Originally Posted by jchamier:
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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?”
Everything I've ever heard from EE is that 800 would only be used in rural areas and selected urban areas where they wanted to boost indoor coverage. There's to be no national overlay even longer term. I know different things have been posted here though so things might have changed.
On 1800, I think whilst EE appear to have more than they need to run 2G and in the much longer term it will be refarmed for other use I don't think there is much prospect of that happening soon for a number of reasons.
1. If the network and frequency plan had been designed from the outset with that spectrum it would be easy. But it's 2 networks which each had their own frequency reuse plan (2G frequencies can't overlap - adjacent cells have to be on different frequencies). Add in they carved out 20MHz for 4G which meant squeezing in cells that were already running wasn't easy. The 1800 they have to hand to Three in October is still being heavily used for 2G by them (I posted a screenshot of it in another thread) so those sites have to be squeezed in elsewhere over the summer.
2. When they were allowed to merge, they argued with the regulators that it would be impossible for them to clear the spectrum in one go which is why Three are only getting the second bit this year. If after October they suddenly come up with more spare spectrum then it wouldn't go down well with regulators. Plus their spectrum holding is going to be reviewed again as part of the BT acquisition so they will need to look like they desperately need all that spectrum for their existing services.
3. They really don't need it because of their large 2600 holding.