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Vodafone and O2 4G experience thread


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Old 09-12-2016, 10:30
jonmorris
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If I remember correctly Three's plan was to have by the end of 2016 85% 1800 coverage and 98% 800 coverage. Well I don't think either of those has been achieved by any sane metric or radio model .

Another year on Three with 800 being raised in priority may help. Do think they've given up a bit, although they seem to be more in fill focused than before.
They do seem to have improved speeds on 1800 in many areas, on account of getting the extra spectrum - but surely they haven't been using all their resources to enable this? I mean, wouldn't that have been a fairly simple update done from a network operations centre?

What about actually adding new 4G sites?

What about starting to work on refarming 2100 spectrum? Or indeed re-prioritising 800 over 2100?

In the south east, it's fair to say that Three is doing quite well on 4G most of the time. Uplink speeds can often beat EE, and downlink can also give EE a run for its money.

Vodafone has some areas with unbeatable 3CA 4G, but for the most part is happy to provide speeds of around 20-25Mbps on 4G 800. Fine for most people, but actually not as good as Three can be and EE usually is.
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Old 09-12-2016, 10:59
jaffboy151
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Think three have totally given up now since the merger fell through, just waiting to hear its up for sale now by the parent company.
I still think with the right vision they'd be a cracking network, there a bit tight on spectrum but could refarm and buy a little more.
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Old 09-12-2016, 11:12
mobilecentre
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Tried a Voda sim in the Stamford and Rutland area over the past week. Mostly 2G GPRS still with islands of 3G/4G. It seems encredible that my county town of Oakham is still GPRS. Some old school 3G with barely any throughput about in Stamford so surfing is painful at peak periods.

Coverage along the A1 is very good with integrated O2 sites filling the gaps in the old Voda network.

EE rule the roost though with nearly all sites 4Ged now.
Oakham is a good example of an area with nothing done!

I travelled from Spalding to Bourne and then on to Stamford and 4G did not exist six months ago and now there is improvement, granted the site on Stamford College needs to be done but to the North great coverage and will only improve with Steadfold Lane and Collyweston Water Tower.

No dispute EE is king it is more that there has been a lot of work recently and it is starting to show - apart from Oakham!
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Old 09-12-2016, 17:52
M1kos
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South hams in Devon finally being addressed in January on VO2 Beacon Hill and Marley head definately being upgraded to 3/4G
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Old 09-12-2016, 21:44
gazm1990
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Think three have totally given up now since the merger fell through, just waiting to hear its up for sale now by the parent company.
I still think with the right vision they'd be a cracking network, there a bit tight on spectrum but could refarm and buy a little more.
I'm sorry but people who think o2 and Vodafone have better 4g coverage than three need to come and visit ANY location in mid Wales. Three have a decent 4g footprint around here and of course excellent 3g. They have improved 4g quite significantly the last few months since the merger fell through. And the 4g800 works really well in the hilly terrain we have.
Whereas voda and o2 are still relying on the dreaded gprs in most locations. They also don't have anywhere near as many masts as ee/three so there is many areas where you can't get anything on o2/voda whith a perfect 3/4g signal on ee/three. They ignored us with the 3g rollout and it looks like they will ignore us for 4g too.
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Old 09-12-2016, 22:01
Gigabit
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Three's 4G coverage is objectively worse than O2 and Vodafone's. What on earth are you trying to say.
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Old 09-12-2016, 22:11
gazm1990
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Three's 4G coverage is objectively worse than O2 and Vodafone's. What on earth are you trying to say.
My apologies, they may well have better 4g coverage UK wide. I was just pointing out that in the whole of mid Wales where I work and live, o2 and voda are massively worse than three. And there has been very little improvement from them, and no sign of any judging by the lack of planning applications.
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Old 09-12-2016, 23:08
daveyfs
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I'm sorry but people who think o2 and Vodafone have better 4g coverage than three need to come and visit ANY location in mid Wales. Three have a decent 4g footprint around here and of course excellent 3g. They have improved 4g quite significantly the last few months since the merger fell through. And the 4g800 works really well in the hilly terrain we have.
Whereas voda and o2 are still relying on the dreaded gprs in most locations. They also don't have anywhere near as many masts as ee/three so there is many areas where you can't get anything on o2/voda whith a perfect 3/4g signal on ee/three. They ignored us with the 3g rollout and it looks like they will ignore us for 4g too.
Whilst I think Vodafone/o2 will come to mid Wales in due course I agree the difference is stark at the moment.

