Just got back home, and as you say, reception I'd good, although the My Network app suggestions an outage.

Interestingly, my iPhone hasn't yet switched to 4G, still on 3G. Maybe only 4G is affected?

When I looked at mum's phone it was showing 4G. Maybe the issue was a bit deeper in the network..

Vodafone B38 is live from a site in Manchester. Cell IDs follow that of L21 (14, 24, 34), but with a different eNB to the FDD on the same mast

Vodafone 2600MHz TDD band 38 4G mast (my site with details)
Initial Tweet

So today I was in Plumstead, observing my iphone flick between 4 bars of 3G with about 17 down (so presumably HSPA+) and 1 bar of 4G, barely clinging on with a few Meg at best of throughput.

The Plumstead Pantry
16 Warwick Terrace, London SE18 1QJ
https://goo.gl/maps/1dDyduYTMyE2

How is that the case? Is a closer mast on doing HSPA+ yet not 4G? Seems a bit odd...

There is still a couple of masts in Plumstead that haven't been 4G'd one is inside the clock tower thingy on Plumstead common Road above the co op several sites have 2600 around there too including rockmount flats and Riverside House

At least they know you exist, they seem to have forgotten about Shropshire and mid Wales, the west half of the country is really lagging behind now, contract ends on the 22nd.. I'd happily stay if I could see some sign, any sign at all that things might improve in the next 12 months.

Thanks! Do you know if all the sites around Woolwich Common/Shooters Hill have been done?

It would appear that the o2 monopoles in Moreton in Marsh and the one outside Teweksbury hospital are being VO2d this week so a tiny bit of work in the West Mids.

Still plenty to go

Blaenau Ffestiniog had the CTIL treatment on Saturday, dragging us into the 21st Century... Finally!

New monopole broadcasting o2 & Voda, replacing 2G GPRS Voda only mast with refreshed 2G Edge, and introducing 3G & 4G to the town for the first time!

Previously the only data available beyond GPRS was MBNL (EE/3) 3G from a distant village, giving a bar of signal outdoors on a good day if the wind happened to be blowing in the right direction!

Great news for Wales!

Great news! Lets hope MBNL follow up with a mast in your area soon as well to give you the full choice that the operators have promised the government.

Unless EE decide to place a 2G/4G site which leaves 3 out in the cold .

It looks like both Vodafone and O2 are improving their 4G coverage in Retford. Currently, they both broadcast 2G, 3G and 4G from a mast on the industrial estate in Hallcroft. O2 then broadcast 2G from a site near the Majestic Theatre (centre of Retford) and 3G from a mast near the Rugby Club/ next to a water pumping (I think?) site in Ordsall. Vodafone broadcast 2G from a site near a curve on the railway line not too far from there, and broadcast 3G from a mast close to EE and Three's main mast near London Road.

My parents and Uncle (all on O2) recently got a text saying 4G is coming to our area. Looking on Vodafone's planned coverage maps, it looks like it is being added to either O2's 3G mast or maybe Vodafone's GSM mast. Either way, O2 will gain 4G on this side of Retford/Ordsall as will Vodafone, and Vodafone will also gain 3G coverage on this side of the town (I'm not sure if O2's 3G will improve as it's not that strong currently).

Up until now, only O2 and Vodafone had 4G from the masts at Hallcroft (all operators have masts there looking at coverage maps and Sitefinder), and only EE and Three have 4G from their mast near London Road covering my end of the town (although I think I get my signal from a mast at Elkesley). With these coverage improvements, it will give Vodafone and O2 4G coverage across most of the town, potentially beating EE and Three in Ordsall (where I live) for the first time if the predicted map on Vodafone is anything to go by.

Now we need EE to add 4G to the mast at Hallcroft to better cover that side of the town with 4G, and maybe add 4G (and even 3G) to a mast not far from there that appears to be 2G only looking at the maps. Finally, EE need to add 800 Mhz (Three already have it switched on) and, assuming it all works, all networks will be competitive it Retford.

