AFAIK Vodafone doesn't have universal EDGE coverage, so maybe your phone is picking up an EDGE enabled mast in one instance and not at the other?

Only some masts are EDGE enabled, other GPRS.

But it's not switching masts as I believe is happening here. It seems to sometimes be on a good signal and then just randomly switch to GPRS.

IIRC correctly, Android phones show H+ when data is actually being used, H when they're idling. I never see 3G anymore.

Not according to what was posted on here by someone who clearly is very knowledable about cornerstone and some other memebers with knowledge also were backing up similar thoughts about issues with cornerstone.

They will just install the voda cabs and o2 come back at a later date. Now seen two sites - one with foubdations for the one cab and one with the one cabinate actually installed. No foundations laid for the o2.

You may actually be right.

Looking on roadworks.org, Vodafone is adding another 4G mast in Alton, the company is Vodafone. Should this not be Cornerstone if it was O2 and Vodafone?

Cornerstone isn't listed on roadworks.org maybe o2 don't see Stoke as a priority. Voda have the lead in, Stoke as I said. We'll see

I'm not talking about Stoke...

Have your sites got both cabs installed? All these in Stoke are just having one installed. That I suspect is the give away if your just getting the one operator at this point in time.

Does seem bazaar logic as surly the cost savings come by doing everything at the same time?

There are sites near me where there is only one cabinet but voda and 02 4G is working. Voda use the rbs6102 Ericsson or the smaller Huawei 3900 o2 use Lancaster cabs on new installs 4G in one and the rest in the other.

There are two cabinets, identical-sized, one next to another.

Just been visiting friends and discovered EE and Vodafone 4G both now available in this small town/village. However I assume due to terrain the coverage of EE's 4G is great outdoors, but disappears inside to 1 bar 3G managing 1megabit, but Vodafone 4G managed 50mbps! 6 months ago this was a vodafone 2G with no data area. Nice win for Voda.

Vodafone seem to be bathing the south coast/Thames Valley/Hampshire in 4G coverage - the difference between say Dorset and Somerset/Devon is crystal clear

Yes I concur that in areas with Vodafone/O2 4G, the coverage is much better indoors than EE.

In Winchester, it's between very poor indoor 2G on EE or good 4G on O2/Vodafone. Which would you choose?

Given I keep falling out of Vodafone 4G coverage back to 3G which is around 0.03mbps (!) or 2G of 0.0mbps, I'll stay with EE for now, when 4G fails I get 3G which works pretty much everywhere. But in Hampshire Vodafone are very much in the race and have the spectrum to support a lot of users. O2 however could be interesting if a lot of their customers end up on 4G phones.

I haven't been to Winchester for a while, its amazing EE hasn't managed to do 4G there yet, must be a planning application or backhaul mess.

I assume when EE launch 800 (maybe with VoLTE) then the in-building coverage will be the same.

EE does suffer from poor 3G in Winchester - don't really know the reason behind that.

But yes, I agree about the 4G/3G issue. Leave Winchester and it's back to GPRS.

Yes so according to the plans that is both of them. See where as very clear here in Stoke all the sites are not just having one cabinet installed - which according to the plans is the Vodafone one.

Interesting the two masts Vodafone have selected in Stoke to kick it all off.

No they are different cells (could still be from the same site though) and because this is 2G all adjacent cells are on different frequencies. In reality it's just selecting the best cell based on the signal parameters it has been told to work with. This could be 2 GPRS cells, 2 EDGE cells or an EDGE and a GPRS cell. It wouldn't prefer EDGE to GPRS. It'll just take the signal into account and since radio conditions are constantly changing in will swap cells. A particular cell won't be both GPRS and EDGE. They will be two different cells (although they could be from the same site) and will have different cell ids (check on your phone if you are able to).

Actually in theory and according to the standards VO2 800 should be better for coverage than 3EE 800 assuming identical location, power, equipment etc.

It's not so much a difference in propagation but if you have more spectrum at a particular frequency on 4G then the signal remains usable down to lower levels. It's probably easiest to understand by accepting that if you have double the spectrum, then the maximum speed achievable is always double what it is with half the spectrum. So as the signal gets worse (lower and lower SINR), speeds come down no matter how much spectrum you have but 10MHz will always be capable of double the speed 5MHz can achieve. Obviously at some point it becomes so slow as to be unusable (which could be too slow for a volte call). However if double the spectrum is always double the speed then clearly the point where it becomes unusable is at a lower signal level than with half the spectrum. In this sense it could be said that coverage is better with the extra spectrum.

It's the same for EE at 1800 where going from 10 to 20MHz should see a small improvement in effective coverage and EE 1800 should be better than Three 1800.

Anyway that's the theory lesson. I suspect in practice the difference, whilst measurable, is small. It is a factor taken into account in Ofcom's calculation as to whether O2 meet their 2017 coverage obligation though.

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Fascinating thank you. Could explain why all that's mentioned in the big EE "manifesto" is to use 800 for rural areas.

Do you think EE will use two separate blocks of 1800 at any time? ie, 4x20 or 2x2x20 ? Is that possible? They seem to have quite a lot of spectrum even with 2G taken in to account?

So will phones have some kind-of minimum bandwidth test for a VoLTE call or will they always attempt to connect? Since it's going over the 4G network, I assume voice quality will be improved - will it sound bad and have weird popping noises like 2G/3G calls do?

I've only had that experience on my old iPhone 3GS when I was on O2. Never experienced popping noises on EE or Vodafone, on 2G calls. On both networks 3G calls are HD voice now (assuming other party is on same network and also on 3G).

Ahh that will be why Tesco Mobile (uses O2) has such poor voice quality - amazed they don't have HD Voice yet!

Yes, thank you for that. Very clearly explained.
Makes sense, but then, I'm a computer bloke so anything makes sense to me!
I feel you are right in your closing paragraph where you say it will probably not be noticeable.
New 20Mhz mast here (Harbertonford) where coverage seems quite limited. Although tonight driving along at 60Mph away from the mast with a 1 bar signal (I know, bars don't mean anything), I got 106Mbps!! Bonkers quite frankly!!
Yet the Beacon Hill TV transmitter near Torquay which is 10Mhz throws it's signal at least 12Km and I get 31Meg with an equally weak signal.
In another thread somewhere we were discussing bars and the fact that while 2G or 3G will let you have a 1 bar signal that is unusable, LTE won't give you anything unless you can actually use it.
Makes sense as far as VoLTE is concerned methinks!

At my place, 3 bars of EE 4G outside, the second I step indoors it drops to 1 bar 3G then down again to 2 bars 2G.

Will be interesting to see what happens with Voda 4G here. I get 3-4 bars 3G indoors on Voda.

So theoretically when the mast that is giving that 2G signal is upgraded, you'll get 2bars of 4G. Given EE 2G is the same freq and they just don't have enough 4G masts yet.


You'll probably get good indoor coverage, at EE 3G type speeds. 10 to 15mbps. Outdoors in low load 30 to 50mbps. If anything like that I'm seeing right now. Once EE upgrade all their 2G masts to transmit 4G, then EE should be faster. Voda will fight back with 2600 but indoor penetration of that will be similar to 2100mhz 3G - and Voda's mast spacing is much further apart than EE's.