yeah it was 59 Mb/s down and 19 up 12 months ago, I dont understand why they would waste so much money without doing it right the first time. also they changed the antennas twice i the last 2 years but they still dont support 2.6 ghz so would have to be changed again.

http://blog.vodafone.co.uk/2015/07/1...ht-to-the-top/

also Vodafone UK’s Head of Networks, Petek Ergul seems to have no technical background at all. what a farce!

Petek Ergul:-

Mergers and Acquisitions
Private Equity
Investment Strategy
Applied Corporate Finance 1 & 2
Strategic Brand Management
Corporate Strategy
Business Economics
Accounting Information
Finance 1 & 2
Quantitative Methods
Marketing 1 & 2
Human Resource Management
Managing Strategic Change
Operations Management
Corporate Social Responsibility
Organisational Behaviour
Information Management

Compared to EE's head of networks :-
Paul Ceely

Board Member
Cambridge Wireless
February 2014 – Present (2 years 2 months)
Head of Network Strategy
EE
January 2011 – Present (5 years 3 months)
(Open)1 organization
Senior Manager, IP Strategy
Everything Everywhere Ltd
July 2010 – January 2011 (7 months)
Senior Manager, IP Strategy
T-Mobile UK
June 2008 – June 2010 (2 years 1 month)
Technology Manager
T-Mobile UK
May 2005 – May 2008 (3 years 1 month)
Data Network Design and Planning, T-Mobile UK
IT Security Consultant
BT Global Services
November 2003 – April 2005 (1 year 6 months)
Managed Firewall Solution
IT Security Consultant
Walt Disney Internet Group
April 2001 – October 2003 (2 years 7 months)
(Open)1 recommendation
Angela T.
Angela T.
Group Head of Commercial Demand Management
Paul is easily one of the most talented people I have ever had the pleasure to manage. His depth of experience and expertise in the networking arena were called upon by colleagues around the globe to provide solutions across the Walt Disney group of...View
Director
Xygot Solutions
September 1999 – March 2001 (1 year 7 months)
Founding Partner in this Network Management and Security consultancy, a Cisco Professional Services Partner, carrying out numerous projects for them. Additionally we were Micromuse and HP Openview partners.
Graduate Engineer
BT MNS Syncordia Solutions
September 1997 – September 1999 (2 years 1 month)

Apart of course, from being a network designer for Orange and heading up the design of Three's core network prior to joining Vodafone along with a couple of engineering degrees including in mobile networks I guess you are right, she has no technical background!

I think you just posted the course content of an MBA which she took. It's good for techies to understand non techie stuff if they want to be really useful.

Zoom buttons back on Vodafone coverage map.

well she hardly seems competent with the current roll out and surely that should be on her linkedin profile if true.

I find your speed interesting Ashley as the centre of Newcastle (which is more populated) is getting speeds of 50 meg.

Now it used to be that the town centre was congested on 3g but certainly not anymore. I can't comment on the Westlands exactly of course but it does seem strange your so slow, given all around your area I've driven and been amazed by coverage and speed.

If he's getting 4mb all the time the mast must have a fault I know of a couple of sites that don't do speeds anywhere near what they should Dartford has 4G+ but only does 25-30mbps 😱

I find Ashley's speeds while his is low, more typical now on some 4g Vodafone sites, normally around 12mbps I find, but way off the 45-55 of a few months ago, interesting clewsy you got such high speed in Newcastle under Lyme centre, last time I was there is mainly slow 3g 2100mhz and no service in some shops, the indoor shopping centre seems to have some sort of 4g microcell as you get 4g inside and parts of boots but nowhere else..
This is typical of how Vodafone seem to do most towns, switch on the smaller masts 1st and do larger ones later, Nantwich is a large town but it's 4g comes from just 2 edge of town pole masts, the centre mast isn't switched on yet so speeds and indoor coverage are poor. In Telford they've done this approach too and now with many of the smaller masts done, or close to being online soon as the masts turn up they have now turned on 1 big mast at the edge of town and seem to have the other planned in now..
I agree with others though, why not just add 2600mhz at the same time as the overall mast upgrade, with 800mhz 4g on low power, I bet full power 2600mhz would give it a run for its money in some areas but still be well within the 3g safe zone.

I would disagree. VOD's current roll out is quite impressive if you consider that the network has been more or less abandoned for 20 years or more. It's just that they are coming from an awfully long way back. 4G is popping up all over the place in the South West now which is good to see. EE needs someone to take them on and I think only VOD are in a position to do it at the moment.

We can only judge upon what we see and there are always two sides to a story with the biggest failings taking place as said 15 - 20 years ago.

I suspect for a combination of technical and financial reasons 3G was a token effort. Fast forward to a few years ago and we have the acquisition of C&W followed by CTIL leading to the biggest improvement ever seen in the network in the shortest time.

