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Vodafone and O2 4G experience thread
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DevonBloke
22-01-2016
Originally Posted by moox:
“The signal belts in through my granite walls but it's no good.”

Ooooooohhhhhh, ark at you.... granite walls!!!
Well let me tell you I have a 300 year old house with earth and slate walls and ain't nuthin coming through that!!!!!
I do have 6 grand's worth of granite worktops though, Star Galaxy and everything.... does that count??
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha
LOL
daveyfs
22-01-2016
If, as has been suggested here, Vodafone (and possibly O2) are going to refarm another 5Mhz of 900 spectrum currently used for 2G, would they not be much better off using it for 4G to reinforce capacity at that frequency level rather than 3G which is an inefficient use of that spectrum?

Then in time they could re-refarm the 5Mhz of 900 currently used for 3G to 4G as well and they'd be in more of a position to compete with EE. I just don't understand why they're still focusing on 3G when it's a nearly obsolete technology. After all, most current 4G phones support Band 8 900.
Gigabit
22-01-2016
What phone do you have, Devon?
DevonBloke
23-01-2016
Originally Posted by Gigabit:
“What phone do you have, Devon?”

Why? Do Granite worktops make a difference??? Hahahaha
iPhone 6.
EDIT: To be replaced with the iPhone 7 in 8 months time.
M1kos
23-01-2016
Petition to get Totnes Vodafone 3G & 4G - https://www.change.org/p/vodafone-vo...edium=copylink
jaffboy151
23-01-2016
Originally Posted by Pedro_C:
“3G900 can be perfectly adequate for large areas. There's a large 30-40m mast near me that carries Voda/O2 900/900/800 and the 3G speeds are perfectly good despite the fact it covers part of a reasonable sized town and a large amount of almost rural housing. OK, a lot of devices will be on 4G800, but the 900 3G extends quite a bit further and speeds are still pretty good: the sector that covers the rural housing often achieves 12mbps, the town part 3-4mbps.”

Vodafone's 3g 900mhz works OK when there is 4g on the same mast or near by as there is something else to take some else to take some of the load.
What seems to happen when masts only have 3g 900mhz & 2100mhz and not 800mhz 4g around is users very quickly fall off the faster 2100mhz service and onto the 900mhz 3g, it doesn't take much for this to happen, where as the likes of three & EE have nothing else to go to they will hang on to the weaker 2100mhz until it's gone completely.
900mhz would be great if there was more spectrum behind it.
But on its own it struggles. A more dense 3g network would help matters immensely too.
I think by the end of this year, in most parts of England at least we should have a thin coverage of 3g and 4g in parts of most towns and cities, but unless some miracle movement happens on the old rural masts it will be many years until it's blanket coverage with any substantial depth.
Just look how many orange masts EE still has to do, and how long Devon has had to wait for things to happen on his one rural mast..
We going to be taking about this until at least 2018..
clewsy
23-01-2016
I think we could see some rapid movement as VF do appear to be putting plans in for the more rural masts. Look how they are connecting up Derby to Notts, now your starting to see connections going to form from Derby to Staffs, Staffs to Cheshire.

I think come this year we will see fairly decent coverage. It's already do obvious to me the improvements as my phone is on 3g and 4g now more time than it ever sees 2g. That's a major change.
Stereo Steve
23-01-2016
Originally Posted by M1kos:
“Petition to get Totnes Vodafone 3G & 4G - https://www.change.org/p/vodafone-vo...edium=copylink”

Nice one. Thank you.
M1kos
23-01-2016
You could at least sign the petition
!
Thine Wonk
23-01-2016
But why not just change to a provider who does have 4G, they'll probably be getting to it as part of their rollout anyway.
moox
23-01-2016
Originally Posted by DevonBloke:
“Ooooooohhhhhh, ark at you.... granite walls!!!
Well let me tell you I have a 300 year old house with earth and slate walls and ain't nuthin coming through that!!!!!
I do have 6 grand's worth of granite worktops though, Star Galaxy and everything.... does that count??
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha
LOL
”

I find the Radon gives me a healthy, glowing complexion

Plays merry hell with the wifi though. I don't have a palatial country home but I still need 2 access points, and even that's not 100%
beans0ntoast
23-01-2016
Originally Posted by daveyfs:
“If, as has been suggested here, Vodafone (and possibly O2) are going to refarm another 5Mhz of 900 spectrum currently used for 2G, would they not be much better off using it for 4G to reinforce capacity at that frequency level rather than 3G which is an inefficient use of that spectrum?

Then in time they could re-refarm the 5Mhz of 900 currently used for 3G to 4G as well and they'd be in more of a position to compete with EE. I just don't understand why they're still focusing on 3G when it's a nearly obsolete technology. After all, most current 4G phones support Band 8 900.”

If Vodafone have still got that small chunk of 1800MHz spectrum on 2G, how about they refarm that to 4G instead? All 4G phones (even the iPhone 5!) support the 1800MHz band, and 1800MHz can provide far more capacity than 900 can. And if you look at EE's main 4G layer (and their 2G layer), you can see that 1800MHz has still got quite a fair bit of range to it. So if you're going to refarm a frequency to 4G only, surely it'd be better to refarm the 1800, because 900 can still be used for the 2G layer (eventually being switched to 3G/4G).

