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Vodafone and O2 4G experience thread |
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#2526 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 14,633
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Quite a bit happening in Wales I see.
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#2527 |
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Join Date: Apr 2008
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Goodness Vodafone 4G is fantastic for coverage where it is on every mast. Along the M3 its unbroken between Odiham and Basingstoke.
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#2528 |
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Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: United Kingdom
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Are you being ironic? It's only about 5 miles between Exit 5 for Odiham & Exit 6 for Basingstoke.
Between Oxford and Basingstoke it is fairly unbroken as well. Very impressed. |
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#2529 |
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Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: United Kingdom
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And in that five mile distance EE isn't unbroken 4G. So I'm a bit confused about what your point is. My point was that where VF 4G is, it works better than EE in my personal experience.
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#2530 |
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Join Date: Jun 2014
Posts: 498
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On Voda managed to stream 128k radio (freshradiouk.com) using 4G only (locked out of anything else) from Dartford to passed Amesbury on the A303 last October so It can only be even better now.
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#2531 |
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Join Date: Jun 2014
Posts: 498
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Also from Dartford to passed Banbury via M25/M40 with only one 20 second gap around high Wycombe
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#2532 |
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Join Date: Jul 2004
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I would imaging it would work better at 800 rather than EE's 1800 (at the moment). It'll just refract it's way further into the nooks and crannies. Presumably once EE launch 800 properly, that issue will be solved although you do wonder if the phone is hooked to 1800 and you dip out of service for say, 30 seconds, is it going to be able to jump to 800 in that short a time?
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#2533 |
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Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 261
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#2534 |
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Woore, Cheshire/Shropshire
Posts: 1,672
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Not much change in the from last week on the predicted coverage map around the North West Midlands and south Cheshire, though I'm not surprised as a massive amount was added then.
Looking at roadworks.org they are lining up a massive switch on in Telford Shropshire sometime soon as they have over half a dozen masts lined up for excavation work ready for new poles, some are virtually next to each other (1 legacy vod & 1 legacy O2) so it backs up that they are doing every mast in some areas at least. On a personal note my much needed to be upgraded rural O2 2g Pole has some bt work laying fibre near around it so fingers crossed that might go live soon. |
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#2535 |
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Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: United Kingdom
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Vodafone's 4G is starting to be a very robust network, more robust than 2G I'd say.
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#2536 |
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Join Date: Mar 2000
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Vodafone's 4G is starting to be a very robust network, more robust than 2G I'd say.
I don't see Voda being able to increase 800 transmission strength to equal the 900mhz 2G for a very long time - lots of non-VoLTE capable handsets being sold, especially by business team. |
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#2537 |
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Join Date: Jun 2015
Posts: 125
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Yes, but its like EE's network - due to the lower signal strength, I can find my iPhone 6 on voda switching to and holding EDGE and having to use airplane mode cycle to get 4G back.
I don't see Voda being able to increase 800 transmission strength to equal the 900mhz 2G for a very long time - lots of non-VoLTE capable handsets being sold, especially by business team. VoLTE capability? Cool, stay on 4G and start the voice call. |
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#2538 |
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 145
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Quote:
I don't see Voda being able to increase 800 transmission strength to equal the 900mhz 2G for a very long time - lots of non-VoLTE capable handsets being sold, especially by business team.
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#2539 |
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Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 2,875
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Yes, but its like EE's network - due to the lower signal strength, I can find my iPhone 6 on voda switching to and holding EDGE and having to use airplane mode cycle to get 4G back.
I don't see Voda being able to increase 800 transmission strength to equal the 900mhz 2G for a very long time - lots of non-VoLTE capable handsets being sold, especially by business team. |
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#2540 |
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Woore, Cheshire/Shropshire
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Vodafone's 4G is starting to be a very robust network, more robust than 2G I'd say.
