I am happy to report that two new monopole sites have gone up in recent weeks in my area (South Birmingham), only took close to 5 years from initial planning.

This is CTIL 132612/VF 78438.

http://i.imgur.com/7hBNAXw.jpg

17.5M total hight, 2G/3G900 and 4G800 only at least on 02.

NIMBYism from 2011: http://b31.org.uk/2011/06/petition-a...or-longbridge/

I am also pleased to report the other sites mentioned are also active.

This one was needed as the surrounding area has a highschool and lots of new housing.

This is CTIL 132603/VF 78429, the mast has just been installed.

http://i.imgur.com/cndcXPk.jpg

Again 17.5M total hight, not sure it is active as I have not done any testing yet.

More NIMBYism from 2012: http://b31.org.uk/2012/03/residents-...tside-nursery/

The area has had a lot of development and a new college, I am surprised the church didn't try and cash in and try and host the site on their roof?

Sorry for the not so good dashcam captures.

Sometimes I wish we had Chinese style planning...

I am glad the NIMBYs did not win, my signal has improved by around -10 dBm on average.

I'm impressed by Vodafone so far, got my £20 sim last Thursady, rang customer service and got a really good agent, far better than anyone I spoke to at Three, organised my WifiCalling in under 5 minutes which started working in about an hour (just as he promised) and he then volunteered to sort my porting in when I asked if I would need to reactivate WifiCalling after doing the port. He then processed my PAC and I was off the phone in less than 10 minutes.

After the idiots on the phone at Three he was impressively efficient.

My number was ported over to Vodafone today without any problems as well. So far I'm quite happy with their efficiency, streets above what Three ever offered, especially, considering the bad impression some people on this forum give of them.

Yep, just tried now and scrolling with the mouse wheel works.

Hoping for a redesign of the map though, whereby they don't show 2G coverage as 3G coverage!

What's Vodafone's policy on using a phone SIM in an iPad? I'm tempted by the 20GB/£20 SIM only plan but I want to put it in my iPad... Doesn't seem to be any T&Cs prohibiting this.

I've put my 25GB phone sim in my iPad and dongle loads of times and for extended periods when I've been away from home with no complaints I just made sure the apn was the same (I don't know if that made any difference)

Cheers. Think I'll give it a go. If the worst comes to the worst, I'll buy a cheapo Android phone and tether it.

I do see how they can tell the difference the only thing will be noted is that there is no calls or text made on the sim. You are restricted with it anyway if you think about it, restricted to 20GB it won't be like your hogging the network i.e like tethering unlimited on the 3!

True! Traditionally the mobile broadband SIMs have been cheaper than the phone SIMs for the equivalent amount of data so it's never really been cost effective to put a phone SIM into an iPad/mifi - I guess that's why they've never been too bothered what you do with the SIM.

I want to use it as backup for my home broadband which isn't the greatest... I work from home a lot so need a safety net.

It's a no-brainer of a deal. I pay for Spotify anyway, and there's Quidco cashback of £60 from Carphone Warehouse, so it effectively makes it a net cost of £60 for the year. (£240 - £120 {Spotify} - £60).

Their coverage map still not fixed for me zoom wise. Surely someone up there has noticed?

On desktop right click or use the mouse roller wheel. On phones just zoom with ya fingers

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-35538918

F*cking idiots. The lot of 'em.

To be fair, in a town there's no real excuse for not deploying a wired solution. Wireless is a cop-out that should be limited to rural areas.

You're right actually - I've just had a look at a map as I don't know Swindon well and the areas they refer to are what I'd describe as urban / suburban. There would be some overspill into more rural areas, but it does seem overkill just to avoid some roadworks.

Maybe my knee-jerk reaction to mast opponents was premature...

http://imgur.com/a/MEvip - A couple of Voda/O2 masts and speeds from them. There are also a couple of random ones from other places.

Also, is the coverage checker on vodafone down, because it won't load for me?

I can't access the desktop website at all in Virgin media..... Maybe it's a conspiracy

It's the same for me. Maybe we're getting a new site finally

Seems to be working here

It's because Virgin Media has blocked Vodafone again, or Vodafone has blocked Virgin Media again - not sure which, but it will happen randomly throughout the year, including last year on black friday when Vodafone have special deals on. Pretty bad to be honest.

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...2864583#M43825
http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...k/td-p/2956761
http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...d/td-p/3044876
http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...M/td-p/3045881

Hi, as we know rumour has it Vodafone are to add another 5mhz block to 3G900, has anyone had experience of it yet or if not any evidence as to when rollout might begin?

Will this enable them to increase the power level of 3G900 and also mirror it on 4G800, or how would it likely work?

Also will they then start to move 10mhz of 3G2100 over to 4G2100 for more capacity and speed? Leaving 5Mhz 2100 for additional capacity on 3G?

Thanks in advance chaps

Adding 5MHz to 3G900 will increase speed and capacity but not range of an individual cell. It will still be subject to cell breathing so at the moment tthe 4G800 would need to remain limited to the "breathed in" coverage of 3G900.
Moving 10MHz to 4G2100 would add capacity too but do they need to do this with the bucket loads of 2600MHz they have available?

Regarding 2100 it's what I assume would have happen as Vidafone is the serious contender to EE having 2100 for 4G would be an excellent boost.

So they have CTIL'd a VF site near me this week and they had permission to increase the height by 6M but driving by it looks the same height

So far all the masts that have been changed in the general are lattice so maybe they are struggling for monopoles? We had one monopole scheduled for Feb that now looking on roadworks.org has been pushed back to March.

All the other sites upgraded have also been VF with no O2 being touched with the monopole above being the first O2 if it actually takes place. There are O2 sites in the area that have planning granted.

There was a post on here about a shortage of them. They will probably pole swap in time.

They can do a similar job with their 2600 and still retain capacity on 3G by not removing any 2100 spectrum from there.