I suppose it's possible that a leased line for a cell site, and fibre for BT's broadband network might need to go through the same ducts but I wouldn't count on it being down to this. Often the delay for BT's rollout is down to something else, like not being able to put a cabinet where they want to, or arranging a power supply for the equipment inside (I know of one place where the cabinet was installed, but it didn't get powered up for the entire year I lived in the area)

I live in an area which even has BT fibre to the premises for some people in the middle of nowhere, but there's no Vodafone 4G upgrade yet - we don't even have proper Vodafone 3G (it exists, sort of, but there is very poor performance which would probably be due to poor backhaul)

Just to note, O2's coverage checker has been updated today for the first time this year, and around me at least shows some more coverage.

Interesting as according to that one site recently upgraded gives 4g and 2g now , but no 3g. Not sure why that is the case though.

The O2 coverage checker has recently removed all 3G coverage for Odiham. It's still there and very strong so I'm bemused by this.

The checker is also suggesting a Guildford monopole is 900, 900, 800 when it was producing 3G speeds impossible on 3G 900.

O2's 3G is now pretty decent around here coverage wise, almost on a par with EE outdoors (and better indoors) and beating 3 by a bit overall. Most of their masts within about a 15-20 radius now have at least 3G along with 2G though it's mainly 3G900 they've added on to do this. The CTIL site-sharing seems to have improved both networks' overall coverage too - for example where a Voda mast has been upgraded for both operators it's giving good O2 3G coverage in some areas where the 2G service is marginal, and vice versa. Even if you don't use mobile internet it's becoming clear that having a basic or feature phone that covers 3G as well as 2G is giving better coverage than 2G alone.

Funnily enough when my local O2 base station was upgraded for CTIL 4G works last year adding Vodafone 3G & 4G to it, 3G2100 for O2 was also added and it led me to think that 3G2100 was going to be added as standard for O2 - apparently not! Flicking between 900 & 2100 3G coverage and 4G as well shows many of the sites upgraded for O2 4G also having 3G900 but no 3G2100. A bit puzzling I would have thought as surely adding 2100MHz coverage would help with 3G data in such places and the additional infrastructure wouldn't be much to worry about when the antenna are being replaced. I can only think that at these sites both O2 & Vodafone have decided to not upgrade the base station antennas, determining that the current ones in place could support 4G800 (at a push - especially if they were designed for 850MHz as well originally), 3G900 & 2G900 and not bother to add 3G2100 for either operator - I suppose in the less populous areas having such wideband coverage isn't as critical, but it's interesting to see.

Where abouts in Guildford is this site?

Interesting antenna configuration alert! A quad band panel and a dual input with one used. The interesting part is that the Quad band has green inputs, which according to the AISG are 1400MHz and 1500MHz. On the Brighton transmitter. If it is 1400MHz input, then it shows they are planning on using their 1400MHz



St Omer/Tangier road. Near GU1 2DE

Is there any handsets that support 1400?, why would Vodafone be rolling this frequency out and not 2600? Simply for coverage area and capacity? Or testing?

Don't think there are any 1400 devices yet. Not sure why they would wire them up in that case (to save having to climb up there again i guess).
They are doing 2600 though, one of the high frequency inputs is for 2600 (the yellow pair).
I'm guessing the other high inputs are for their 1800?

The panels also have a 2600MHz capable input too so I suspect the long term idea would be 4G 800, 1400 and 2600MHz.

When these pictures were taken, all I could pickup was 900, 900, 2100, 800; 2g, 3G, 3G, 4G

I'm assuming this reads (2G) 900, (3G) 900 & 4G (800)?
If so, I wonder if Vodafone might be trialling DC-HSPA+ on their 900MHz spectrum? They certainly have the bandwidth to do it.

Do they? That would require 10Mhz of 900 leaving just over 7Mhz for 2G.
That wouldn't be enough would it?

I've asked about both masts on the Vodafone eForum

This is very interesting news, as I live in Brighton and maybe we can finally see some improvement in 4G speeds (when in peak times, or when it is sunny and half of London visits).

It makes no sense adding 1400 at the moment as there are no devices supporting that. Except if they just want to test it or save themselves climbing to the mast later as mentioned already.

LTE 2600 on the Whitehawk transmitter does not make any sense either. 2600 has limited penetration and doesn't go very far. They obviously can't use it FM radio style, just as they do with LTE 800 to cover Brighton and Hove. (yes, I know they don't have just one LTE 800 mast in the area, but seriously, they are very few)

Hello folks.

