Possible updates to these? Maybe integrated cell site locations? Future/planned upgrade info?

3's checker appears to be up now and unchanged.

I notice that it says my (rural) area doesn't have "ultrafast" data, but when I did a speed test in a capable device at the nearest cell it was reporting 10+Mbit down and 2-3Mbit up - so it must have had an upgrade from 7.2Mbit.

Bear in mimd ultrafast is dc-hspa. What you describe seems to be normal hspa+

This would not show as ultrafast on the checker.

Maybe they were updating ultrafast areas?

All 3 sites have been at 14.4 or above for a loooong time. Most are 21, with many now 42.

According to the three website over 90% will be H+ enabled by Jan 1st

last time it was down when it came back it they had switched off the orange mast in my town!

I don't really pay any attention to coverage checkers, but am pleased to report 'best ever' levels of Orange 3G coverage in many areas of NW England over the last week or so.
It's now common to drive for 40+ miles with no buffering at all listening to internet radio on EE, and not just on motorways. (T-Mobile masts have always been very dependable, but like I say a vast improvement just recently where Orange is concerned).

I reported this problem to ee earlier on today and they said thanks for letting them know and they will get there technical department to get it up and running again.

I'm picking up 4G in some areas that didn't have it yesterday or Xmas Day. I can still only manage 20Mbps max both down and up which is surprisingly low. I'm assuming that this is because it was only turned on a couple of days ago and they're still working on it. A couple tests though gave less than 1Mbps both down and up! (Screen shot if anyone wishes to question it).

I'm hopeful of good things to come in the next few weeks and months

If report the 1mbps issues. Also have you reset your network settings since downloading carrier update EE13.2 probably won't make a difference but worth a try.

When your only getting 20mbps... What signal level have you got?

anyone know when wales will get the 2G refresh?

1 was 3 bars and 1 was 4 bars. I thought it would have been flying with that but apparently not. I also did a couple at 11-13 down and 10ish up at the same time...

So I range EE. She would pretty much do nothing about it as I didn't have 3 examples over 48 - 72 hours and said that the 0.45Mbps down and 0.13Mbs up was a 1 off.

I questioned as to what they would consider as 4G speed and she said anywhere between 5 - 7Mbps. I had no comeback to that as I took a quick look at their website when on the phone and saw this under the heading '4G Speed - What You Can Expect'...

"Here's the technical bit. Average 4G download speeds are likely to be between 8 and 10 megabits a second (Mbit/s), with possible instances of up to 40 Mbit/s.

Typical upload speeds are between 5-6Mbit/s, with possible instances of up to 15Mbit/s.

Another technical word that might help make this 4G thing clearer is latency - the time it takes the network to respond to your action.

Typical 4G latency is only 60-70 milliseconds (ms), while 3G latency is typically 100-125ms. You can really appreciate the difference if you're flicking through webpages or playing online action games."

Seems that you guys are very lucky with your speeds on the mainland and I'll just have to suck it up. I have seen just over 20Mbps down and up but nothing close to some of your speeds. The average I would probably get would be 9-12Mbps down and up

And yes Lucan, I have done that since 13.2 update but not since launch of 4G. You think that would help?

I wish O2 would look at this page and think "better get our act together".

Davy.. Your expectations are too high it's literally 600% faster than you had before and it will get faster. EE have been very careful to understate and over deliver when it comes to LTE. It will get better as more sites come on line.

Yeah, perhaps it was wrong to base things on the mainland and I really only want to be able to stream without any buffering which I can do with those speeds. Really looking forward to the coverage being extended and the 3G increasing for when there's no 4G around

I'd say there are only two sites active in Belfast currently which with other folk pummelling them and speed testing it's shows that the backhaul is capable of sustained abuse! (City Centre & Malone Road)

Really as little as 2? Where do you reckon that they are?

From looking at the coverage map I would say 3 sites are live.
The site off Lisburn rd mentioned before is one of them.
A city centre site also, probably roof top of castle court centre or the office tower on high st.
Would also look to be a site to the north going into the docks at duncrue.

Apparently he's right, I checked its at Dargan near to the sewage works?

Yeah Dargan would be near sewage works. It's not beside it, but it's not a kick in the arse off it

Yeah, I would even guess that a lot of these sites aren't fibered yet. I dare say the teams doing the fibre aren't the same as the ones doing the upgrades and there's no mandatory order it needs to be done in.
The wildly fluctuating speeds are probably down to legacy microwave backhaul sometimes getting swamped. While as you said, microwave is good enough for LTE it may struggle occasionally with everyone doing speedtests and with all the 3G traffic.

Would the site near Dargan be this 1 on the roof of Mount Vernon flats (Ross House)? It's on the other side of the M2 from Dargan but very, very close.

Planning ref: Z/2012/0907/F

Strange thing with this is that it's only EE as the applicant and not EE & H3G. First time I've seen that in the applications for here. It also only requests for a transmission dish but in the drawings it makes reference about antennae being replaced and the installation of a Huawei cab too...

That might be a wish too far!

From what we here from a new O2 friend on here O2 are planning similar massive backhaul upgrades.