Less power than three?? I don't think so. Voda 4G smashes out around my way and is comparable to their 900 3G coverage don't forget phones show Hspa and lte signal strength differently

There might be specific cases where the Vodafone 800 power is higher than the Three 800 power but the whole point of Three using 800 was that they could ramp the power up and not have to worry about the minimum coverage footprint of the calling technology aka 3g900.

Very hard to test given that Three's 800 is very hard to access due to the priority system. Voda's 800 power isn't as high as their 900 3G (or probably 2100), and I see that with a Voda data dongle.

At the monopole I visited yesterday, I got -51 2G, -51 900 and 2100 3G, -69 4G.

I generally find that 900 and 2100 are the same strength when close to the mast but obviously when in building, 2100 collapses much quicker. 4G 800 strength seems to vary between 5-20dBm lower than 2G/3G.

Yes pedro but lte works differently and is usable right down to - 120dbm where as hdspa only works down to about - 110dbm my local Street works mast gives me - 48dbm when about 20m away directly in front of the Antennas

Has anyone noticed Voda data doesn't seem to work properly over 3G when in a voice call?
I either cannot use data at all, or it works but extremely slowly. Sub-GPRS speeds.
End the call and do a speedtest and the speed can be amazing, 10meg +
Have tired in several different areas and on different phones and always the same.
Seems a configuration error or something.
EE speed unaffected by whether I'm in a call or not.

Also likely that Voda has 800/4G on more masts in your area than Three has 800/4G as three has only really just started, and their main rollout is 1800/4G.

I don't find that at all, I called my landline and left it live while I watched a YouTube clip loaded some sites etc.... Did a speed test while the call was still live and got 17mb down 3up. All but one site has been Cornerstoned! I wonder if your call is connecting to a legacy mast. I've found that since all the masts have been upgraded I never see 2G, 3G900/2100 performs very well indeed. How is the upgrade program in your area progressing?

What geographical percentage is Vodafone up to with 2G/3G/4G together and each technology individually?

Must be about time for quarterly results with this info in?

Be great if someone could answer this as I'm interested to know what percentage 4g coverage cornerstone can get upgrading 3g sites alone.

You're madder than me!

Did some bloke come running out of that house shouting "Oi, you dirty bastard, taking pictures through my windows, I'm calling the cops.... go on, get lost, take your camera and anorak with you..."

Hahahahahahaha


On a more serious note, is this omnidirectional and is the antenna part in two sections, top and bottom, high and low frequency do you know?

I'm afraid it's going to be true. It has to be.
800 is their base frequency and as such ALL Vodafone devices can access it.
This means (due to the international balls up that was the original launch of LTE with no voice) that there are and will be for some considerable time, loads of devices that can access the 800 for data but can't do voice (eg, iPhone 5c and 5s).
These need to be able to switch down to either 3G or 2G using CSFB.
In order for this to happen every time the 800 cannot be allowed to go beyond the 2G/3G coverage footprint (otherwise you would have a signal with no call ability)
I think Vodafone appear to be installing 3G900 on new 4G sites for this reason so initially the CSFB is to 3G mainly (like EE do to mainly 3G2100).
Even if they get round to making it switch back to 2G900 that is still going to be quite restricting for 4G800.
4G being far more robust it could go further than 2G even if 2G was on 800 too.
This means that 4G800 is always going to be compromised and will never reach it's full potential on VO2.
In urban areas and for a lot of people it won't be a problem but for rural it will probably be noticeable with a complete reversal of the last 20 years where in places Vodafone will go back to 2G/3G but EE will still be on 4G800.

Ignoring Three for the moment as they've totally ballsed up 800, EE's 800 will run at the highest power possible per site since it is only going to be accessible to VoLTE capable handsets and data only devices.. All other handsets will ignore 800.

Probably about 90% as remember 4g seems to go further and there sharing o2 and VF sites so seem to be getting a bit further and more connecting areas as they go.

I guess they will fill in the blanks afterwards.

Why do people think Cornerstone are only upgrading 3G sites to 4G? Lots of 2G only sites have been upgraded to 4G with 3G added at the same time.

Yeah there did seem to be that opinion going around.
No idea. All i see is that they upgrade sites whether 2G or 3G and if there's no 3G there they add it at the time. As I said above mainly for CSFB since most of them appear not to do data very well. Well the ones down here don't anyway.
I would imagine that's because as soon as they activate a 3G900 mast in a sea of 2G (like down here), about 3 trillion devices go "Ohhh 3G!! let's jump on there!!!"

It's the same with the myth that only urban areas have/are being upgraded to 4G. North Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, as 2 examples, have more 4G coverage and masts upgraded than EE and are most definitely not urban counties

So if they choose the stingy route then Vodafone could get close to there target coverage figure with minimum legacy 2g refresh.. I really hope they aren't so stupid as to try that stunt. Don't O2 have a minimum coverage claws that might drag them along a bit? I really do hope both networks don't miss this opportunity to modernise there networks wholesale. It really is do or die for them.


