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Vodafone and O2 4G experience thread


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Old 24-01-2016, 07:50
M1kos
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I've got my phone locked out of 2G completely now luckily Vodafone is by far the best network where I live with a 30m high dc-hspa mast at the end of my road.. Just awaiting the 4G panels
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Old 24-01-2016, 11:22
mobilecentre
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Near where I am there was two sites that got the CTIL treatment, the rest have been left. There was various maintenance shown on the VF status checker on these legacy sites and now it is almost as they have been prgrammed out as others say so now you have a network within a network. The priority seems to be the newsest sites.

On one stretch of the A44 you actually drive within a 100m of a 2G900 site and a 2G2100 site and handsets will cling to 3G / 4G coming from a few miles away effectively ignoring them.

You will be on a call (using the new CTIL site) which will drop and go no service then find the legacy 2G and full 2G signal.
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Old 24-01-2016, 11:27
japaul
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I'm a bit naive here, does the higher number indicate the higher priority so 1 is the lowest and 6 is the highest?
Yes a higher number indicates greater priority. It runs from 0 (lowest) to 7 (highest) although the absolute numbers don't matter so much but rather what they are relative to each other. As we've seen here though, there are a number of other factors so you might find yourself on a lower priority layer despite being in coverage range of a higher one.
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Old 24-01-2016, 15:21
Skippy2005
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Currently 2.5hrs into a flight over the Atlantic to NYC and I have wifi calling on Vodaofne and excellent coverage, I've been streaming the radio over wifi ever since we reached 10,000ft. Very impressed with Delta
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Old 24-01-2016, 15:24
bookey_uk
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Don't forget to take your shovel with you!
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Old 24-01-2016, 15:24
Aye Up
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Yes a higher number indicates greater priority. It runs from 0 (lowest) to 7 (highest) although the absolute numbers don't matter so much but rather what they are relative to each other. As we've seen here though, there are a number of other factors so you might find yourself on a lower priority layer despite being in coverage range of a higher one.
I only thought priority applied to MNVOs as such, I didn't realise the host network also follows a similar regimen.

Thanks for that
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Old 24-01-2016, 16:01
jaffboy151
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On one stretch of the A44 you actually drive within a 100m of a 2G900 site and a 2G2100 site and handsets will cling to 3G / 4G coming from a few miles away effectively ignoring them.

You will be on a call (using the new CTIL site) which will drop and go no service then find the legacy 2G and full 2G signal.
These days I find quite often my call drops down to 2g after a while instead of staying on 3g,it normally swaps back soon as the calls finished unless it subsequently changes to an old 2g mast in the call where it sits forever unless I move after the calls finished..
With the priority settings talked about are they set up within the phone carrier settings or are the controlled in some way by the mast your on?
I ask regarding the masts I talked about before near me in market Drayton, with its one main old untouched 2g & 3g 2100mhz mast and the cornerstone 3g/4g mast at the edge of town, when you drive into town passing the cornerstone mast 1st you get 3g then switches to 4g, even when the signals still around -90db it will switch to the slower older mast which is stronger, is this because although the 4g is priority number 1 the old mast doesn't know it exists (no sib19) and thinks 3g 2100mhz is priority number 1 and as it's stronger it wins, despite only giving a max of 1 or 2 mbps and the 4g and 900mhz 3g covering almost the same distance if you force your phone to it.
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Old 24-01-2016, 16:11
Skippy2005
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Don't forget to take your shovel with you!
Lol, the transportation is working again and the ban has been lifted I'll post some speed test on 3/4G in NYC and DC, to compare.
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Old 24-01-2016, 16:55
DevonBloke
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I only thought priority applied to MNVOs as such, I didn't realise the host network also follows a similar regimen.

