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Old 24-11-2016, 20:41
jchamier
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I find it quite ridiculous that in Southern London you can have the whole 3CA, 230Mbps speedtest experience and then once you cross into the O2 area you're stuck on single carrier 4G with 1Mbps speeds.
It just shows the weakness in their sharing plan. I assume the "other network" will come along later and correct the imbalances. Otherwise people will eventually leave and go to the competition.
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Old 24-11-2016, 20:43
Aaron_McGowan
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GiffGaff speeds are generally accepted as being slower than what an O2 user will experience, especially during normal hours. 3.8mbps down is a fairly typical speed on GiffGaff during the day. If you test in that area at say 1am, you may well get as much as 35mbps on the 4G 1800MHz on GiffGaff though.

O2 Band 3 is getting deployed in lots of different areas, many of them not really what you would consider at all urban.
Thanks for the info, I didn't know that! Maybe I should get an O2 PAYG SIM one day and compare it with the Giffgaff SIM (though I am more likely to use the Giffgaff one anyway).
I would test it at 1 or 2 am but (a) I don't usually stay up that late, and (b) I now have no credit at all on the SIM, so have to wait until I can afford a new topup!
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Old 24-11-2016, 20:47
Aaron_McGowan
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I'd rather see Vodafone investing more resources into upgrading services in the North East... There are many places where you're stuck on E and struggle to achieve any throughput at all.

1-2Mbps on 4G is better than virtually nothing on whatever E stands for!

There are even some places whereby Vodafone has virtually nothing (yet other networks are fine) - I'm sure they'd be a priority over anything else.
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Old 26-11-2016, 00:13
jo_m1
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My house is covered by a Vodafone 4G800 mast which is very close. Speeds have been very good, with me rarely seeing speeds below 40 Mbps and often even exceeding 50Mbps.

The high street close by is also covered by various 4G800 antennas however these are much more congested and it is often hard to achieve speeds above 5-7Mbps.

Now instead of adding extra capacity on the high street, my local mast has now been upgraded to 2CA with 4G800+4G2100, giving me speeds in excess of 100Mbps now. But I really don't understand this use of resources...
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Old 26-11-2016, 00:16
jonmorris
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Vodafone plans to use a lot more 2CA and 3CA, and presumably does the easier sites first - perhaps with sufficient backhaul?

I think we've all seen some crazy things over the years, where some sites get done before others and everyone - no doubt including the engineers - are left scratching their head.

I am sure there is method to the madness.
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Old 26-11-2016, 08:48
M1kos
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ive seen several Vodafone monopoles in south east London whch have recently had 2600 added to there exisitng 800 layer its good but a bit crappy as the 2600 covers such a small area from, often a 12m mast it hardly seems worth the bother i would have thought 2100 would make more sense on small sites!
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Old 26-11-2016, 09:42
jonmorris
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ive seen several Vodafone monopoles in south east London whch have recently had 2600 added to there exisitng 800 layer its good but a bit crappy as the 2600 covers such a small area from, often a 12m mast it hardly seems worth the bother i would have thought 2100 would make more sense on small sites!
I think London will get 3CA so you should get 800/2100/2600.

Vodafone did the south and O2 the north (London) but the north will get upgraded too.

Holborn/Chancery Lane has been from personal experience.
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Old 26-11-2016, 11:59
Pedro_C
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The boundary in London is not the Thames, see the Beacon areas map. Holborn is Vodafone/border area, for example.

I've looked at hundreds, maybe thousands of planning applications over the past three days and it is clear that VF do plan to roll out 2600MHz in O2 areas as masts are marked as having spare ports for 2600MHz RRUs in.
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Old 26-11-2016, 12:04
jonmorris
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The boundary in London is not the Thames, see the Beacon areas map. Holborn is Vodafone/border area, for example.

I've looked at hundreds, maybe thousands of planning applications over the past three days and it is clear that VF do plan to roll out 2600MHz in O2 areas as masts are marked as having spare ports for 2600MHz RRUs in.
Ah, thanks for that.
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Old 26-11-2016, 12:35
Gigabit
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The boundary in London is not the Thames, see the Beacon areas map. Holborn is Vodafone/border area, for example.

I've looked at hundreds, maybe thousands of planning applications over the past three days and it is clear that VF do plan to roll out 2600MHz in O2 areas as masts are marked as having spare ports for 2600MHz RRUs in.
Nasingstoke hahahaha
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Old 27-11-2016, 00:52
uno
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I have noticed in my local area of Leicester that nearly every O2/VF shared mast under the Beacon project has got work planned on them over the next few weeks.

I believe that all the kit is Nokis(NSN) equipment and the work is listed as adding new feeder cables to all matsts.

Will this work be to enable a new frequency and carrier aggregation ? All the masts are currently just L800 and U21 and 900
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Old 27-11-2016, 01:07
Gigabit
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I have noticed in my local area of Leicester that nearly every O2/VF shared mast under the Beacon project has got work planned on them over the next few weeks.

I believe that all the kit is Nokis(NSN) equipment and the work is listed as adding new feeder cables to all matsts.

