Brighton North Laines a few minutes ago. 4G speed test outdoors.
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi...nt=photo%2cpng

I thought Vodafone announced a multi million investment in Brighton not so long ago, to increase 3/4G to 98% coverage. One would assume this would mean 2600mhz implementation too??

Edit..... Thought so!

https://www.cable.co.uk/news/vodafon...ton-700001336/

I was not aware of that article. From I what I can see though, they have not done any of that yet. And there is no sign of 4G 2600 from Vodafone anywhere in Brighton yet.

Brighton is a weird one and it's not exactly much better on other networks. A lot of work needs doing, especially in those small streets.

I found Three to be unusable (literally no service) in many areas, and could pop around a corner and get back 4G - and really decent speeds. Maybe 800 in Brighton on Three will solve these dead spots, but I did a lot of speed tests and the rates varied massively.

2600 might be fine for the seafront, but the lanes need more 800 for building penetration. Given the constraints for VF on 800 compared to EE/Three where it's for VoLTE users only, that means Vodafone and O2 need to put in loads of fill-in sites.

Or possibly even work with some retailers to get them to install femtocells in their stores, with the cost paid for by the network. I suspect broadband speeds are likely to be pretty good, so there must be scope for a femtocell that can accommodate a lot of users.

I bet even EE/Three 800 will struggle to get inside a lot of those small shops for a long time to come.

Same here in S Wales. Whether I'm on a new CTIL site or an older VF 3G site I can't use data during a 3G call. Tested on many sites as well, and on 3G900 and 3G2100 but nothing. Some of the masts are doing 10Mbps+ on a speedtest, but drop to 0.01Mbps during a call.

Interestingly when I travelled to SE England the other weekend the data worked fine during a call. Even on congested sites where the data was only going at say 0.3Mbps, this same speed was also available during the call.

Must be a fault or misconfiguration somewhere.

Woohoo, looks like I might be able to get VO2 4G at the top of our woods. Will have to go and try tomorrow. They are finally doing getting into the South Hams.

To lift all this Brighton gloom..
Some nice band 7 speeds in Manchester center yesterday.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kpdim7x970...11-19.png?dl=0

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/1876400011

Is 2690mhz widely available in Manchester now or still on selected sites, am I correct in saying it was originally around the Northern Quarter?

Well I was walking around the main centre on a forced shopping trip with the other half and wasnt expecting any important calls I set my LG G4 to LTE Band 7 (2600mhz) and left it, most of the day I got nothing apart from in the Vodafone shop near the arndale centre which I think was there femtocell.
The best and only signal I found was in King Street, near the white stuff clothes store and around House of Fraser, think the mast was on the city tower building by the looks of it.
Carrier aggregation doesn't seem to work as if I set the phone to automatic it just sat on 800mhz giving 6mbps and ignored 2600mhz.
Great speeds, but what I would say is if the mast is full power 2600mhz really doesn't travel well at all.
Zero indoor coverage apart from in house of fraser with speeds and reliability dropping off rapidly.

An EE engineer said to me that you may only get aggregation when there's a lot of demand (data wise, not demand as in other users).

I have certainly noticed when doing speed tests here on 4G+ that often you get 40-50 and then after a second or two it ramps up to 90-140.

Is it something to save power? And does it depend on the network set up or vendor?

Where in Manchester C/C was this? I hope to god its Oxford Road......it bloody needs it with all the students (50-60k on a typical week day). Though to be fair EE and Vodafone do hold up well speed tests in double figures.

Yes it's something I noticed too, and now it makes a lot of sense why EE firmware chooses not to display 4G+, as originally I believed it was a fault the "+" symbol flashing on and off, but then I realised this was simply how it is designed.

Whenever the RRC changes from Idle to Connected, after a few seconds carrier aggregation will kick in.
I think most if not all networks have it set up this way, T-Mobile USA for definite. Saving power I presume is the main reason.

My 6P doesn't show 4G+ and until I got the P9, no Huawei phone supporting Cat 6 and carrier aggregation did either.

I said last year that 4G+ actually helps make 'normal' 4G seem inferior, to the point where people will moan they can't get 4G+ despite ordinary 4G still being good for speeds up to 100Mbps or so.

EE has perhaps wisely chosen to hide it wherever possible.

I was in police Street behind deansgate, I was tight on time and it was raining (as it often does in Manchester) so would have loved to have played around a bit more with finding and testing band 7 speeds and coverage, as this is the 1st that I've come across so far, and would have been nice to have seen if my phone would automatically used 2600mhz without me forcing it.

Surely even without CA, the priority should be set so that your phone defaults to 2600mhz over 800mhz?

My Z5 switches quite often to 2600 here in se London and clings to it until the death. I've also seen 2600 without the + symbol showing it does seem to depend on what your phone is doing at the time as well. Sometimes It says + when still on 800 when the 2600 layer is too weak. Its quite different to get your head around sometimes especially when you get full bars inside a house of 800 and when you go outside it goes down to 1 bar of 2600!!!

Know where you were. An armed police car parks there almost every Sunday. I know the VF mast where you were getting it as well I think.

This annoys me too with the EE Samsung firmware that EE deliberately choose to not show us 4G+ (CA) where it is indeed avaliable, now I've moved back to stock firmware I now have my 4G+ icon and the ability of locking my phone to 2G.

Spotted my mistake. 2600mhz!!

Looked like the signal was coming from a very tall building at the top of the street called city tower, the LG G4 doesn't show 4g+ or H+ for that matter so I use the network type indicator app to show me clearly what the phone is doing, but this doesn't show 4g+ yet just 4.
Not sure how consistent the 2600mhz signal would have to be before my phone would switch to, with all the very tall building in that part of Manchester 1 minute the phone had full signal the next it was only 1 or 2 bars, same was reflected in the data throughput mega speeds on good signal then just a trickle of a few Meg on a weaker one.
All that variation might be why my phone stuck to the strong 800mhz

Are O2 and VOD still rolling out separately or is it all CTIL? I ask as in my neck of the woods (South Hams, Devon), O2's 3G coverage map seems to have filled in dramatically where VOD has not. Then again, VOD has 4G close to my house but O2 has no 4G anywhere near.

I stress this is only what the map is telling me. I also appreciate that O2 3G is probably 900 and a complete waste of time. But why don't they show the 4G the same as VOD? Map not updated?

I would guess the roll out of 3G900 is a fudge to make up the coverage obligation and doesn't actually work?

The way the VF map is updated and how coverage is shown seems to differ depending on which operator site is being upgraded. Also if it is an O2 site being upgraded the work will show on O2 and not VF and vice versa so maybe it is how CTIL report the information?

So it's possible that VOD have 3G where O2 do? That would be interesting. The only example I can think of is Ashburton where O2 have 3G900 for years and VOD haven't. It doesn't work in any way so it's kind of pointless but it's there on the map. Wondering if O2 are just going around and bunging 3G kit everywhere with no backhaul just to show coverage pre CTIL treatment. Might order up a SIM and try it.

O2 seem to be more conservative with their coverage map compared to VF for the identical upgraded site for 4G

Did you get VO2 800 then?
They don't seem to have done Marldon.
Marldon not even planned either.
Can't see where it would be coming from.
I hope they aren't going to do the same thing as 3G and ignore rural areas.