Spotted a different type of application tonight. One from Huaweli (however it's spelt) which I have not seen before. Also a different type of pole, 20m one. This is certainly different to what I've seen from cornerstone so far.

Do you take any photos? Would be interesting to see what else is being rolled out. Which area is this in? The East (O2) and West VF) areas use different vendors in the north and south of each patch.

It's in the west. I'll find the planning link and post it online later.

http://publicaccess.newcastle-staffs...=NVFG7JBM02600

Hi guys slightly off topic but I hope someone could answer, can the G4 be set to pick up 3/4G only without rooting or using a custom rom. Reason I ask I have an iPhone currently with no control!

Yes I use my G4 in that mode most of the time unless I'm off to a predominantly 2g only area.
To access it, open the phone dialler screen type 277634#*#
Select field test, then select modem settings,
Scroll down and select RAT selection, then lte/wcdma
If you need to select specific bands, go back to the previous menu then for 2g/ 3g bands enter the network mode section, for 4g bands select LTE band selection.
Hope this helps.

Cheers Jaffy

With all the talk about EE Complete I've seen I wonder if Vodafone will offer a high level plan to compete with it.

I noticed just then on Vodafone Deutschland that they're offering a plan level above Red called "Black", offers some good stuff (I'll translate it below) but for 200€ a month for a 16gb iPhone 6s!

Translated (by me so may be slightly wrong from VodafoneDE):
- Unlimited Calls to all German networks
- Unlimited SMS to all German networks
- LTE up to 225Mbps: Up to 30GB per month (unlimited at 32kbps after that)
- 1000 Minutes to all international networks from Germany
- 1000 Minutes, 1000 Texts and 1000MB in the EU and Switzerland inclusive
- 8 weeks per year of up to 10MB per week worldwide internet
- Get a new smartphone every year
- Two data sims free to share your 30GB with
- And a dedicated VIP support number that promises no waiting times

Wonder how many would go for that in the UK.

If tethering were allowed, that would be awesome for many rural customers stuck on 1meg ADSL. That's assuming VOD ever get out here of course.

Ok so I have been testing out VF PAYG SIM for the past few weeks in a view to moving from a legacy O2 3G tariff to a VF 4G SIM only plan.

Here are my observations/experience so far using a Nexus 5 on Marshmallow.

4G was not enabled by default even after changing tariff and topping up, required a live chat session to get 4G enabled on the account.

Will hold onto 3G/HSPA forever, even when signal is -113 dBm 0 asu.

Will drop to 3G/HSPA even in a strong 4G area when using data.

Indoors I can get 4G but usually will drop to 3G/HSPA as soon as I enter my house.

Network footprint is slightly different to O2 which probably means they are either not running at the same power or have not combined the masts in the locations where I checked.

Speedwise I get around 14 Mbps down 2 up on 4G, 3G/HSPA/HSPA+ I get 3 Mbps down and 0.2 up, 2G/EDGE 0.2/0.1.

Overall they seem better from when I checked a few months ago but still nowhere near EE. Areas tested South Birmingham and Bromsgrove/Redditch/North Worcestershire.

Yes, tethering is allowed but that tariff isn't aimed at people searching for a broadband substitute.

For that Vodafone DE has special tariffs which are supposed to be a broadband substitute.
https://zuhauseplus.vodafone.de/internet-telefon/lte/

The last one is also 30GB, has free calls to all landlines and is only 60€ a month (the 20€ is the first 12 months). And after you get over the 30GB it's throttled to 384kbps and not 32kbps.

32kb is hilarious 384kb original 3G special seems fair!

Should be noted that their household offering is limited to 50Mbps.

They also own Kabel Deutschland which covers a lot of Germany (although not Nordrhein-Westfalen and Hesse).

I thought that too but in one of their brochures it says

"Nach Verbrauch des Daten-Volumens surfen Sie mit höchstens 32 kbit/s." (after use of the data volume surf with at most of 32kbps) perhaps it's an error from them. Bloody slow if it is.

Well it seems that Vodafone are slowly catching up with EE on a few things I now have Wifi Calling on my Samsung S6 working so far it seems quite good although the quality does not seem as good as EE so far and also thanks to my brother in law VOLTE is enabled on my account just got to wait for software update to try that.

Don't know your exact location but I didnt find bromsgrove or Warwickshire very well served in terms of 4g when I was there a week or 2 ago, a little like where I live at present, on the edge of good things but not complete by any means.
I did agree with you about the 3g/4g threshold as I often find it switched back to 900mhz 3g when there's still a good enough 4g signal to use. Trouble is I often found when on three the reverse, clinging to a barely usable 4g signal when 3g was better, it wouldn't be no noticeable if 900mhz 3g had better data throughput but I'd say when on the edges of areas that have been upgraded it's where Vodafone & 02s previous lack of investment shows up in an ugly way, as it has little bandwidth, maybe the only 3g mast covering a massive area as the rest are 2g and ad you've said Vodafone will cling to 3g to the bitter end! I generally get at home around 15mbps on a - 126db signal or 25-30mbps+ on anything stronger 4g 6-10mbps 2100mhz 3g (though I rarely see it unforced due to 4g) or 0.5-3mbps on 900mhz 3g

WiFi calling not available to corporate clients apparently yet and no estimated date. (I wonder if too many SureSignal units in stock still?).

Last time I checked Vodafone's Wi-Fi calling still doesn't support Text message service.

I was just going to say "of course WifiCalling supports text" but thought it appropriate to check first .

Can Vodafone really be so useless? They really don't support texting over WifiCalling!

Customers being told no network does text on WifiCalling and those customers basically calling them liars and referring to EE WifiCalling.

https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Appl...s/td-p/2437102

Ha, shows the useless network still can't get its act together. Don't the technical people have the competitions phones to see what they're each doing!?

i joined Vodafone because of the 20% vea discount and the free spotify with the knowledge that wifi calling would be a couple of months away. That was in May, still no wifi calling and now when it eventually arrives it won't work fully as texts from android contacts won't get through

looking forward to leaving in May

Do Vodafone even care about their corporate clients?

My former employer was one and they often had weird coverage issues (in a business park in Reading so not the middle of nowhere, and if you were high enough you could probably see VF HQ )

It's one of the reasons why I didn't take a free corporate SIM when I was allowed to. I'd rather pay to be with a better network than have a crappy free service

If you hear from people who moved from Vodafone to EE, the answer would appear to be no.

Hence why EE isn't finding it particularly hard to boost their business customers, even before you start comparing the networks themselves.

We were a blue chip Vodafone client (government department) so we got very good service from them. We now use Unify who are essentially a MVNO of o2 and it's cheaper but there have been issues. It took them 7 months to port over some numbers for example.

Well I have been using Vodafone Wifi Calling on my Samsung S6 now for just over 24hours now and so far its a good service but In all honesty not as good as EE service on my work IPhone 6.

There seems to be a slight delay in call setup on the S6 at present but only 1-2seconds but the call quality is good in general and works on Cloud,O2 and BT wifi hotspots ok with calls coming through as Intended.

Messages do work over Wifi but they come through on the Vodafone message + service which is fine as I already had that set as my default messaging service, I think others have found that messages don't work over the stock Samsung service. The Vodafone Call + service also works over wifi but probably not as good call quality as the default system.

I am not 100% sure whether the Wifi Calling service on the S6 is officially launched yet so could be a further software or sim update to irony out these little things.