Will this work be to enable a new frequency and carrier aggregation ? All the masts are currently just L800 and U21 and 900
I've got similar at home. Maybe they might improve my signal (put it back to how it used to be)
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Old 27-11-2016, 09:42
Pedro_C
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I have noticed in my local area of Leicester that nearly every O2/VF shared mast under the Beacon project has got work planned on them over the next few weeks.

I believe that all the kit is Nokis(NSN) equipment and the work is listed as adding new feeder cables to all matsts.

Will this work be to enable a new frequency and carrier aggregation ? All the masts are currently just L800 and U21 and 900
Probably L18 add. If you say where, I may be able to find out more.
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Old 27-11-2016, 10:02
jaffboy151
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Great service from Vodafone in and around an extremely busy Liverpool yesterday, good speeds available throughout the day and night in the Liverpool one shopping zone and restaurant & bar areas throughout the day and night, didn't see any carrier aggregation on my G4 but a good job was done spreading loads around 800,2100 & 2600mhz with 10mhz available on 2100mhz 4g (band 1) where my phone seemed to sit most the day, couldn't have done this 12 months ago.
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Old 27-11-2016, 10:16
M1kos
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L21 sits above L08 in terms of priority . In Eltham my phone sits on L21 coming from an unusual mast which only does L/U2100 its a very thin disguised church flagpole. It covers a surprisingly good area. It makes several L08 monopoles redundant at least from outdoor users until they add extra bands to them. L21 also available in Greenwich with no sign of L26 although there is L26 in Woolwich Plumstead Lee and many sites towards the centre of London hopefully all three bands will be implemented to all sites inside the M25
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Old 27-11-2016, 10:29
jaffboy151
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L21 sits above L08 in terms of priority . In Eltham my phone sits on L21 coming from an unusual mast which only does L/U2100 its a very thin disguised church flagpole. It covers a surprisingly good area. It makes several L08 monopoles redundant at least from outdoor users until they add extra bands to them.
As someone who lives in an area where only 800mhz has been rolled out by Vodafone, sitting on band 1 & band 7 all day is quite a new experience, as you say leaving 800mhz redundant for all but those who need it indoors. Seems there quietly doing in Liverpool at least what EE users have been banging on about in other threads fairly quickly & easily apart from the lower power levels, though 900mhz 3g seems so redundant when I checked it was still getting around 8-10mbps.
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Old 27-11-2016, 14:52
mlc2009
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I have just picked up the promo 4G 50gb data sim for £25, will do me for a bit because of my slow internet

does vodafone have 4G+?
anyone have rough ideas of speeds in Manchester?
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Old 27-11-2016, 15:05
jonmorris
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Yes and Manchester, Birmingham and increasingly parts of London use it.
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Old 27-11-2016, 15:06
mlc2009
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Yes and Manchester, Birmingham and increasingly parts of London use it.
do I need a special phone to use 4G+?

I was looking for new phones, so wondering whether to look out for a certain mode etc
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Old 27-11-2016, 16:51
M1kos
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4G phones are either cat 4 6 or 9 cat 4 cannot do + better known as carrier aggregation cat 6 can aggregate several bands but not all. So cat 9 is the answer really but I think they start at around £400 to buy off line
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Old 27-11-2016, 16:53
Gigabit
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Google Pixel would be a good bet.
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Old 27-11-2016, 17:21
mlc2009
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are there any routers or portable hotspots which can provide 4g+ support? It seems overkill to buy a brand new phone just to use it as tethering phone
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Old 27-11-2016, 17:26
jonmorris
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are there any routers or portable hotspots which can provide 4g+ support? It seems overkill to buy a brand new phone just to use it as tethering phone
I've got a Huawei Cat 6 portable hotspot and a Cat 4 router. Now Huawei has released Cat 9-12 phones I expect they'll have a new range of routers.

For now the only portable hotspot I know that supports Cat 11 or 12 is from Netgear and it's about £200. It has 802.11ac support so can actually give you the full speeds on offer (not that anyone offers 600Mbps yet).

FWIW EE is trialling 1GB/s but I'm not sure what category that is, and there's nothing on sale that supports it anyway.
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Old 27-11-2016, 17:45
jchamier
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are there any routers or portable hotspots which can provide 4g+ support? It seems overkill to buy a brand new phone just to use it as tethering phone
I have one of these, I've seen 100mbps once using it. Don't forget that your speeds are affected by how good WiFi is where you are. You can get faster speeds on a phone or using a USB cable to a phone in many built up areas.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Huawei-E578...wei+mifi+e5786
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Old 27-11-2016, 19:39
uno
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Pedro C It is lots of masts all over Leicestershire but some examples are Ayelstone Road near Tigers rugby ground,Burnmoor street near football ground,Groby road in Glenfield, Palmerstone way Oadby,University road Leicester. Not about all of locations but know the sports grounds have already got L1800 for O2

As I said all are O2/Vodafone masts and are roadside ones, I have noticed on Vodafone that speeds around Leicester have really dropped off sometimes down to 3-5 Mb levels and EE are starting to deploy quite a bit of 2600mhz around the city now
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