I was in Welshpool last week, had my dual sim EE/Vodafone Galaxy S7 Edge with me - 4G dual speed and VoLTE on EE as compared to GPRS, occasionally EDGE on Vodafone.

There is Vodafone 3G with vaguely decent speeds in Newtown, but the footprint is so small as to be inconsequential - a token gesture.
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Old 10-12-2016, 00:21
blueacid
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Three's 4G coverage is objectively worse than O2 and Vodafone's. What on earth are you trying to say.
Nationwide, perhaps you are correct. But for this poster's experience where they live and travel, they're trying to report what they've found - and this is valuable to others that read the forums. Someone in mid-wales might be wondering if something is better than their Voda/o2 gprs/edge signal, so here are presented some observations. There's absolutely no need to be quite so aggressive with someone presenting their findings and experiences.
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Old 10-12-2016, 13:14
jaffboy151
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Vodafone became just about viable for data in my part of the world around the start of 2016, it still left many gaps where only 2g was available, but there stating to make a move on upgrading these 2g masts around here from both Vodafone and O2's network so the general coverage is getting better,
Lots still to do but now you do have a useable data layer in most places now even if it is 1 bar 3g 900mhz, EE and three are still the speed kings and just about in the lead for overall data coverage, but that speed and coverage is very localised due to the higher frequencies used, so not all way the best, streaming is a difficult. Plus many of there rural masts are still 3g only with a 2mbps backhaul or old 2g orange masts and there's been little change here, when the few planned masts on Vodafone's coverage map are activated, there coverage will exceed EE & three by some distance.
But they still have a lot of work to do.
If I lived in mid Wales, Devon, the lakes or east anglea I'd probably take Stereo Steve's approach and be on EE with a VO2 sim for added call reliability.
I really do think/hope we won't be talking so much about coverage between the network after 2017 has passed, it will be more about the quality of the service that they provide.
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Old 10-12-2016, 14:09
gazm1990
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I really do think/hope we won't be talking so much about coverage between the network after 2017 has passed, it will be more about the quality of the service that they provide.
I hope so too because it would be nice to have a wider choice of networks to choose from rather than just EE/Three. I do remain very sceptical though as there is very little movement from voda/o2. My brother (who is on o2 for some reason!?) even spoke to a level 2 tech guy from o2 a few weeks ago and he even said that they 'have no plans to significantly improve the coverage in the mid Wales region in the next 18 months'
The main problem they have round here though is that there 2g coverage isn't even that good. There's many villages and tourist spots where EE/Three have 3/4g and voda/o2 have nothing!
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Old 10-12-2016, 14:15
mobilecentre
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In my VF experience things have really started to change (similar to jaffboy151) in the last six to nine months, travelling around England and Wales (Not been to Scotland for a while) 4G is appearing at a fairly rapid rate and the islands are starting to join together. There is a lot of 2G to go but the Beacon project is starting to work and increasing coverage to additional areas.
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Old 10-12-2016, 14:34
Dave_Lee
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O2 updated last Monday with 4G where i live, im currently with giffgaff so quicker response times, but still poor data speeds between 8am and midnight.
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Old 10-12-2016, 15:41
Aaron_McGowan
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O2 updated last Monday with 4G where i live, im currently with giffgaff so quicker response times, but still poor data speeds between 8am and midnight.
That's because you're on Giffgaff, who have a very low priority on the O2 network. if you used an O2 PAYG SIM you'd more than likely see an improvement in speeds.
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Old 10-12-2016, 19:31
Stereo Steve
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South hams in Devon finally being addressed in January on VO2 Beacon Hill and Marley head definately being upgraded to 3/4G
Thanks for that. Any idea how to get out of an EE contract? I assume EE will 800 up Marley Head as well. Not. Brilliant.
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Old 10-12-2016, 20:17
rasseru16
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Vodafone's 4G network was suffering congestion this afternoon in Norwich City Centre: https://s17.postimg.org/bf7wrhn3z/Sc...210_201601.png

