Was just looking at an article from when orange announced they were joining mbnl and it states that orange wold be integrated over the next 3 years. The article was posted in sep 2010. So 3 years would be up September this year. So unless they are extremely off schedule it should be around then.

http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/News/99...with_MBNL.aspx

2G is already 99.8% of pop.
3G is currently at 98% of pop.
4G will be at 98% of pop by end of next year

And all going well, late 2015/early 2016 it should be greater than 98% coverage indoor UK wide of pop...

For London, you can use this handy site, which records any planned roadworks. If they need to dig any trenches for fibre electricity supply, theyll show up on here. Have seen a few mast related works, which havent been in the planning explorer.

http://public.londonworks.gov.uk/roadworks/home

Could provide some insight into any works in your area

Looks like http://roadworks.org/ but just for London and with a less user friendly interface.

Getting slightly confused - for example in Fowey in Cornwall there is 2g only orange mast and no three coverage or T-Mobile.

This mast is active, will this be upgraded to MBNL?

Not entirely sure about that as MBNL is a 3G sharing venture. Perhaps if 3G is installed MBNL will be involved and service the 2G facilities also. My understanding is that MBNL has been upgrading 2G (GSM) transmission equipment on behalf of EE across the UK.

Oooh nice one... Didnt know this existed. Thanks!

Funny that. I was told last year by Three that there would be 'several' new masts in my area within three months, but so far nothing. It's almost as though they are telling people that just to stop them moving to another network. Surely not

I am sorry to hear some people are getting mislead by stuff like that It isn't right. In my area they have delayed it a while my local mast was meant be upgraded 2-3 months back mid/late march I was told. They are doing maintenance on local mast to where I live this Friday according to there site so they might be upgrading it then. If they do I will let everyone know hope they are.

You are kidding? How on earth can there still be Orange only masts considering the TMo/Orange merger happened in 1768, which without access to a calculator I can only guess at being several years ago. Everything Everywhere my arse.

Sorry I missed this. Answer to your question is yes eventually but when is something I can't answer. All the Orange masts which are still up specially in areas like you are in will be upgraded to MBNL eventually so you can get 3G signal. The reason you can't get a Three signal is because Three only share masts with Orange and T-Mobile through MBNL so when it is upgraded you will get Three signal. At moment EE offers more coverage than Three because Orange masts are open to EE when they not to Three.


It's quite simple actually there wasn't always T-Mobile Masts and Orange masts in the same place. So as to insure that people could still get coverage they left the Orange masts in certain areas. So people could still get coverage and they intend to update these masts eventually. I think it was the better decision then just shutting down these masts and leaving people without coverage.

I am sorry, it is quite ridiculous that EE have not converted all of their 2G masts. It is all very well farting about crap arse 4g but they should concentrate on delivering basic services - like phone calls - to all of their customers.

True I agree they do need iron out problems they having I don't disagree on that one.

So according to roadworks.org there is something happening between 12th-18th June directly where the Orange mast is, could be to do with MBNL or not. There was also work there last week right next to the mast, they were doing something with wires under ground, could also be to do with MBNL, only time will tell.

I just hope it happens fast as that is pretty much the only blackspot I've come across with Three

Hope it works out for you there is certainly very few black spots with the mast sharing and MBNL project. It was one of the best decisions three made to join with T-Mobile it has worked out very well for both specially with orange now included in it. As it Basically has 3/5 [Well 2/4 now] networks working together.

Description : Connections Small Service:SERVICE ALTERATION: (APPROX DEPTH 450mm):JOINTHOLE IN SLABS FOR MOVEMENT OF ELECTRICTY SUPPLY AND ASSOCIATED CABLE

That's what the planned work is for, as stated by roadworks.org which is near the orange mast. Does that give any indication that it could be an upgrade of the mast?

Aren't there still thousands of old orange masts to upgrade? What happened to sept 2013 ?

They have been running BT ducts to an old orange 3g mast and an existing mbnl mast near me the past couple of weeks (i presume for fibre) so looks like the orange mast it is going to be integrated into mbnl fairly soon.

Any idea how many are left to do?

Well they're supposed to be done by the end of this year.

Around here all the ex-orange masts that were lamp post sized have been turned off, as generally up the road was a larger site for T-Mobile that also served Three, so no need of the lamp post. However in a couple of places that has led to massive drop in *indoor* signal.

In rural areas I suspect the wait on upgrading will be for a new backhaul link to go from the ancient 2 Mbps that Orange France never upgraded, to either 100 Mbps (for MBNL both EE and Three 3G) or 1 Gbps (for EE 4G and maybe later Three 4G).

There seems what must be like hundreds in Staffordshire left to upgrade, with no sign of any work taking place whatsoever, have they actually said / or Committed somewhere that these sites will be integrated?
There's an old 2g lamppost mast on the industrial estate behind my house in Stone (across the road from a nice big 3g mast for o2/Vodafone) which was put up as this area of town has outdoor coverage only, upgrading it would greatly improve indoor 3g coverage on three & EE. But as the is already quite a few masts around here already around the town and the motorway they could just turn it off and leave us will outdoor only..
On rural sites... How can they get better speeds needed for 3g upgrade if there's nothing around where the site is?