I've done two more speed tests since the last post, and on both ocassions hit 67Mb/s.

Actually, my signal strength is slightly lower new than before tge availability of 3G/4G (ie before yesterday). Could this be because if the switch to 1800 MHZ (from 900MHZ 2G)?

EDIT: I've found some guide on how to interpret the iOS Field Test Mode data, to work out which frequency is being used. Based on the info given, it looks like Stretham is on 800 MHz LTE (deep down inside, it did think chances of 18000 MHz were pretty slim given we're not exactly in a major city but on the outskirts of a rather small city.

For those wondering what info my iPhone shows, it's listing 20 as the Frequency Band Indicator.

With this info though, I'm now unsure why my signal strength appears to have dropped slightly. Surely it should improve in the switch from 900 to 800 MHz? Or is it due to other reasons of how LTE works? I also suppose it could be that O2 have not yet finished on the mast (they still listing that work is being done on the mast, laste updated 06:00)

The Streatham site off Ely Road is indeed 4G800 & 4G1800.

Thats cleared that up then. So are O2 rolling out 4G1800 everywhere now then? I was under the impression (or perhaps wrongly assumed) 4G1800 would be rolled out to "high demand" areas, so mostly big cities. Don't get me wrong, i'm not complaining.

Can i ask, what is the theoretical maximum speed that can be reached from a 4G800 mast if NO ONE ELSE is using the data?

The reason i ask is that, although I got great speeds of 67 yesterday, this moring I reached i whopping 87.73! (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CizVkp-WYAEuG1M.jpg). I didnt have a chance to check which band i was connected to at the time however as i was literally just leaving the house heading to work.

Tonight's plan is to do side-by-side speed tests using O2 (personal phone) & EE (work phone).

Interesting point is, EE only arrived in Stretham about 2-3 months ago, so it's good to see EE's 12 month headstart has not remained the case, especially in small villages within small cities like Stretham, Ely.

Hopefully O2 have learnt from their 3G roll-out mistakes


Now, with O2 live, given Vodafone & O2 share the infrastructure, shouldn't Vodafone be live as well? Or is each brought live separately? I guess with O2 being responsible for the CTIL roll-out in this part of the country, they may prioritise the go live for themselves?

Don't think it's everywhere although it'd be nice if it was, how big is Stretham? Also on field test you'll probably see 20, not 3 even if it's 20 and 3 because 20 is the main band they use, due to their band 3 having only 5.8 MHz vs 10 MHz for band 20. I've got it in Mountsorrel which is a village with about 7K population - so not very populated at all, but that's apparently quite rare.

I think the max is about 75Mb on 4G800, so 87.73Mb would be 800+1800 4G. Even if you checked the band it'd probably still say 20 though as 20 is O2's primary band.

Well...acording to Wikipedia, Stretham's population is only 1831 as of 2013, so I'd say about 2000! Again, a tiny village.


Ok, so let me get this straight, O2 use a combination 800 MHz AND 1800 MHz simultaneously for 4G? I thought the masts with 1800 MHz, meant a phone could use only 1800 MHz?

Along similar lines, will all supported mobiles connected to a O2 4G1800 equiped mast use both, or does it depend on demand at the time (where your phone will switch as needed).

Oh wow that's quite lucky then, maybe they are giving 1800 4G to all or a lot of new sites then! Did your mast have 1800 2G before it got upgraded?

If you only used 1800 you'd probably get worse speeds than if you just used 800, as despite 1800 being a higher frequency, O2 have less 1800 spectrum than 800 spectrum. It's only really phones like the iPhone 5 which support 1800 but don't support 800 which would use 1800 only. If you're getting speeds above 75Mb it's going to be 800+1800.

I'm not sure whether O2 change the frequency people use based on demand although it'd make sense for cities where there's lots of data usage, but yeah I don't really know, maybe some other forum members will know though.

You got 3G900 there under the 4G800? You should have.
4G800 is running at a lower power level within the 3G900 coverage footprint so voice calls can fall back to 3G.
So you will notice it's quite a bit less than 2G900.
Or it could be running slightly lower than 2G900 for fallback to 2G.
I'm not up with all things O2 but it's more likely to be 3G900 for voice calls restricting 4G800 quite a bit.
This is where Three and EE will have the advantage. Their 800 is/will be on full power.

Hammy is correct. O2 are using CA (carrier aggregation or 4G+). 800 is the primary layer I think so that's what you'll see on the phone but on a compatible device (in the case of iPhones, the iPhone 6s or higher) 800 and 1800 will be combined to give you a theoretical maximum of 112Mbps. 90ish is the highest I've seen reported.

I still think Vodafone 4G runs at pretty much the same footprint as the strongest voice capable signal whether it be 2G or 3G the only time it is backed off noticeably if only 2100 3G is the available voice carrier which is quite unusual.

You would very rarely drop off from 4G then and I'm guessing that's not the case.

The Stretham site also has to cover Wilburton as well, with Haddenham being covered at the moment by a mast on Sutton water tower. Vodafone's mast is on top of Haddenham water tower, though i suspect they'll be added to Stretham quite soon, with O2 appearing on Vodafone's Haddenham site some time this year (the village needs it, O2 isn't THAT good there). Sutton will probably get Vodafone too (again, it needs it).