I'm quite sure they will unless they are insane, it's just they have a bad history of minimal tech roll outs against them, so people have little trust in them, this along with little evidence on this thread of widespread 2g sites getting updated so far and my own observations of them upgrading poorly placed 3g sites over nearby 2g ones with a superior coverage footprint. 2016 will show us what's what I'm sure..

Devon......
Switchback to 9002G is already in place on Vodafone, and works very well, though you'll never really need it as 9003G has always been added to any 4g mast I've seen and the 800mhz footprint falls well inside that of 3G900.
EDIT...
might be a replica telegraph pole mast in Trentham doing 3G2100 & 4G, something weird going on there that needs a man in an anorak to investigate...

Well the areas where demand was the greatest for 3G are most probably the same for 4G so they are likely to be at the front of the queue. Plus backhaul is likely to be less of an issue and this speeds things up for those areas. Having said that, there are plenty of former 2G only places in the SE that have great 4G down so it's just a matter of when in the next two years. And you can't just slap a 4G site on a tall mast and cover a large area with one cell like you used to as it wouldn't work. 4G coverage areas are all quite small unlike in years gone by. The slight exception is Three 800 but if you do that then you have to restrict the number of users who can access it until the network is denser. EE's urban 800 sites also have quite small coverage areas but it is highly targeted and very effective.

Anyway something different I've noticed on Vodafone is 800 now showing up in a few locations with 6 sectors on a site so the cell ids run 40,50,60 in addition to the normal 10,20,30 on the three sector sites. I'm not absolutely sure but I don't think these are additional sectors in the sense that they only cover 60 degrees instead of 120 degrees each but rather there is vertical sectorisation so that the site has inner and outer sectors too. All this boosts capacity whilst still retaining the regular 800 advantages which would be lost with 2600.

Pedro, another one for you photograph if you spot one.

Yes that's it. They're all insane!

I think he's been arrested after photographing that blokes house!
Hahahahaha

It may be so now but that's because it's set up for testing.
The whole point of EE 800 in rural areas is to go 30 odd percent further than 1800 (and that's once 1800 has been cranked up to 2G levels.)
Three are doing what they are doing because they have too. With no decent underlying 1800, the 800 would be swamped if the priorities were not running in ludicrous mode!
The whole point of 800 is maximum coverage (in rural areas) so restricting it would be bonkers.
EE's problem is that with 1800 on low power 800 would still get swamped as it will have too big a gap to fill.
Outside my house now if 800 was on I'd be on 800. In fact all around the house and down the yard, everywhere. If they cranked the 1800 up, I'd be on 1800 instead and 800 would only happen indoors at which point I jump onto WiFi calling anyway.
From something Bookey said I wouldn't be surprised if all activated 800 cells have their 1800 put up to 2G levels and CSFB changed to 2G.
I don't see how 800 is going to work otherwise.

But that's what I was saying. perhaps they do have both 2G and 3G CSFB running. Either way though, you just said it yourself though, 800 falls within 3G900.
Now, 3G900 (being CDMA based) is still going to be fairly well within 2G900 (being TDMA and fixed coverage).
So 800 is going no where near as far out as it could.

It was supposed to be dual stack on the planning ap'n but it was also supposed to have a completely different looking top section. So I think it has bog standard dual input panel in the top part: 800/900, 2100.

Gomshall (Voda 3G, not O2 after), Cranleigh (O2 2100 3G before) and Albury both went from Voda/O2 2G to 2G/3G/4G

If anyone has any mast pictures they want adding to my site PM me.

Just wondering when Voda/O2 are likely to upgrade any old 2G sites? Vodafone don't much 3G in my area - there is no 3G at all between Stanwick and the outskirts of Peterborough/Warmington. Which is about 20 miles or so. O2 also have patchy 3G coverage in that area, with large-ish towns such as Thrapston being 2G only (despite having both 2G900 and 2G1800, according to sitefinder).

Further, when there are both a Voda and an O2 site in a town or village, which do CTIL choose to decommission and which do they chose to keep up and running? In Raunds (Northamptonshire), there is both an O2 and a Voda site - the O2 site is out of town and doesn't provide much in the way of 3G coverage in Raunds (according to their coverage checker, it is mainly outdoor only). Whereas, the Voda site is situated more in town, next to the MBNL site. This would give better coverage but is 2G only at the moment. So would they upgrade the better-positioned Voda mast, leaving the O2 mast as 2G900 and 3G2100 (possibly adding in 3G900 in the future), or would they decommission the Voda mast (I doubt they would leave it as 2G900 only) and put 3G900 and 4G800 on the O2 mast?