Interestingly, SpeedTest.Net app wouldn't allow me to share this speed test link
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Old 16-12-2016, 22:04
red_snow
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I suffered congestion last night walking between Wembley Stadium station and Wembley Arena on O2. I needed to lookup something, had full 4G but barely any throughput at all. Not great, I guess a lot of people going to watch Placebo were using O2
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Old 17-12-2016, 10:19
blueacid
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I suffered congestion last night walking between Wembley Stadium station and Wembley Arena on O2. I needed to lookup something, had full 4G but barely any throughput at all. Not great, I guess a lot of people going to watch Placebo were using O2
Did you try disabling 4g to see whether you'd get any better luck on 3g?
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Old 17-12-2016, 10:58
red_snow
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Did you try disabling 4g to see whether you'd get any better luck on 3g?
I did and managed to get something. Is this a general issue with all networks at busy events or are some affected more than others? IIRC Jon Morris was at Hyde Park and EE/Three were very poor whereas VF had brought in a mobile mast to give good speeds.
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Old 17-12-2016, 11:40
Aaron_McGowan
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Just noticed an interesting development on the O2 side of CTIL: they are starting to use Band 1 (2100MHz) for 4G services, as well as their Band 3 and Band 20.

See Pedro_C's video on the subject here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1j8xFfZxVc
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Old 17-12-2016, 12:48
jonmorris
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Just noticed an interesting development on the O2 side of CTIL: they are starting to use Band 1 (2100MHz) for 4G services, as well as their Band 3 and Band 20.

See Pedro_C's video on the subject here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1j8xFfZxVc
Vodafone is indeed offering multiple bands and aggregation that can offer quite mad speeds (as well as providing a good speed at congested periods).

And the site they brought in to cover Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park has still given me some of the highest speeds on Vodafone yet - not bad for a place where there are literally thousands of people in a pretty small area.

EE obviously has similar at Wembley, and O2 at The O2.
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Old 17-12-2016, 14:40
Aaron_McGowan
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Vodafone is indeed offering multiple bands and aggregation that can offer quite mad speeds (as well as providing a good speed at congested periods).

And the site they brought in to cover Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park has still given me some of the highest speeds on Vodafone yet - not bad for a place where there are literally thousands of people in a pretty small area.

EE obviously has similar at Wembley, and O2 at The O2.
I've heard about Vodafone's use of Band 7, Band 1, Band 3 as well as Band 20 for 4G, but this is the first time I've seen or heard about O2 using Band 1 for 4G.

Which means, it's likely that both O2 and Vodafone are going to refarm all of their Band 1 3G spectrum to 4G in the future. Not sure what will happen with Band 8 though, will that stay as 3G or eventually go 4G as well, thus resulting in both Vodafone and O2 going to a 2G/4G setup?
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Old 17-12-2016, 14:45
jonmorris
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All 3G spectrum will eventually go to 4G. Initially, only some of the spectrum will change.

EE is going to refarm 10MHz initially I believe, although I don't know when that's going to happen. On some sites it will be a simple change, on others it won't (again, I don't know the numbers).

Three will have to do it at some point too, but I'm told it must convert a lot more people to 4G first as otherwise the remaining 3G spectrum just won't cope with a large 3G only userbase.
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Old 17-12-2016, 16:45
sills
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Three will have to do it at some point too, but I'm told it must convert a lot more people to 4G first as otherwise the remaining 3G spectrum just won't cope with a large 3G only userbase.
Three would have less 3G users if they expanded their 4G1800 coverage more. Their 4G800 map looks good, but anywhere with 3G you get forced back down to it.
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Old 17-12-2016, 18:56
Aaron_McGowan
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Three would have less 3G users if they expanded their 4G1800 coverage more. Their 4G800 map looks good, but anywhere with 3G you get forced back down to it.
if you forced the phone to 4G though then that'd work, surely? As I know that some phones can be forced to 4G.
I don't get why they had the priority of L08 below that of U21 though. If they rolled out L08 on enough masts then it wouldn't get swamped, despite only having 5MHz capacity.
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