I thought the application for a MIP mast up the valley from me would be rejected. It's in an AONB and the owners of all the nearby properties objected, but the council pretty much said said go ahead, just paint the mast green.

I can't link to it, but it's Shepway District Council application Y15/0096/SH.

All the ones going ahead down here as far as I can see.
I have a feeling the Government are forcing these through.
Most of the ones down here have had loads and loads of supporting, if not pleading letters to put the masts up. Attitudes are changing in a big way.
Thing is, yeah ok, sometimes they look a bit out of place but this is the future for God's sake. Once upon a time we wanted comms everywhere, now we need it.
The old arguments of radiation seem to have given way to aesthetics.
That will never win the day in the end.
"Oh, I really don't want to see that out of my window every day"
"Tough s**t. I mean Jeez, it's a bloody lattice tower, not a nuclear power station. Deal with it or move."

http://m.northumberlandgazette.co.uk...ment-1-7562483 Looks like MIP is over.

shepway for those interested http://beta.shepway.gov.uk/lg/dialog...no=Y15/0096/SH

Thanks M1kos, the Shepway site just kept timing out earlier.

Here's a pic of an O2 900MHz 2G and 1800MHz 2G, 3G 2100MHz Mast in Hull, seeing as this thread's been a little quiet

Glad you've been filling the thread with good quality mast porn while I've been away Pedro
Theres a mast I pass sometimes just like the one with the old analogue antennas on, it's a O2 site and has plans in for an upgrade sometime to 4g for both Vodafone and O2.
Sad to see that while I was out the country for nearly 3 weeks not much has changed in terms of new masts across Shropshire, West Staffordshire and south Cheshire, they still seem to be sticking mainly to the smaller masts and street poles around these parts Nd not touching the larger masts which would give them big coverage gains. Not sure if it's part of the larger plan to do this or just waiting for backhaul.
Thanks J.C for your interesting blog on your visit to Vodafone HQ, hopefully they will start to refarm that 900mhz for 3g soon as it badly needs it for them to offer a credibility 2nd data layer behind 4g while it's running on reduced power.

Quite a bit of tumbleweed blowing through this thread at the moment... Thought I heard The Specials playing Ghost town for a second when I opened it up too...

In that case, I feel some more pictures are required: RRUs, MHAs and RETs (two middle pics are EE masts and sites are CTIL) and video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9z4PNgaUJ4

Going to have to see if I have any more interesting masts to do web pages on.

Yeah, I think O2 are due to upgrade a little local mast up in Bunbury over the next week or so, but that's pretty much it around here...

Have we got any updated on Vodafone's WiFi Calling implementation carrying SMS messages over it ?

Does anyone have any official word from Vodafone as to why they've completely missed it out ?

Can confirm WiFi calling is only available on iPhones. No Android devices are currently supported.

No official info. Personally, I have completely stopped using their SMS service even though I've got unlimited texts included in my plan. I only use apps for text messages: WhatsApp, Skype, Messenger and iMessage.

Thanks for those Pedro, always room for more mast Porn l under the mattress interesting video too..

Not much going to happen now I guess until the new year, Telford in Shropshire has a few Street mast swaps going on in late January / February, and a site in keele looks to be getting done around then too..
I'm still yet to see cornerstone upgrade any legacy 2g sites to 4g around my part if the world, they seem to be sticking to existing 3g sites so far, foes anyone know what coverage percentage on 3g O2 & Vodafone have from there existing cells? I'm just wondering that if they add 800mhz 4g & 900mhz 3g to all these sites only, could they fudge it and reach the 98% target without upgrading many of the older, more difficult (and costly) to upgrade 2g sites?

They aren't doing it here either. All the existing 3G areas are going 4G but all the left out 2G areas are staying just that. Some big masts which would make VO2 actually viable in the South West. They are making the same mistakes again. Pathetic really. We need a good challenge to EE to drive service and pricing but there is none. EE are certainly doing the business but they are pretty much free to charge what they like as the other networks are a joke.

I still don't understand why Vodafone hasn't started LTE 2600 in Brighton. This area is almost as busy as London.

2G/3G voice calls aren't great either with Vodafone. Many dropped calls with strong signal

Gigabit was specifically asking about their cut down implementation of WiFi Calling without SMS sending/receiving being added to it.

Vod have submitted planning apps for pretty much every mast in Cornwall they have plus some of o2's as well. They will all be done several 2G only masts have already been done in the south West. Probably just trying to do the populated areas first

There are a whole raft of plans for 2g masts are here too, trouble is they are a few years old now, all say no additional permission needed so there's no deadline for them to reach, it's very much the thing if they they choose to develope the business in that direction and challenge EE they they will upgrade them, or they can just ignore them and stick with the past 3g network and save money, at the moment I'd say it not clear what there doing but they do some to be playing it very safe..
Let's see where things are again in June next year, a good portion of the 3g network upgrade should be underway by then.

Don't forget Vodafone will be reusing a lot of 2G 900 as 3G 900, so these sites will need upgrading - and will presumably get 4G too.

There issue as I see it, from what Vodafone said to me, is getting the backhaul upgraded to these old and often rural and somewhat isolated sites.

Until backhaul can be sorted, it probably isn't worth doing the relatively quick and easy site upgrade.

@Pedro, like the photos! As a comment - have you noticed the new masts are quite untidy, cables everywhere not clipped & flowed nicely, everything is more exposed looking, bit rough...

Re Vo02 rollout, as far as I can tell round here it's all but stopped, as has been said only the street sites have been upgraded and a few roof top upgrades.
I can see Voda getting bored of all this 4g stuff and getting distracted selling home broadband (again) or buying Sky tv.

The head office visit was interesting, but confirms my belief that they exist in their own faraday cage - where 'everything is awesome!!!' But the reality is everything is half-arsed (look at wifi calling) and they are at the bottom of every measure - from network to customer service, sad fact!
I hope I get proven wrong!

The trouble I have with the backhaul link argument is that there are sufficiently fast microwave links to more than run 4G sites. I appreciate is you're going to daisy chain the microwave links, then problems will happen. Many of the fast Voda/O2 4G sites in Hull are microwave for example, as are my serving cells in Surrey.

Based on the performance of the local VF 3G 900 site I don't think lack of backhaul is an impediment to the rollout...

(even the O2 2100 site can do much better)

But somewhere like Beacon Hill TV mast in Devon covers a huge area. Surely backhaul can't be an issue there? What have they been doing for the last 10 years? Cornwall may be getting a lot of attention but I guess the people in charge think it's cool or something. Rick Stein and all that. Probably think Devon is full of pasty munching luddites who don't need anything more than 2G anyway.

That is until they retire here, realise we get the arse end of everything and start joining committees and moaning like f&£% about everything.

Really, EE just need to turn on 800 and VOD are going to be screwed as their only single advantage (900) will be gone.

I still can't believe some brain dead Vodadrone thought that implementing WifiCalling without sms support was a good idea . It's not like people send millions of texts per day...