I don't see how the 4G could be any stronger indoors than O2, unless you are referring to London?

It does seem that when planning the roll out of 4g Vodafone has grossly underestimated the amount of data capacity required by us plebs outside of the M25..
Probably as they still think we don't really use the Internet and prefer to get all our information from the readers digest magazine and the Sun newspaper. Of course only in our spare time when not attending local pagan ritual gatherings. Thinking 2g & a thin layer of 800mhz 4g will suffice. Saving 2600mhz for only a few limited dense areas, now as It seems large parts of there 4g network are on the brink of collapse less then 12 months after roll out I'm guessing they're finding it difficult to backtrack from this road map as they haven't upgraded many of the masts with future 2600mhz rollout in mind and are instead fudging it with some none aggregate 2100mhz and band steering..
It this is the case..... What a F**k up..

Same with the A1 Foston mast, hooray! This previously 2G-only mast with zero backhaul now covers quite a large data not-spot with decent building penetration at 800Mhz LTE.

Okay on par with O2 in terms of strength but in terms of speed O2 is left dead in the water.

Vodafone have started using 10MHz of spectrum for 4G on 2100MHz in certain areas, rather than the 5MHz of before.
Vodafone 4G 2100MHz (LTE 2100MHz/B1)

If they are using 10mhz for 4g then whats going to happen to dc-hspa+? wont 3g speeds be cut in half.

Voda are also using 900mhz for 3G but given they've announced an end of 3G in 2020 they want to persuade everyone to move to LTE (4G).

Surprising they've changing 2100 instead of rolling out 2600 first though.

Has there been a response from Galaxy S4 owners to that news yet?

It's Vodafone so who cares, my work phone's always had crap coverage!

Wow, I was in the far SW over the last week and O2 coverage ........ shall we say, left a LOT to be desired! Most of the time, except for Penzance and Helston, was 2G or phone calls only (no data). Those areas I hope will be addressed and not merely forgotten.

Didn't see a quote

http://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/press-...ct-spring-ends

You didn't notice us mentioning that then?

Forgotten? According to VO2 we don't exist down here. Thing is, had you been on EE, maybe even 3 you would have had perfectly good service during your visit to our lovely corner of the UK.

NOTHING is or has been addressed since some flaky 3G roll out 20 years ago. It's dire. Even the 3g900 O2 has rolled out doesn't work. AT ALL.

Things haven't changed then. I used to be a regular train user and I used to laugh internally when I watched someone struggle to download emails on O2 2G while I'm streaming Netflix on 3's 3G

I am in Cornwall and I've stuck with 3 and EE.

With either network you get fast, usable 3G 99% of the time, with EE you get 4G most of the time. It's like night and day!

Was that a dig at me?

Well at least I'm not on Vodafone...

Though seriously, in all honesty, there are still many areas nearby where I live that Vodafone and O2 only have 2G on; Vodafone having more 2G only areas than O2.
And what's more surprising (and bad) is that O2 are doing all the hard work by rolling out LTE CA with 800 and 1800 - yet Vodafone are doing nothing with their 2600 (which they have 20MHz of, right?) outside of London, nothing with their 1800 outside of London, and are just using L800 in many areas (unless you're getting L2100 in these new areas).

But even so, with all this unused spectrum in the 1800 (5MHz) and 2600 (20MHz) bands, why sacrifice those 3G users down to single speed 3G, when they can easily use up their supplies of 1800 and 2600?

In fact, why do Vodafone even have 1800MHz spectrum if they are not using it?! L18 seems to be the least used out of all the frequency bands (for Vodafone)...

Also, if Vodafone are refarming their 2G900 to 3G900, and 3G gets switched off, then will the 900MHz be put back to 2G? Or moved to 4G? I'm assuming it has to be 4G, but unless they have VoLTE perfected by then, the remaining 2G spectrum may struggle to meet the requirements for all the calls?

There maybe a reluctance to rollout 2600MHz as the footprint would be much smaller in comparison to 800MHz. 2100MHz is somewhat closer to 800MHz albeit not much.
3G only tariffs used to be capped to 8Mbps IIRC, so a 5MHz carrier of 3G is more than enough for that. In areas without L21 they can still use DC-HSPA.

A benefit of using L21 over L18 is that they can have a 10MHz slice instead of a 5MHz slice, so a 100% capacity increase as opposed to the 50% increase L18 would yield. Eventually in the very long term they can move the final 5MHz over to 4G.

Vodafones L08+L21 may start to become as commonplace as O2s L08+L18.

Also, the 4G 2100MHz should be able to be enabled to many sites almost instantly and remotely, whereas adding 2600MHz means physical site work and therefore all the usual site maintenace issues.

They can't just go against beacon and add 4G to their legacy sites. It's similar to MBNL with 3G.. If it's added it has to be for both operators.

This is what annoys me about Vodafone - it's years since they started rolling out 4G in London and they still have problems with it. What hope do we have elsewhere?

Having been back at Stratford, it isn't a lot better for Vodafone on a quieter day. Up to about 4/5Mbps. Certainly usable bit not great for 4G.

Haven't used 4G yet had HTC one for 2years does this mean it will be the data standard in you won't have to pay a premium for it like now if I want O2 data I have to up £10 a month to use and I just want to use on odd occasion like 3G haven't used that for 3years.

I notice that 902.3MHz-914.9MHz is in use for CTIL 2G in Manchester, but seemingly nothing is using 890.1MHz-902.3MHz. Does anyone know whether 890.1-902.3 is used in congested areas, or whether it is being kept free for future 3G/4G refarming?

Vodafone at least are repacking 2G so they can launch the second U09 carrier.

On a separate note have you seen the amount of 2100 4G in Manchester? Haven't been for a while with a Voda SIM and I thought it'd be one or two masts but was pretty much every city centre one

I did also look for the 2600 TDD they announced they had launched in Manc but couldn't find it

Thanks for the information. Looks like a busy few months for Vodafone.

Yes I've counted about 31 L21 masts in around 5miles I need to go back and check how many have gone to 10MHz, most if not all of the first batch have done so by now.

I went looking in MediaCityUK for TDD but couldn't find it either. Noticed that it had a different antenna setup to other sites though, maybe 4x4MIMO in 2100? I may venture out to the R&D centre in Wythenshawe but I won't be holding my breath if I do.

I am almost certain that a legacy panelled VF mast near me has Vodafone L21 and only L21 as 4G. Cellmapper agrees with its located pin and cell ids