Just a thought, the Hutchinson Flexicell replica telegraph poles are usually equipped with antennas that can do 1800-2100, so why don't Vodafone/O2 deploy 4G1800 on them? That way you get 4G and no monopole change.

Problem is with NIMBYism is that sometimes it annoys you and then later on when the plans for the nuclear power station or wind turbine or solar park or traveller settlement or whatever come in, you find yourself being the NIMBY.

I can get a solid 4g signal on o2, however it is 3 miles up the road. Which isn't particularly great. I can get a patchy one 1/2 mile in the other direction near a mast. EE was better with the coverage of 4g, i had it most places i went.

I just wish o2 would get this 4g out quicker, i know EE have a monopoly in the 4g market at present.

BIB - welcome to my world.

It always amuses me to see some people on here implying that coverage is guaranteed solely because of low frequency and regardless of mast location/s (and number of masts). It's an eye opener how many areas here have absolutely nothing on Vodafone, GPRS from O2, 3G from Three and 4G from EE - let alone where you can get nothing from VF/O2, while Three and EE at least provide something...

I suppose EE and Three having about 4 times as many masts here as O2/VF helps. I know when I contacted the council before checking planning applications (when their planning site wasn't working properly) even they mentioned that EE/Three have many more masts than O2/VF here, so wouldn't need too many 'new mast' applications (as they can modify existing ones instead), which says quite a bit.

They presumably only have 2100MHz MHAs, so they wouldn't be able to run 4G 1800MHz unless they replaced the MHAs, which I assume they can't on replicas?

Well its simple really, just don't cover Stone and they will soon be moaning. It's a mast at the end of the day that looks like a fat lamppost. You get used to them, hardly the end of the world.

There could be much worse installed. As for that Aldi ...which clowb allowed that!

There's a couple nearby that carry EE 4G.

It is interesting.

In my case, the nearest O2 mast provides a -85dBm signal and is in fact further away than the nearest Three/EE mast which provides a -105dBm signal.

They are both in the same general area so it's not due to trees, topography, etc.

In this case it must be down to frequency, so I am hoping when Three roll out 800MHz, I might finally be able to get a good signal from them.

Noticed in this past month O2 4G taking off around me, all local towns now have 4G, I even have 4G from this past weekend and I live in a small rural village in Northern Ireland. Its not as fast as EE coming in around 17mb but hey its better than their 0.1mb H+

But they would already have had the 1800 MHAs for 2G, not sure whether Vodafone/O2 would have bothered fitting 1800/2100MHz MHAs.

I have been playing with http://www.evrytania.com/lte-tools/lte-cell-scanner again and it seems that it can find LTE cells operating within both Vodafone and O2's 800MHz allocations. (and loads more cells within 3's allocation)

I'm guessing that Vodafone/O2 plan to use 800MHz to cover more rural areas like mine. Hopefully they put in more backhaul this time (Vodafone's 3G is useless here)

I'm in Mid Cornwall.

Where abouts in NI are you getting it?

We have it planned for our town but the council planning committee have had the application since March and haven't touched it!! They honestly take sometimes up to 10 months to approve a change of antenna, delaying everything, when there are no objections, they simply don't approve it

Near Magherafelt

Bodmin is live VO2 4G

I'm not a million miles away from Bodmin so perhaps I'm picking that up.

Bodmin seems to be favoured for some reason - it's also where one of 3's 1800 cells are

Was in Nantwich today and upgrades to this mast have finally finished.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0ow0ad29mu...10.31.jpg?dl=0
Mast is in the stapeley of town and gives 4g and very much improved 3g to the south of the town, great speeds from the new mast too with 4g giving 49mbps, fastest I've seen on Vodafone, 2100mhz 3g was a fast 18-29mbps and 900mhz 3g gave a usable 3-5mbps and gets out very far indeed, good news, just need the main ones in the centre doing now, but I'm guessing backhaul might be the delay here much like other similar masts of 02/Vodafone stuck on buildings.

Is that an o2 shared site or just VF? That mast seems a bit smaller than some they have installed.

The town centre masts seem to take ages to get updated.

That's the big question I think. 3G900 shows coverage where there is a signal that is not actually usable. Will it be more of the same?

It was a Vodafone only site before the upgrade, I'm guessing that O2 should be on here now or soon as I didn't have a sim with me. to check, can't find the planning application online just now but the mast was just a metre or 2 higher then the original one, I bet Vodafone fell off there seat when this was approved as the original installation was Fearsly objected to as it's right next to a primary school play field and was only passed because of an admin error by the council.. No problems this time though..
Cornerstone must be facing some delays on the backhaul front as they seem to have a few town centre sites now waiting to be done whilst smaller masts have been upgraded.

That's a single stack low capacity Jupiter column it can do both networks hundreds of these are in various stages of deployment

In the terms of low capacity, do you mean the masts footprint or maximum traffic it can handle? Seems to be giving very good speeds at the moment even though it's the only 4g mast in the town.

sorry low capacity means no 2600 just 800 shouldn't be a problem as long as there are plenty of them : I see Plymouth now shows more extensive Vodafone roll out planned 4G Telford too

Thanks M1kos,
Work has appeared on roadworks.org for Stafford Park in Telford for the end of the month for Vodafone, near there main mast in the area, it already seems to have amazing backhaul so not sure what there digging the road up for, this mast seems to be the linchpin for a few mast upgrades in Telford as on the plans all those masts have microwave links pointing back to this mast, this mast should be good to go 4g but no timetable for the others yet, trial holes were done early last month so fingers crossed it's soon.

It is indeed.

In your case you're probably right. IMO I'd say you're getting 3G900 from O2 and 3G2100 from Three/EE, which would explain the difference there and, as long as Three put out their 800 at similar power levels to O2's 3G900 you should be fine.

In my case (just for comparison) it's all a bit of a mess, and I probably know far too much about it for my own good:

My nearest O2 mast and my nearest Three/EE mast are both pretty close to me, and about 100 metres or so away from each other. O2 is 2G only though (circa -89dBm) while the Three/EE mast is hopelessly congested so won't accept connections except for overnight in the small hours (at circa -83dBm on 3G).

Second choice Three/EE mast is a bit further away (and is, I believe, the nearest one EE have 4G on), but gives -89dBm or so on 3G (about the same on 2G). Second choice O2 mast meanwhile is further away still, covers a sizably large area, and gives -105dBm or so on 3G2100, -87dBm or so on 2G900... and around -89dBm on 3G900. However, due to poor mast location and lack of masts, cell breathing is very much in effect and that 3G900 signal is anything but consistent, which is a bit of a shame really as when available it's actually very good.

If Three are restricting there 4G 800MHz to only VoLTE devices it should be a far better signal than 3G900 won't suffer cell breathing for a start.