Thanks for that
If you think about it, they HAVE to have a priority system otherwise how would it work? Would your phone pick a technology at random? "Oh look some lovely 4G, but you know what, I fancy sticking with 2G until Tuesday" said the phone!! Haha
If you are close enough to a VOD mast that has all technologies and frequencies then your device will go 2600 (even thought the 800 here would be really strong), freeing up capacity further out on 800. Your device will then ignore 3G2100 as it's lower priority and stay on 800 until you get even further out (and assuming the adjacent cell has no 800 then it will drop to either 2G or 3G900 which unfortunately on VO2 extends further than 4G800. This being a requirement of CS voice fallback.
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Old 24-01-2016, 16:59
DevonBloke
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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.
It is not quite the same but very similar to EE's Orange/TM situation.
An EETM SIM will refuse to connect to an Orange mast unless the TM signal vanishes completely. You can strap yourself to the orange antenna up the mast but if your device has a whiff of TM signal it won't switch.
Only time this is different is call handover where a call on say, TM3G will handover to Orange 2G..... sometimes... if the wind is in the right direction...
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Old 24-01-2016, 17:15
DevonBloke
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I've signed it Mike and plastered it publicly all over Bookface.
Let's see what happens.
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Old 24-01-2016, 17:26
lightspeed2398
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I've signed it Mike and plastered it publicly all over Bookface.
Let's see what happens.
"I'm actually on EE now with no chance of changing" I wonder who this could be ....
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Old 24-01-2016, 17:32
DevonBloke
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"I'm actually on EE now with no chance of changing" I wonder who this could be ....
I know right?, I mean what a narrow minded view!!
I dunno, some people.....
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Old 24-01-2016, 18:10
blueacid
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I know right?, I mean what a narrow minded view!!
I dunno, some people.....
Oh, over to Giffgaff with you
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Old 25-01-2016, 10:47
Gigabit
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I notice one of Vodafone's business plans now includes EuroTraveller at no extra cost. I wonder if soon Vodafone will add this to their consumer plans too.
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Old 25-01-2016, 14:06
highfrequency
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Can any antenna expert recognise this lower tier setup.

EE 2G/3G/4G from the top, three 2100 also on this mast somewhere. The lower tier has been added in the past week and replaced 3x O2 900 panels. Now broadcasts o2/Voda EDGE.

About five or six Cornerstone masts around here have been upgraded in the past three months but all have the same setup of three large panels with RRU's, nothing like the setup here.

Apologies for the really poor quality image, I only had my phone on me at the time.

https://www.mediafire.com/?20xo6royobk229p
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Old 25-01-2016, 16:02
Ashley_Bradbury
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I've just took out a contract with voda and can confirm you cant use data on 3G during a call. They never seem capable of setting anything up correctly.
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Old 25-01-2016, 19:11
Pedro_C
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Can any antenna expert recognise this lower tier setup.

EE 2G/3G/4G from the top, three 2100 also on this mast somewhere. The lower tier has been added in the past week and replaced 3x O2 900 panels. Now broadcasts o2/Voda EDGE.

About five or six Cornerstone masts around here have been upgraded in the past three months but all have the same setup of three large panels with RRU's, nothing like the setup here.

Apologies for the really poor quality image, I only had my phone on me at the time.

https://www.mediafire.com/?20xo6royobk229p
Lower tier has two panels per sector: one of which is a dual input high band and the other looks like a dual/triple input panel with low band input. Looks rather like this 800/900 (big panel), 2100 small panel setup.
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Old 25-01-2016, 21:13
jchamier
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I've just took out a contract with voda and can confirm you cant use data on 3G during a call. They never seem capable of setting anything up correctly.
Which handset and where in the country? I have messages arriving via iMessage over 3G data whilst on a 3G phone call on Vodafone on my iPhone 6.
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Old 25-01-2016, 21:33
Pedro_C
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I've just took out a contract with voda and can confirm you cant use data on 3G during a call. They never seem capable of setting anything up correctly.
I can happily achieve good speeds on 3G while in a call; currently getting 8mb down, 3 up. It appears to be using 3G900 rather than 2100 while in a call but meh.
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Old 25-01-2016, 22:06
Ashley_Bradbury
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I can happily achieve good speeds on 3G while in a call; currently getting 8mb down, 3 up. It appears to be using 3G900 rather than 2100 while in a call but meh.
Ah yes it is, the masts are the same distance as ee but L live in a dip and only voda an o2 get signal in my house. I'm directly im the middle of three masts for each network. Orange use to have an extra one in the dip but it was decommissioned.
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Old 25-01-2016, 22:08
Ashley_Bradbury
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Its just odd that they have removed data during calls for 900mhz.
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Old 25-01-2016, 22:11
Ashley_Bradbury
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Which handset and where in the country? I have messages arriving via iMessage over 3G data whilst on a 3G phone call on Vodafone on my iPhone 6.
its an lg g4 and can receive data during calls on all networks just not voda 900mhz 3g. I live up the road from newcastle under lyme in the westlands. And I have to admit cornerstone are massively increasing the density of the network as voda/02 have gone from a single mast to 3 currently. The whole area now gets fill bars 3g throughout the area. I would of prefered to go with EE but I bought the phone network free so would have no chance of accessing three or EE 800mhz network.
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Old 25-01-2016, 22:14
jchamier
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its an lg g4 and can receive data during calls on all networks just not voda 900mhz 3g. I live up the road from newcastle under lyme in the westlands.
Probably a faulty mast, or its saturated.
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Old 25-01-2016, 22:17
Ashley_Bradbury
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Probably a faulty mast, or its saturated.
no all the masts are hardly used, I get 65mbps/ 20 up anytime of the day on 4g. It works fine on 2100Mhz 3g or if im not in a call on 900mhz 3g
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