Seconded, depending on how many masts 800MHz Three 4G is added to anyway that is. If planned maintenance is anything to go by, it looks like 2 masts here may be getting it, which will be nice.


You're not missing much, except a headache. While calls and texts are usable over VF EDGE (which blasts in here), data - not so much.

Hmm.. My little Sony phone seems to have started displaying LTE instead of 4g not sure why.. Have just returned from holiday in Spain though..
Doesn't seem to have been any masts switched on in my absence dispite 2 mast upgrades being scheduled whilst I was away.
Might have to put on the anorak later and do some investigating....

After finding the Three 800 map last night I decided to have a look at the other networks' coverage maps to see if there was anything interesting. Sadly nothing as much but I did find a way to view the full country maps for Vodafone 3g/4g which are normally unable so I'll post the links here for anyone interested.

3g Live : http://goo.gl/p6KrsJ
4g Live : http://goo.gl/3GV4E0

Vodas 3G map is misleading unless you know to discount the red bits as these are "email over 2G" areas. They should only be allowed to display pure 3G and not use the 2G layer to try to make it look better.

The 4G looks good until you realise its a thin layer of 800mhz 4G which propagates well but has little capacity.

In a busy city area I've had 3mbps on Vodafone 4G at noon whereas at 8pm that night it was 50mbps. However EE was 20mbps at noon and 70mbps in the evening.

Capacity will be the next interesting measurement.

But for us rural folk it will be good won't it? As I barely get 1mb DSL in my house and virtually zero mobile data coverage unless I go outside, 3meg will be fine by me.

Serious question, on a mobile phone, does 70meg give that much benefit over 3meg for most things? Obviously it gives more overall capacity for more people. Personally I would be very happy if I could get 3meg pretty much everywhere I went around my way. Rural masts are much less likely to get swamped as well.

Great effort with the maps, it's really interesting to see the overview of 4g coverage so nationwide. Not sure how hard it is to do this but a monthly update would be great to see.


Don't think it's fair to compare speeds from EE as it's clear nobody can touch them on this front for a number of years nationwide I'd say.
Capacity on the other hand will be very interesting going forward, Vodafone are going to have to add 2600mhz to many sites and even add some additional urban ones to keep up as 800mhz will suck too many users in and slow down quickly in my opinion,

I'd counter the above point with the fact that I'd rather have some signal and get a 1 or 2Mb connection than have no signal but in certain areas get 30Mb.

The upgrades we had from O2 and Vodafone were just adding edge to the 2G masts the upgrades to the mast that got planning permission, 20 meters lattice tower 4G/3G never happened!

True. I was thinking data - we have a rented office on short term, and so for internet we've got a 4G router plugged into a switch and laptops connected to that. So for us we need capacity - ie, a 1mbps 4G signal is no use for 10 people.

Agreed- and I've had 1mbps on 3G with EE indoors where Vodafone has "no service" and only had 2G outdoors. Low Freq can't solve the mast location issue.

Quite pleased with Vodafone in Brighton; was getting about 15mbps fairly consistently compared to ~5mbps on EE 4G. My phone was reporting it as 800mhz, but pretty sure there's 2600 at some sites judging by the feeders on aerials ie 1xlow so 800 and 900, then two hi eg 2100 and 2600.

Bike ride today at Saltram house in Plymouth. Needed the net few times and both EE (wife's phone) and 3 (mine) were very flaky and in and out of service just when you wanted it. Some places were good. VOD 2G pretty much rock solid over quite a long ride. Sadly my second SIM slot doesn't do data. I think if VOD do seriously roll out 4G down here I'll be tempted to do with them. Will be interesting to see what 3 800 is like, assuming my phone can use it.

Vod first Plymouth cell will most likely be Ridgeway in three weeks approx followed by
Wolseley Rd

It seems if your in London EE is the network to go on for the best 4G

Vodafone and 02 are the worst

Vodafone are doing Carrier Aggregation now and where they are, I'm getting higher speeds than EE

So the game is definitely afoot.