The same goes with O2 - they'd be better off refarming the 1800MHz block to 4G, leaving 900MHz for 2G and 900/2100MHz for 3G. Having 1800 on 2G when you already have 2G900 is useless, because 900 provides the coverage for calls on 2G, and most people have got 3G/4G phones that can do calls over 3G900/3G2100.
Gigabit
23-01-2016
What are the signal priorities on Vodafone?
Pedro_C
23-01-2016
O2 already are refarming the 1800 for 4G.

As for VF priorities:
2600
800
2100
(maybe 1800 above 900 2G)
900
Gigabit
23-01-2016
Wait so is 900MHz 3G above 900MHz 2G or what.
japaul
23-01-2016
Originally Posted by Gigabit:
“What are the signal priorities on Vodafone?”

4G2600 - 6
4G800 - 5
3G - 4
2G - 1

O2 is the same (no 2600 obviously) except where they have 4G1800 in which case 800 is raised to 6 so that 1800 can slot in.
M1kos
23-01-2016
Are you sure o2 has 2G as 1. As lots of friends in o2 seem always in 2G even when 3-4G is available!
Stereo Steve
23-01-2016
Originally Posted by M1kos:
“You could at least sign the petition
!”

I will.
jchamier
23-01-2016
Originally Posted by M1kos:
“Are you sure o2 has 2G as 1. As lots of friends in o2 seem always in 2G even when 3-4G is available!”

I used to get that with voda. Had to airplane mode cycle to get off 2g and back to 3G. Not happened for about a year.
jonmorris
23-01-2016
Originally Posted by M1kos:
“Are you sure o2 has 2G as 1. As lots of friends in o2 seem always in 2G even when 3-4G is available!”

I think someone on here explained this (RAN Man I think), as it always happened to me. The way O2 set up their network was almost like running two separate networks, meaning if you camped on a legacy 2G network the 4G network was pretty much invisible.

Only rebooting or forcing 4G only, or toggling flight mode, would ever rectify the situation.

O2 cut off my test SIM before the end of last year, so I can't see if this problem still occurs. It used to on Vodafone too, but now I find that on the few occasions I drop to GPRS or EDGE, it quickly jumps back to 3G or 4G. I hardly ever see 2G now. And I certainly never get stuck on it.
dts5000
24-01-2016
This is correct a site not far from me ex o2 2g site now have voda/o2 the way this site is set up is inside the equipment cabin is a huawei 3900bts http://kulitelco.blogspot.co.uk/2013...dan-3900a.html the site has openreach fiber backhaul now and all vodafone 4g/3g/2g run in to the fiber but with o2 the only use the fiber backhaul for 4g/3g the 2g is still connected to the same old 18ghz microwave radio link backhaul and run as a separate network


Originally Posted by jonmorris:
“I think someone on here explained this (RAN Man I think), as it always happened to me. The way O2 set up their network was almost like running two separate networks, meaning if you camped on a legacy 2G network the 4G network was pretty much invisible.

Only rebooting or forcing 4G only, or toggling flight mode, would ever rectify the situation.

O2 cut off my test SIM before the end of last year, so I can't see if this problem still occurs. It used to on Vodafone too, but now I find that on the few occasions I drop to GPRS or EDGE, it quickly jumps back to 3G or 4G. I hardly ever see 2G now. And I certainly never get stuck on it.”

Aye Up
24-01-2016
Originally Posted by japaul:
“4G2600 - 6
4G800 - 5
3G - 4
2G - 1

O2 is the same (no 2600 obviously) except where they have 4G1800 in which case 800 is raised to 6 so that 1800 can slot in.”

I'm a bit naive here, does the higher number indicate the higher priority so 1 is the lowest and 6 is the highest?
Gigabit
24-01-2016
I've got an O2 GPRS + 2100MHz 3G mast and a CTIL mast (EDGE + 3G (900+2100) + 4G) mast near me and my phone always seems to go GPRS, EDGE, 3G, 4G, EDGE, 3G, EDGE, etc. so this two separate networks thing sounds like a common occurrence.

Recks my battery life too
jonmorris
24-01-2016
Not only the impact on the battery but when on the old site, your data throughput can be almost nil.

I have to assume it's better now than it was. I'm thinking of getting another SIM to do a new network comparison test in a month or two.
jaffboy151
24-01-2016
Vodafone still has the network within a network thing going on but it's not half as bad as it was a few months ago here as more masts get upgraded, i rarely have to manually change my phone these days, if I do its mainly to bypass slow 3g 900 while a weaker but quicker 4g 800 is lurking underneath. things working this in my house, to the south is old Vodafone world to the north cornerstone masts are abundant as I overlook Crewe and Nantwich, if you come in the house and your phone connected to the old network, and stay in certain parts the phone will stay on that mast and never budge on its own, live to rooms facing North and you will switch to edge 2g then soon after 3g and or 4g.
Drive into market Drayton from the west on the A53 you get another sequence of events, 2g quickly turns to 3g as a soon as there is a useable signal, but as it's an old mast it's not programed to look for the 4g coming from the mast on the edge of town, this only comes when your 3g switches to that new mast, you can see when it's done it as the new mast is DC and the old only single carrier old school 3g,
Trouble with this is the coverage is heavy in favour of the town, I'm sure the North facing panels are not connected as you loose 4g even when in virtual line of sight, so if your phone doing some data work it misses the 4g altogether..
Hopefully it will be less and less of an issue on Vodafone as things progress, though O2 sound like they are building in this by design
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