Living, commuting & working in areas on the edge or in the midst of upgrading you can really see the potential, will be interesting to see where things sit in 6 months time. For me, the next big thing needed is to start refarming that 900mhz 2g over to 3g 900mhz as it desperately needs it and will still play a big part in the Vodafone set up in the medium term whist the 4g rollout continues and is still on reduced power. I can see 2100mhz 3g becoming obsolete very quickly though. It's understandable why some people still think Vodafone are rubbish though as if you live in a untouched area nothing really works at all, even here if I travel south east almost 30 miles to Penkridge in Staffordshire it's possible to do the whole journey without any data access at all (3g or 4g) whist EE & three will be at least 3g most the way. |
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#2541 |
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Inactive Member
Join Date: Dec 2015
Posts: 932
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Quote:
Yes, but its like EE's network - due to the lower signal strength, I can find my iPhone 6 on voda switching to and holding EDGE and having to use airplane mode cycle to get 4G back.
I don't see Voda being able to increase 800 transmission strength to equal the 900mhz 2G for a very long time - lots of non-VoLTE capable handsets being sold, especially by business team. I have to force 3G only mode a lot of the time, to avoid 2G - if I can't get 4G speeds, so be it. Voda and O2's 800 will always be power limited because the 800 will have to remain within the boundaries of 3G900 - whereas EE and Three are using VoLTE and 1800 as their main band, meaning that 800 can go full power. |
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#2542 |
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Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Totnes, Devon
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I would imaging it would work better at 800 rather than EE's 1800 (at the moment). It'll just refract it's way further into the nooks and crannies. Presumably once EE launch 800 properly, that issue will be solved although you do wonder if the phone is hooked to 1800 and you dip out of service for say, 30 seconds, is it going to be able to jump to 800 in that short a time?
It will be way better between 4G bands in that the thresholds can be more precisely set since multiple bands, CA and band load balancing is a built in feature of LTE. This means LTE has the ability to push a device between bands regardless of priority. So it could push devices from a swamped 2600 carrier out to 1800 for example. Because of this it won't let 1800 get too weak before pushing you to 800. To sum up, it will work how we expect it too, properly, in much the same way that 2G<>3G doesn't!
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#2543 |
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 1,370
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Quote:
Yeah, it's starting to get better,
Living, commuting & working in areas on the edge or in the midst of upgrading you can really see the potential, will be interesting to see where things sit in 6 months time. For me, the next big thing needed is to start refarming that 900mhz 2g over to 3g 900mhz as it desperately needs it and will still play a big part in the Vodafone set up in the medium term whist the 4g rollout continues and is still on reduced power. I can see 2100mhz 3g becoming obsolete very quickly though. It's understandable why some people still think Vodafone are rubbish though as if you live in a untouched area nothing really works at all, even here if I travel south east almost 30 miles to Penkridge in Staffordshire it's possible to do the whole journey without any data access at all (3g or 4g) whist EE & three will be at least 3g most the way. Despite my previous comments, today I found a taxi driver in Totnes who is on EE. Hurry up VO2. Taxi drivers are your last bastion. |
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#2544 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 1,370
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It won't work the crappy way it works between 3G and 2G for example.
It will be way better between 4G bands in that the thresholds can be more precisely set since multiple bands, CA and band load balancing is a built in feature of LTE. This means LTE has the ability to push a device between bands regardless of priority. So it could push devices from a swamped 2600 carrier out to 1800 for example. Because of this it won't let 1800 get too weak before pushing you to 800. To sum up, it will work how we expect it too, properly, in much the same way that 2G<>3G doesn't! ![]() |
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#2545 |
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Join Date: Aug 2014
Posts: 95
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I am pretty sure you won't have lost out. The code you get is for 12 months of Spotify, so it starts whenever you successfully get to enter it. I am of the opinion, this will continue for 12 months even if you give notice on your contract.
