As far as I'm aware there were no objections from the parishes or towns and some support. English Heritage gave their usual response. The biggest problem is the sheer lack of planning officers in the South Hams at the moment. Very little is getting done.

Isn't that because O2 is doing part of the UK and Vodafone the rest? They're deliberately concentrating on certain areas as part of the Cornerstone agreement.

Telefónica UK manage and maintain these elements in the East (including Northern Ireland and most of Scotland) and Vodafone UK in the West (including Wales).

So which area is doing the best at the moment for upgrades?


http://www.modaco.com/news/android/a...ing-deal-r770/

I had a strange interesting thing happen at work in Market Harborough today on my Vodafone S6 for around 10 mins I had the VOLTE symbol enabled and incoming calls worked ok

The S6 was one of the test handsets for VoLTE, so maybe Vodafone is rolling it out silently like EE?

Exciting developments for an anorak like myself today, while at work I noticed I only had a weak 3g signal when I turned off 4g, wanted to quickly download a 300mb file and my 4g signal comes from a mast recently upgraded on the edge of town, but as it's a massive mast and now the 800mhz signal cover the whole of West Telford it only manages speeds of 6-10mbps on a lunch time, while the local mast on Stafford Park has 2100mhz 3g which is barely used at all now so gives speeds of 24mbps. But it wasn't there when I looked, popped out in the car and yes it's getting upgraded!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sh58c5b5gl...145~2.jpg?dl=0
Not much to see when I took the photo,
EE use the top panels, the Vodafone middle panels have been removed (you can just see the wiring hanging about) and one side of the O2 panels at the bottom are missing, will be Interesting to see how things progress over the next few days!

I had a very bad experience with Vodafone going back a few years and vowed never to go to them again but with the amount they are upgrading their network it would be foolish of me not to consider them when my contract finishes.

Does anyone think Vodafone will ever catch up to EE for coverage etc?

Used have my personally phone on Orange/EE, works phone on Vodafone.

When the Orange/T-Mobile network merger completed, I finally had complete network coverage on my drive home. The same journey always had better coverage on Vodafone (and O2).

But swings and roundabouts - no network has complete coverage, there will sadly always be gaps here and there due to geography, buildings, where they can get planning accepted to stick up a mast, etc.

It would be nice though if they offered a very similar coverage to the degree that there won't be much in it between o2, three, Vodafone, ee etc

Totally agree though about buildings, penetration, gaps here and there.

I think it depends what you want. IF Vodafone get their 800 coverage to the same level as their 2G900 and you have a VoLTE phone and they have got that working, that would be a very, very good network. Maybe not the ultimate speeds but probably rarely be out of a signal, even in very rural places.

EE have gone for more dense mast placement but higher frequency which means you may get higher speeds 90% of the time but there will be more not spots. They do have 800 to roll out which will fill in a lot of those but there are some places where they won't do 800 while VOD will probably do it on every mast they 4G.

Difficult to look into the future as VO2 so badly neglected 3G, it's hard to believe that they will take rural coverage seriously. Bit it appears they are investing very heavily in the network, albeit, mostly upgrading previously 3G'd places first. For me, the one mast that covers the place I live and work is probably not going to get EE800 but is probably certain at some point to get VO2800. I don't know when that point is. So I either have to sign up to something that works pretty well now or wait and see if VO2 are going to put in a superior service. Generally, around here, EE blow everyone out of the water with 4G but it's really down to where you live and work day to day with consideration for coverage while travelling.

I'll be sticking with my dual SIM phone for the time being. VOD 2G for calls and 3 123 PAYG for data. Works well even though the phone and OS are pants.

Vodafone in my area is a static 50 down 20 up on 4G on my iPhone 6S Plus in Duston, with EE in the same area I get 3 down 1 up on 4g yet the situation is very different the second I go anywhere else where I then get 4G on EE pretty much everywhere but on Vodafone it's 3G only.

We often here which mobile phone network had the overall best coverage for various types of service from many sources and many people, but in the end it's a highly personal thing that depends on many personal factors and usage requirements, no one person can say to another with any confidence which is best for someone, and service levels and quality have changed so much in the past few years anyone saying service or coverage was bad when they tried it a few years ago might find things very different now or in the next few months.
I changed from three last year who were the best network in my locations to Vodafone, who if you look at coverage maps are a solid 3rd place for coverage or any kind, in Shropshire and South Cheshire behind O2 & EE,
But for me I had a full usable 2g signal indoors and 4g upstairs at home last year, 3g full signal at work and 3g 90% albeit slow 900mhz on my commute with Vodafone vs threes no indoor coverage, very weak 3g with no throughput on my commute and a congested non responsive 3g & 4g at work, it was a no brainer really as those are the areas I use my phone most of the time. Now, Vodafone have improved things that I now have 3g/4g indoor coverage at home, on most of my commute and at work I have had 4g since the next year, with at least 4 more mast I pass coming online in the next few weeks..
But if you live in Devon, hants, big parts of Wales and wast anglea, you will probably still think them the devil incarnate and rightly so.
Myself and other think the same about EE where I live as they have not upgraded nearly all the orange 2g masts and left the Mbnl masts on 2mb copper backhaul in the most part.

I was saying to my friend it's a shame there isn't a MVNO which can use any network and picks up the strongest signal be it O2, EE etc and uses that so no matter where you are you are guaranteed coverage.

There is
http://the.pebble.network
But the prices mean that you would only use that service if the extra coverage was extremely important.

Ooh live and learn and yeah crazy expensive and just found out there is another one as well www.jump.co.uk.

Specially tailored plans? Does it also run fitness centres?

Ouch - £49.99 for 1GB of data and nothing else, or for 500MB data and 500 total calls/texts (so 250 of each).

You're best off having a CTIL SIM and an MBNL SIM on PAYG, and go from there.

Specially tailored means very expensive!

And you'll be told it's such a great deal you can't tell anyone else...

Update. I spoke to a person who know's what's going on tonight and he said that the application has been approved and was surprised this wasn't reflected on the net. He said the issue was that the developer ran away and that the money was no longer there. Apparently, people in that area are on at him all the time about it.

So, not sure really but it seems that SHDC have given it the green light which in theory gives that application 5 years to 'start works' before it expires. Looks like it's a money thing more than the council holding it up. I may be wrong but only repeating comments made at a public meeting which is recorded.

So it appears that they took too long over making a decision and as I said the mip us being wound down (God knows why) unfortunately so it may not get done.

Well if the decision is not yet on the net then it must be fairly recent so yes, that appears to be the case. Shame as there was a hell of a lot of local support and only a few fruitcakes opposing it. The only hope is that new money becomes available and it can be resurrected. As it was all networks it would have given a massive coverage boost to that area.

Maybe the networks could just pay for it between them seems a big waste especially as the area is so poor at the moment and unlike other mips some people actually live there!

I believe John Tucker is your man at SHDC to contact. I certainly don't think after T18 that there will be any local funding available other than a few grand here and there. It would need to come from the networks / govt.

Is Voda's coverage checker broken for anyone else?