Which in my opinion is absolutely ridiculous for EE to be even allowed permission to make these sites, because we still need 3G for data and calls!

If EE did that to my mast, I'd want them to give me a Home Signal Box, that did 3G - free of charge, and likewise to every house that has "coverage" from said weird mast!

If I was head of Ofcom, I'd make it so that 3G was a requirement for every site in the UK!

edit: in regards to that village in Wales, there's already an old Orange 2G mast - adding 3G and 4G to that should be relatively pain free

Why does anyone need 3G now? 4G has been around for some time, so 3G is on its way out - and given the limitations, good riddance I'd say.

It served us well for some years, but is flawed in many ways. 2G and 4G, with VoLTE, sounds perfect.

The sooner all 3G spectrum is refarmed for 4G the better.

I agree. My main annoyance at the moment is that if you are streaming music while driving, and your phone drops from 4G to 3G, it will stay in 3G until the data stream stops.

How very dare you sir? How very dare you?

There are some folk out there who through no fault of their own have a 3G only phone. It may be flawed in many ways generally and putting it on ebay and adding a few quid to the sale price would get you a brand new 2/3/4G phone. You might even make a profit. But, that's not the point. 3G must be retained forever or at least until the last non 4G user breathes their last.

I'm almost tempted to donate my ZTE S6 to Beans to end this madness.

But does it switch to 2G too soon, like this S4?

Once I've got an LG G4 (or G5) with VoLTE support, then WCDMA/LTE will be perfect. And when 3G does eventually go, I could leave it in 4G only mode and get a reliable service on all 4G bands, including 800MHz.

Back to something more constructive... I see that Vodafone still has no real coverage in Thrapston, rely on a flaky "outdoors only" 2G signal with a speed of...
0 Kbps - 200 Kbps (Download)
0 Kbps - 200 Kbps (Upload)
That's if it's EDGE. If it's GPRS, you're talking 30kbit/s.

And Oundle still looks to be neglected - 3G page saying "Getting email or an internet connection will be difficult here" - meaning outdoors 2G only, again at a few kilobits/sec if you're lucky.
Come on Vodafone!

EE seems to have found a way to get you to go back from 3G to 4G during data flow, which is good. On Three that doesn't seem to be the case, so if you're streaming on the move then it only takes one second to drop for 3G to remain stuck until you stop.

Not sure about Vodafone as I haven't really streamed that much. When I was in Germany uploading video to Drive it seemed I had 4G all the time, but maybe I didn't notice the switching (that would be down to the network I was roaming on too).

Is this a carrier setting that does this? I have seen Voda go from 3 back to 4 when I've been on Spotify, sure of it.

Unless of course it has been the more regular occurrence when driving long distance on Voda - 4G to 3G with no throughput to EDGE to GPRS then back to EDGE then to 4G....

Ellesmere now has vodafone 3/ 4 g. Im thinking its comming from the brow mast towards oswestry.

Would like to also thank you all for all the info on this fourm and two others and for twitter its a good read.

If I were head of Ofcom, I'd encourage networks to turn off 3G so that they would have to focus more on the 4G rollout and wouldn't be limited by the abomination that is 3G.

Nope, it's not an abomination, as my local 3G mast can do 20Mbit/s on a good day, and 10-15Mbit/s on a not-so-good day. Much better than EDGE/GPRS.
Also, certain MVNO's do not have access to 4G so 3G is their primary data layer.
And having MVNOs providing EDGE/GPRS only is not a good idea!

Don't do it beans.

Def better than EDGE/GPRS and 3G can do HD Voice.


That's a commercial decision for the MVNO (e.g. Virgin on EE) they don't want to pay the host network for access to the 4G layer.


I doubt any host network would have an MVNO restricted to EDGE/GRPS for capacity reasons - they all need 3G to cope with the volume of calls.