It's not made clear you need to cancel your existing sub until you realise you can't just apply it. If Vodafone made that clearer, you could cancel sooner (when I wanted to switch, I had just started into a new month and could have cancelled even before I went to sign the new contract). What was most annoying was in the days in between my subscription expiring and Vodafone's system being down, which meant I had no Spotify Premium at all (I couldn't really just pay for it myself as I'd then have to wait another month before being able to authorise with Vodafone). The nonchalant attitude of the call centre staff slightly gave me the impression it happens all the time. |
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#2546 |
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Join Date: Mar 2000
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And in that five mile distance EE isn't unbroken 4G. So I'm a bit confused about what your point is. My point was that where VF 4G is, it works better than EE in my personal experience.
Starting to see capacity issues on Voda 800 LTE near where I've been working this week, EE giving 10mbps and Voda struggling with 1.5 to 2mbps on 4G. It shows how good LTE is that its very responsive but speeds are slow (sheer number of users). I didn't try Voda 3G to see if that was any faster. |
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#2547 |
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Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 834
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Quote:
I assume that's purely down to frequency and number of masts converted. I would expect EE has more masts in that 5 mile stretch and when they're all converted to LTE the same effect will be seen. (Or EE will turn on 800 for that stretch).
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#2548 |
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Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: This forum
Posts: 3,388
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Masts plural? In a 5 mile stretch? How far do 4G waves travel?
There are hills and valleys even in a 5 mile stretch that make coverage complicated; and the masts aren't necessarily there to serve the road, there are villages and houses that want coverage in that area too. Vodafone is using 800mhz for their LTE currently; and EE is using 1800mhz. These can have different propagation around terrain characteristics. If you had a perfectly flat land and line of sight between you and the mast, I think the distance covered would be similar (but 1800 would have more capacity). This is where we need RAN Man or japaul to comment. |
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#2549 |
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Join Date: Aug 2014
Posts: 95
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So that's how they do it, so would I be right in saying they aren't soaking up the cost of roaming? For example like 3 claim. Would the way Vodafone seem gone be setup they are just charging an access fee? I understand how Euro/world traveller works but I mean from a network point of view.
I assume Vodafone makes the economics of World Traveller work by doing reciprocal deals with networks to have low wholesale roaming rates. Vodafone's in a particularly good position to do this because they can go to AT&T (for example, I don't know if they've actually done this with AT&T) and say 'give us preferential rates on your network in exchange for preferential rates on our networks across the world'. Vodafone can then afford to offer World Traveller, and AT&T their own version of it. I'd guess Vodafone has worked out if they offer World Traveller in a country they make more money than if they don't (assuming they have access to cheap enough wholesale rates). If I go to a World Traveller country I usually pay the £5/day access fee, but if Vodafone don't offer it I'll buy a local SIM and put that in my MiFi rather than pay Vodafone whatever crazy amount they normally charge outside the EU. This means with World Traveller I'd pay them more like £70 on a 2 week trip, instead of nothing (I know this is more expensive than a local sim but it's way more convenient). The original list of World Traveller countries were primarily countries where Vodafone had networks anyway, but I guess they'll have made more deals over time. |
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#2550 |
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Woore, Cheshire/Shropshire
Posts: 1,672
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Trying an Iphone 6 plus for a few weeks while my sick LG G4 is off to be fixed thanks to a dodgy marshmallow update, and yes the signal is on par as the already brilliant G4, but its sad to see that even after all this time since I last had an apple phone, the Iphone 4s that the signal management software hasn't improved at all and still acts like its Hugh Grant...
'ohh am I a Plane? Am I a washing machine? Am i a Tractor? oh wait, yes I'm meant to manage signal priority's in a Iphone... yes thats it.. better stop displaying no signal and choose one of these 3 signals to use, but which one? I cant decide... I try them all... but which ones best.. I still don't know...... ...Wait... what am i supposed to be doing again? While The Android.. Theres some 4g, I'll use that, End of.. |
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