I've been trying to find some information about this but have yet to find anything useful.

In my town centre, there is an Orange mast located there so when testing on T-Mobile, you get a full coverage, where as on Three you struggle to get 1 bar, as I believe Orange sites were integrated into the MBNL deal so how comes some of these masts are not working for Three customers like myself?

Some of the orange masts are still yet to be integrated into MBNL which may be why Three have a low signal. You are right in that they are being integrated but as there are a lot of masts to integrate it may take some time to integrate them. Do also bear in mind that not all masts will be integrated, this will depend on whether Three already has good coverage in that area or not.

Judging by the low signal from Three in the town centre where you live they will hopefully be integrating it into MBNL to provide better coverage on Three. One way to look would be to check if any planning permission has been put in by MBNL to add antennae onto an existing mast. You should be able to find planning permission applications on your local council website.

This is slightly incorrect. As far as we know all Orange masts that were due to be turned off have been turned off. ALL the remaining ones WILL be integrated into the MBNL network.
This means that Three users will see an improvement in coverage once the Orange mast has been converted. All the remaining Orange masts will be available to Three customers.

You are correct though in that they still haven't done a huge amount of them. I'm in South Devon and most rural orange sites have been saved and are still working. Mostly on EDGE.
At some point (hopefully this year) they will be converted to DC-HSDPA and eventually LTE. Not happened yet though.

Thanks for your reply.

I was told last October by Three that they were planning a new mast in the area as they were aware of the signal issues in the area, they said work would start on a new mast on 15th December 2012, since then I've heard nothing and Three seem to know nothing. I don't know if that would be a new mast or just integrating the Orange mast for Three customers.

How long would a new mast take and how long would an Orange mast take to join MBNL?

I stand corrected.



There is no way of knowing how long it will take. As said in my last post you could check for any planning applications as this may indicate that the integration process has begun on that mast.

You could also ask Three on their twitter feed as they can tell you if there are any new plans or give you an update on their current plans as timings and integration into MBNL may have changed.

they did say a new mast was planned and work would start on 15th December 2012, but still nothing. Tried searching planning applications but nothing comes up. Tried searching a few key words...

If you have a twitter account you can try contacting them here: https://twitter.com/ThreeUKSupport

They might be able to give you some more information as they have access to the internal mast management system so they can check on mast status' for faults and also masts that Three are planning to build. Just give them your full postcode and ask them to check for any new masts in the area.

cheers buddy.

Looking at the "mods" pictures they're the same people from the three blog, which is where I asked just recently.

My area is very similar I get a basic 3G signal eventually I imagine they upgrade them all to DC-HSDPA would be nice.

Is this integrating of Orange sites into MBNL part of the JBP plan/project?

It's the diamond programme

I believe you wont always find a planning application for an upgrade of an existing antenna. It depends on how much of a change is involved. I believe in a lot of upgrade cases, the operators simply inform the councils of the upgrade and so there wont be something on the planning explorers.

Like for like no planning app (publicly anyways), unless council are tight turds. Where are you?

London. My council is Barnet council

Wonder how likely the possibility is of EE and Three sharing LTE sites in the future. I guess its always open for them to if they wished.

They will share the same sites.

Maybe I should re phrase better, not sites where the equipment is located but a RAN share like with current 3G

Yeh in that case it's different. It won't be like the 3G share is at the moment. But i wouldn't be surprised if they did something similar.

also how long do you think until all the Orange masts are added, months or years?

I would guess at about 2 years to integrate all orange masts to MBNL

Yeah and It will be interesting to see how good the coverage is then It is has come on leaps and bounds already.

Are EE not aiming for over 99% UK coverage by the end of 2014? I'd like to think that MBNL integration would be completed by then but I'm sure someone will correct me before long...

They said they were aiming for 98% 4G coverage I don't think they announced what 3G coverage they were hoping for. but I imagine it will be quite high with the 4G being better indoors then the 3G because of the spectrum used.

That's the plan. 99% 3G
I would say the orange sites will be integrated in MBNL within 9-12 months, then new sites will be added to in infill black spots

I'd agree with this