I'm on EE at present but where I work, I cannot get a signal in my building. I currently have to use call forwarding on a dual sim Moto X Style to a Giffgaff sim to receive calls. In addition, I have to use wifi to connect to my work Vodafone device (setup as an AP) to get data. This is driving me a little crazy! This is because VO2 can give me a 4G signal in my building whereas EE 1800MHz just cannot get through!

Now I know that EE may at some point this century and to only ~18% of it's masts deploy 800MHz, however I have waited long enough and there are no guarantees it'll help me where I work. Therefore, although I never thought I'd say it ....... I'm considering Vodafone

Does anyone know if Vodafone publish their rollout plans or network improvement plans at all?

Yes they do on their website as planned improvement however the areas that o2 are doing (as ctil) don't show up as planned and just appear!

I know that in Australia, both the Optus & Vodafone networks 900MHz spectrum is 2 x 8.3MHz allocations yet have used a 5 MHz pair in those allocations for HSPA leaving just 3.3MHz paired for 2G, so I'm sure it's possible. I can't remember the exact details but I remember reading that a GSM 2G base station mast requires 9 or 12 200 kHz carriers for BCCH to work correctly, so roughly 1.8 MHz or 2.4MHz is required but I don't think this has to be continuous blocks.

The other Australian operator, Telstra, also has an 8.3MHz paired spectrum slot in the same band, but it has a unique problem - the uplink spectrum licenced for them lies between 890 - 898.4MHz, but this is right next door to their 880-890MHz downlink spectrum that they use for their 3G850 service (branded 'NextG') so as a consequence they have to keep a guard band at the lower end of their 900 MHz allocation to help prevent interference issues which Telstra have set as 1.6 MHz - so they only use 6.7MHz paired spectrum for their 2G GSM network (which as I mentioned in the 2G death watch thread, is due to close this December coming).

Assigning 10MHz paired spectrum in the 900 band by Vodafone for 3G would leave approx 7.4 MHz paired for 2G - assuming that DC-HSPA+ could be rolled out - enough for 36-37 GSM carriers. They would still have more bandwidth available that what Telstra have had to roll out a fairly extensive 2G GSM network across Australia for over two decades. In reframing an extra 5MHz of spectrum for 3G from 2G in the same band will still allow it to be used for voice (and at a potentially better quality than that of 2G) and in some places where 2G usage is still quite high, 2G1800 is a potential option to ease congestion.

So technically it's very doable if Vodafone, and for that matter O2, looked to go down such a route.

Don't forget Vodafone are still using 2G1800, with the increased amount of masts and being closer together and small amount of 2G900 and 2G1800 will that not be enough? Can they set 2G1800 as a higher priority than 2G900 as it has more capacity?

Well I guess that does sound doable. Is it 8 TDMA time slots (calls) per carrier?, I can't remember now.

Nominally 8 time slots, though this can be extended to 16 using a half-rate codec at the expense of some audio quality, which is what I suspect O2 have on their 2G net.

Vodafone got back to me:
St Omer road/Tangier road, Guildford has no 2100MHz 3G, so how it was doing 25mbps on 3G remains a mystery. There is an ever so slight chance I was picking up 3G2100 from elsewhere but I doubt it as the signal was -71dBm. hmmm. Maybe should have spent longer testing.

Brighton Whitehawk Hill " – There’s no 2600MHz on that site, at least at the moment."

I have seen a similar mast setup on other Vodafone/O2 masts carrying 900, 900, 2100, 800, but without some of the inputs cabled. I'll try and get a pic.

I recently returned from a trip through London Heathrow T2.

The moment I walked in Vodafone advertisements showed up everywhere with large white letters in red background. 'Ready for Business'.

I had LTE 2600 (Band 7) coverage in border control and baggage claim. The speeds were good but not impressive. Best speedtest showed 70/35 Mbps.

However, when I walked to the National Express bus station I was only able to catch some LTE 800 from far away. Horrible speeds, almost non functional. The speedtest apps were failing and in one of the few tests that managed to finish I got less that 0.1/0.1 Mbps with over 800ms latency.
3G, although strong as the mast was right outside the main area, was appaling too, with no data throughput and struggling call set up.

That's my experience of Vodafone as well, they're getting noticeably better but in lots of 'point' locations. The average is still quite weak. That said, the load at airports is intense, and I've seen high speeds on EE 4G at heathrow, I've also seen poor 3G in bus station, but not 0 kbps that Vodafone managed for a long time.

Another year I suspect; once VoLTE launches a lot more masts can be converted.

The Brighton mast and also another Vodafone/O2 one at Thame Rugby club also have an additional slim line panel which I cannot work what is for:
http://pedroc.co.uk/new%20Vodafone%2...me%20rugby.jpg