I'd say your both right to some degree, 4g levels are just below that of 900mhz 3g and if you can lock your phone to 4g you can get some form of signal in most of the same places as 3g 900mhz, it's weaker but more usable at lower signal levels, another problem is on Vodafone is it switches back to 3g too soon when 4g is still at a usable level, much better then the capacity staved 900mhz 3g.
In regards to the Stretham site and some others, it seems O2, despite being somewhat starved of bandwidth have learned some lessons from the past and are putting what they do have to good use with 4g, Vodafone on the other hand, despite the wide rollout of 4g seem to be repeating mistakes of the past by having masses of bandwidth but not doing a great deal with it, and it's starting to show now in some parts. A few multi panel/sector masts have gone live where I frequent, will have to dig out 02 sim and see if any 1800mhz is live.

So considering that the VO2 site in Mountsorrel has 4G800+1800 on O2, do you think when Quorn gets 4G from O2 in September, it's possible it could get 4G800+1800? There's a lot of 800+1800 around the Leicester area on the nperf map, however it seems to stop as soon as it gets to Mountsorrel so idk whether Quorn is too far north, Loughborough doesn't have any on the nperf map. Although it is crowdsourced data so accuracy might not be great.

Now i've had a chance to get hold of a vodafone mobile (thanks to a visiting relative), it seems vodafone 3G and 4G is now here. That's three of the networks sorted then.

So that leaves 3 then (assuming you're referring to the Stretham, Ely area). Interesting. Did the MBNL agreement not mean EE/3 using the same infracture in the same way as O2/Vodafone? That was how i understood it. Although I did wonder as i've seen people with worse 3 coverage than EE in the same area.

MBNL was for Three and T-Mobile but was only for 3G, so after Orange and T-Mobile merged to become EE, EE could use Orange and T-Mobile sites, but Three could only use T-Mobile 3G sites. And even today there are still many Orange sites that don't have MBNL yet, so although EE can use them, Three can't.

And when EE gives 4G to a mast, Three won't get 4G from it as MBNL was only for 3G, not 4G.

Also very occasionally EE will upgrade a 2G mast to 4G but won't give it 3G, meaning EE get 2G and 4G, but Three get nothing at all.

I am not sure it's EE doing it to leave Three at a disadvantage, or actually Three not wishing to fund bringing the site into MBNL. It would seem likely that with the whole O2 thing, Three looked to cutting as many costs as possible - as well as increasing revenue through price increases and forced plan changes.

Haven't been able to check Three first hand, but coverage map says 'NO'

If O2's 4G800+4G1800 enabled masts (like Stretham) will only show as using Band 20 in hidden menus (such as iPhone field test mode), is there another way of definitively identifying CA configured/enabled masts?

I did a quick speed test in Cambridge yesterday, and at a similar 4G signal strength, got a considerably lower speed. Now, given when O2 4G was rolled out in Cambridge, i'm pretty sure it was not 4G1800 enabled at launch, but would like to see for sure. Would also be interesting to see if that might be a reason for the HUGE (I got about 2Mb/s on one test, 10 a minute or so later) speed difference or if the mast was just impacted by congestion

There's plenty of Orange sites near me which also haven't been upgraded yet so are EE only, not Three.

The 2G/4G sites are very rare except for when capacity is needed, with the exception of the weird monument mast I have discussed before. But with this lawsuit that Three are claiming for (more on the EE thread), does this mean EE will have to give Three access to all of their Orange masts too?

Yeah I don't really know how many there are still left, just that some have been MBNL'd and some haven't. The Orange pylon mast near me has Three on it however I'm not surprised as without it Three (as well as T-Mobile before the merger) would have had very weak or no service in the area around it.

Hey Mr Cheshire..
I took a look at Whitchurch on the latest Vodafone predicted coverage maps and whilst there's no 4g planned yet still, if you look at the 3g maps the mast next to McDonald's on the A41/A525 is now showing 3g planned coverage, so changes are afoot..
Something else interesting I noticed is a massive increase in planned 2g coverage North of Whitchurch around Tushingham, Marbury & Ridley, only O2 has masts around these places, must be related to the work you and the dog saw taking place on that mast.
I wonder if O2 & Vodafone are now merging all masts now and not waiting for upgrades to be in place 1st.

I think you're right. I was talking to a guy who rents a house on the same estate as the mast down my lane and he mentioned that the landowner has been asked for permission for them to dig a trench and lay fibre to the A41 - no timescale or further progress that he was aware of though. I think O2 have another mast between here and Marbury too, which might explain the planned changes over that way too. It's great to see them making some progress, even if it is a fairly unimpressive change at this stage!

I think when it shows predicted 2G it means 4G will go live too as most of the time they completely upgrade the masts. In Bunbury before it went 4G live it was showing only planed 2G(there is no 4G work planed for this area) showing on the Vodafone map. I have seen this many times as I check the map every single day.

several mip masts are showing as 2G coming soon on vodas map but thats all !!! including the one at North Huish and Cullompton maybe backhaul issues