Could it of been done differently sure, have they got a plan for their additional spectrum and the future I believe so.

Delaying VoLTE is frustrating but I admire them for not launching an unsuitable service - hopefully they do it right now I have said that!

Everyone should be allowed to make mistakes and I hope VF have finished making theirs! Give them until the end of 2017 and then make that competency judgement when the rollout is completed.

Feel free to bookmark the post and abuse me in eighteen months or so

For Vodafone and O2, I can't see the rush for VoLTE really until they get much much more masts upgraded, it's not like they can increase power levels at all,
Judging by the way many urban upgrades have been approached sadly I think many of the big rural 2g masts will be among the last to be switched on in some areas. They seem to only upgrade big masts once they are supported in the area by smaller masts, some have been done and have shown a massive footprint on the coverage maps, there really are loads of planned upgrades on the map now, with many going live quite quickly and then others added, seem to be moving on to the more isolated 3g towers too,

Yeah, they are doing the smaller masts first around here. You can understand why as turning on one of the big towers would mean it was quickly swamped. Frustrating but understandable. For instance, Beacon Hill in Marldon would give a massive coverage boost in Devon but it also covers a few major towns which are heavy tourist areas so it would be killed in the summer. It's kind of the opposite of 3 800. They have just put the coverage out there without the back up so it looks good on the map but may not actually work.

I think VOD are finally taking data seriously and are determined to do it right this time which is good to see. If they get 4G800 as good as their 2G900 down here it will be a very decent service. Maybe not the fastest but good enough for most. Whilst they are hamstrung by not pushing out further than 2G, in some ways that is good. EE need VoLTE to be working well to get their 800 out there and their 18002G is nowhere near as good as VO2900 in most rural areas, at least in Devon. For VOD, VoLTE will just be a bonus.

Sadly In my village centre and to the west of me toward Wales EE 2g is much better then Vodafone, they seem to have forgotten about that part of North Shropshire and Wales and really need O2 who have good 2g coverage to help them out here. Regarding EE they've not touched a single 2g only mast around here for quite sometime, I'm guessing they might be hoping there 800mhz 4g is good enough to leave many of them rot away.

That's the problem with EE they seem to have let all these 2g masts and as a result many areas like Staffs are now 2g mainly, whereas VF/O2 are bringing 4g.

O no dont get me wrong, later on in the day it shoots back up to a decent speed...
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1Q...5QcTFXYk1ULXJ3
it just seems to get congested really easily at peak times. Its just frustrating that this could of all been avoided if they had rolled out 2600 Mhz at the same time.

Really?

If they changed the antennas, they really should have put 2600 in, and even 4G1800 instead of 2G1800. That way, 2600 would take the bulk of the data, with 1800 for iPhone 5's (the 5C, 5S and onwards support all bands) and people outside of the range of 800 (possibly with a bit of CA with 800?) - with 800 for the areas that are outside the range of 1800/2600 (whilst still being within the range of 3G900). That way, none of the bands would get overly congested.

4G800 has recently launched on my local CTIL mast; I ought to top up my Giffgaff SIM and speedtest it now - then do another speedtest a few months down the line, to see if it gets congested!

From what I know (on the EE thread), all of the 2G only masts, or 2G/3G masts, that are still active (on EE) will eventually get the upgrade to 3G and 4G. It's just a case of when.

I suspect that might be just after the 3/o2 deal is allowed/disallowed and the future of MBNL is more clear...

Do Vodafone and o2 ever do eachothers work, e.g. would o2 ever upgrade a mast for vodafone or just upgrade the backhaul for both networks if they are sharing the mast.

Vodafone manage the network for both operators in the west, Wales and as far north as Glasgow, O2 manage the network for both operators in the east, Scotland and Northern Ireland. London is slightly different in that each operator runs its own 2G/3G networks with Vodafone managing 4G for both south of the Thames and O2 north of the Thames.

Yes they do - for example, the Higham Ferrers (Northamptonshire) mast had Vodafone abd O2 2G/3G on separate masts, whereas 3G900 and 4G800 comes from the upgraded mast. Don't know if 3G2100 got upgraded, in terms of capacity/backhaul/panels etc.

A bit more info about the network masts/tests that I have done: the Eye mast (Cambs) is doing CTIL 2G/3G/4G - it appears to have 2 panels per sector also. One of the panels is wide, the other is narrow. Both appear to be of similar lengths. Am I correct to suggest 2G/3G 900 and 4G800 from the wider panel, and 3G2100 from the thinner panel?

Some links were circulating with Vodafone's 4G coverage. Playing around with the API there seems to be a map for Vodafone's VoLTE coverage. I'm not sure if it's test data or actual data but seems similar to the actual 4G coverage map.

Not unsurprising really!