Wouldn't rule Vodafone out just yet.

It really is interesting seeing how each network changes in a given location from one month to the next at present, Vodafone could really do well with 2600mhz CA if they deploy it widely, I'd settle for 800mhz in more locations for now, it really steams ahead in locations like Manchester centre where I was this weekend, inside some of the narrow streets and old thick walled buildings, 4g from EE & three was struggling, in fact I found three nearly aways on emergency calls indoors, interesting to see there 800mhz in operation soon.

A quick note if anyone here is from Or works in Stone in Staffordshire, the council have rejected All the streetworks mast upgrades as too unsightly and damaging to the surrounding area in the town.
No surprise really as some are in conservation areas and cornerstone have been a bit cheeky in trying to replace mock telegraph pole masts with much larger, higher standard multi band lollipop masts, it was never going to wash..
Can these multi band masts be disguised as telegraph poles in the same way as the previous tech or is there just too much going on to be a option?

Only in Stone. Always think they are better than everyone else in Staffs.

Just leave them with shite coverage then as the people will soon be moaning. I think they are doing them all the same masts these days to keep things simple.

Yes stone is strange, it allows the ugliest aldi I've ever seen to be built, mass housing projects everywhere even on greenbelt land, a suspect at best redevelopment project for the canal area and parkland along with another supermarket, but a mast swap.. Oh no.. Letters from the MP no less, I can understand the objections but when you consider it in context with all the other development in the town it's a bit rich..
I guess if there's no replica pole solution then it will leave the town served by masts on the edge of town. Not brilliant at all, but I guess that's what three/EE are having to do

Vodafone is indeed offering some killer speeds, but EE could do better. I have a very clear 100Mbps cap so there's no way I'm ever going to get the crazy speeds that I've been seeing on Vodafone from other people doing tests around the UK.

Given it seems EE will be charging for access to the highest Cat 9 speeds in the future (when we have some devices to actually use it), I wonder if this will be the only way to lift the cap.

From a commercial point of view, I wonder why Vodafone hasn't thought to have offer different levels of service/speed on a tariff by tariff basis. It seems like a good way to get people to buy more data than the may need, simply because they want the higher speed.

You don't need 150Mbps for Netflix, but if you're using it to transfer files (like when I was in Berlin for IFA and was sending a lot of pictures and video to Dropbox) then those speeds are going to be awesome.

Been down to Brighton again today, at a slightly less busy time of day. EE definitely wins the highest speed of the day award, with 90mbps. However, that was very out of town. Around Brighton pier, the marina and shopping centres, I was averaging 15mbps on Vodafone and 3mbps on Double speed EE. I did walk around an EE mast near the Pier and got 50mbps on one side and 1mbps on the sector facing the pier... My Vodafone phone was reporting 800MHz the whole time, so really weird that voda were winning.

The Hutchinson Flexicell Replica telegraph poles: https://www.flickr.com/photos/46141405@N07/21175390226 only support 2100MHz.

This is happening in, many places some councils appear to refuse planning almost by default my local council Bexley turned down 14 of 16 apps for new site monopoles. There is a mock telegraph 4G CTIL mast available for deployment its known as a Saturn but it's head is smaller allowing for antennas with less gain I believe. It's just bad planning to submit an app for a standard Lollypop Jupiter mast when the Saturn's are available!

I think it's fair for councils to turn down ugly masts in pretty places. The networks will just have to design something better. Not beyond the wit of man.

The problem is that "ugly" has a low benchmark, and the network operators don't want to compromise performance too much just because of NIMBYism. Some people think a street light is ugly

Especially if the NIMBYism is of the anti-RF type. People can live near a main TV/radio transmitter for decades with no real ill effect (other than Radio 4 coming out of the radiator or toaster or whatever), but a mobile mast on roughly the same frequencies doing a few tens of watts ERP? No way.

I like it when the moaners try to tell Network Rail to go away - and they can't - as NR is allowed to what it likes, where it likes because it is a safety critical GSM network