction are O2 and Vodafone?



BT and EE's trial of LTE in the south-west apparently took place within a 10MHz portion of the 800MHz band that will be put up for auction.
Honestly not 100% certain if that means that the 2x5.8 MHz bands O2 have would be enough but it seems to suggest that it would.

Ofcom threatened to fine O2 £40 Million but they complied and improved coverage back in 2008.

One of the reason for lacklustre 3G on some networks is that it cost them far too much buy the spectrum in the first place, and therefore the had less money to invest in coverage.

3G coverage will see little to no investment once 4G launches. Im surprised that Vodafone and O2 have teamed up to improve 3G coverage as its pretty much reached the end of its life investment wise.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/bu...ts-788594.html

Both O2 and Vodafone have:
2X 17.4Mhz on 900Mhz
2X 5.8Mhz at 1800Mhz

O2 have:
2X 10Mhz at 2100Mhz

Vodafone have:
2X 14.8 at 2100Mhz

Everything Everywhere (Orange & T-Mobile) have:
2X 45Mhz at 1800Mhz
2X 20Mhz at 2100Mhz

3 have:
2X 14.6Mhz at 2100Mhz

http://www.publications.parliament.u...258/125806.htm

This gives a grand total of:

O2 2X 33.2Mhz

Vodafone 2X 38Mhz

Everything Everywhere 2X 65Mhz

3 2X 14.6Mhz

And that has what to do with anything?

There isn't enough bandwidth on 1800Mhz to deploy 4G LTE.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/13/lte_uk/

http://www.cellular-news.com/story/51236.php

Ah, ok - that's the first link I'd seen that said it was a 2x10MHz slice of spectrum and not merely 10MHz.

Most sites seem just to talk about it being tested using 10MHz of the 800MHz band, which seems to suggest it was 2x5MHz as opposed to 2x10MHz.

To be fair, O2 have been improving their 900MHz 3G network in Northern Ireland with coverage that 2100MHz never reached or was right on the fringe - most of the main Belfast to Derry city main road is now covered apart from a stretch a few miles each way from Dungiven, and there's coverage now in some of the small to mid-sized towns like Limavady and Banbridge that didn't have 2100MHz coverage. They've also made some small increases in 2G EDGE coverage since the start of the year from what I've seen on my travels.

OTOH I've seen no improvement in coverage from 3 here over the last several years, despite promises and press releases vowing to increase it's 2100MHz network. With data roaming through Orange now disabled (not even restricted to 3's own mobile web pages) it's of little use to anyone using data on the move.

EE have said that they plan to have all active Orange base stations upgraded to handle 2G, 3G and be 4G ready (which if they come on after 11/9 should be straight away, I guess) by the end of this year, but at least west of the Bann I've seen no progress on this front. The T-Mobile network was shut down with very little notice or publicity back in April with many of those relying on it left in the dark, maybe some of those base stations will be brought back online to fill gaps in Orange's coverage but I've not noticed any additional coverage locally since T-Mob's net was switched off. Maybe they will fulfil their promise, but as a sceptic I'll believe it when I see it.

Here in Omagh, O2 have good 2G EDGE coverage and have improved their 3G coverage (both 900 & 2100MHz), Vodafone have a "dense" 3G network (2100MHz only) in the town but little of which spills outside the town boundaries, 2G is GPRS only. 3 has just the one base station that doesn't serve all of the town, pretty useless indoors for most and when it was having capacity issues a couple of years ago, they simply reduced its power output rather than try to improve coverage! Orange still only has a 2G GPRS network - not even EDGE! - in the biggest town in Co. Tyrone, although it's 2G coverage in the surround rural area isn't too bad, not as good as O2/Voda, but better than what T-Mobile had!

In my experience, in around Greater Belfast to about a radius of around 25-30 miles from the city-centre, Orange is reasonably popular and would have a share about equal to that of O2 and Vodafone. But outside of this in the rest of NI most people either consider only O2 or Vodafone - their 2G coverage is more reliable than Orange in most places and both have 3G coverage in most towns, whereas 3 seems to have stopped caring about its network here and data is unusable on 2G roaming. Any business I know locally uses either Voda or O2 for its mobile needs.

But going back on topic, O2 and Vodafone in theory could use their small 1800MHz allocations for LTE if they wanted to - LTE can work down to paired bandwidths of 1.4MHz and 3MHz, but the data throughput especially at 1.4MHz would be no better potentially than that possible for HSPA+, DC-HSDPA or even HSDPA in optimum conditions. Though it could allow both networks to put a small "test" network in place serving some cities or towns to gain experience (or for example take some stress of some local 3G base stations that have capacity problems) before potentially launching a full-blown 800MHz and/or 2600MHz network, if they are successful bidders.

Corrections

Here is the exact spectrum holding of O2 and Vodafone on 1800Mhz


O2 Telefónica UK Ltd
1710.1-1715.9 MHz
1805.1-1810.9 MHz

Vodafone Limited
1715.9-1721.7 MHz
1810.9-1816.7 MHz

http://www.cept.org/files/1050/Deliv...eport%2003.doc

O2 Telefónica UK Ltd
1710.1-1715.9 MHz
1805.1-1810.9 MHz

So that's 2x5 then.

Vodafone Limited
1715.9-1721.7 MHz
1810.9-1816.7 MHz

And that's 2x5

Now I don't think that's enough to launch LTE on unless they joined up to partner in a deal, which would be a clever move, however I think they are too far behind the curve now and may as well just wait it out until the proper 4G UK spectrum is issued. Of course the auction was meant to be in '09 but those two were the primary delayers of it!