my friends on Vodafone and its terrible to talk with her. Calls dropping on almost every call to her or words blanking out or goes silent for around 10 seconds and can barely hear her.

Sometimes I double check it isn't my phone, but it doesn't happen with anyone else, and I don't know anyone else on Vodafone.

Problem for both Voda and O2 is that they need to improve 2G and 3G as well as launch 4G, but Three and EE both have good 3G and for EE good 2G to start with. I gather from this forum that Vodafone is quite dramatically different in the north of the UK than it is in the south. In much of Hampshire, and in Surrey, the 3G signal is non existent outside any major town, and the GPRS or EDGE signal might be 3 or 4 bars (out of 5) but has no data throughput, or even an IP allocated. Its great for voice, but most people don't pay £15/m or more for a voice only service.


Some of these areas already have 3G from Three and EE, but its only V/O2 that have missed them. This was probably because V/O2 had mast sites designed for 900mhz 2G, and when 2100mhz 3G arrived there wasn't enough mast sites to cover the population indoors, so its mostly outdoors only coverage. This leads to people like Rory Cellan-Jones at the BBC saying "no 3G in my station within the M25" on twitter in 2013, when many people said "there is plenty of 3G, if you switch network".

Generically, outside this forum, I find people don't realise that 3G coverage differs per network. They realise each network has different coverage, but don't realise they should try them all (via prepay SIMs) to see which is best for them in the areas they go to.

That is unusual as Vodafone's 2G service is usually good at calls only. (the 1990s requirement!). Sounds as if the local mast is in trouble, or your friend is in a vehicle that is moving at speed (e.g. train).

nope, on foot. It happens in several places too. Even today she was near the tube station and could barely hear her as it kept cutting some words off.

When she puts her lyca sim card in the phone I have no such issue when speaking to her.

Maybe her phone is connected to 3G when the calls go through.

Perhaps you missed the loads of threads where people moan about the data speeds on 3 and EE...

Unsurprisingly, Vodafone and EE are also the only networks with 2.6Ghz spectrum, the band most suited for small cell technology,

Definitely considering leaving Vodafone when my contracts up. Rarely get 3G coverage where family on EE get 4G. Alot of the time I get EDGE coverage which gives no Internet access. I upgraded to a 4G ready phone in the hope of them significantly improving their coverage. The only real place I get constant 4G is in Manchester.

Same, I seem to be on EDGE 60% of the time. which I wouldn't mind at all; if it actually worked! I never get internet access on it, I can't go on Whats's App and I have to have iMessage turned off. Having an iPhone is useless on Vodafone, when I went to the shop to complain, they offered me to downgrade to a Samsung Galaxy S3, which apparently would work better on EDGE! Why should I downgrade my phone just to get better internet on their crappy network?

Very rarely do I have 2g on Vodafone in Glasgow.

1g? :d

Maybe 15 years ago...?

I think you miss the point I am trying to make Vodafone is actively upgrading the coverage for all technologies 2G/3G/4G in many areas it is installing single equipment which will work for all technologies and make it to a point future proof. Vodafone is upgrading the network so that 3G and 4G is accessible to 98% of the populace as I understand it. The roll out strategies of each network differs somewhat but in the end when we begin Q1 of 2016 we will broadbly be looking at coverage that is similar both in nature and cost from all providers. The difference will be in how it is delivered to the consumer.


You make that point succinctly, I know 2600 isn't really suited apparently for rural use comparatively to that of 800 however I believe it was yourself who said that the power levels allowed on 2600 would make coverage and quality similar to that of 3G levels? We haven't seen all providers show their hand as yet, however I feel once 2600 starts to roll out we will begin to see some innovative solutions offered to ensure delivery of 4G services around the country.

There's no doubt that all networks are targeting widespread 3G/4G coverage, however the time frames for this will not mean similar coverage by end 2015 as I currently see it. If you look at O2 (who are sharing with Vodafone via Beacon so I would expect a similar status for both). They recently stated they are targeting upgrading 25% of their sites to 4G by end 2014. For me, this means they have no chance of "completing" their network upgrades by end 2015. They've also stated that 3G will be available in 200 new places this year, I've interpreted this as meaning 200 new 3G sites, again this would mean no significant 3G expansion this year, and theirs no chance that all the non 3G areas would be done next year.

As such there is, and will still, be significant coverage differences until at least end 2016 based on what's happening today.

Looking solely at coverage also misses the point about the service supplied by that coverage, e.g. EEs stated aim of rolling out LTE-A in London this year would enable speeds/capacity based on more spectrum than 3/O2 own (even if they used all of their available spectrum for LTE), and as such, they cannot hope to match the service delivered, even if the basic coverage is the same.

Just to play devil's advocate here, just having or using more spectrum doesn't necessarily equate to a better service either. Vodafone for a long time had the most 3G spectrum in the UK, yet regularly comes dead last for coverage and performance. O2 has the least 3G spectrum, yet were the fastest of all networks in OFCOM's last mobile broadband tests.

Also I was quite disappointed/surprised by O2's claim of upgrading just 25% of their sites to 4G by the end of this year. That seems to be a very conservative number, given what I've seen of actual rollout. Edinburgh for example launched late last year already with well over double that percentage, and is probably approaching 60-70% now. Scotland's central belt probably has over 25% already, even including the rural areas. And Scotland isn't really much of a priority for most networks...

Even if they were only focusing on cities (which they aren't) the majority of masts are in cities anyway so that doesn't explain it.

However there's also the issue of whether or not it's really worth counting the many thousands of microsites dotted about, which aren't really economical to do in the first phase. After all you could have a hundred microsites in the coverage area of a single mast. Upgrading the macro will cover the entire area with some signal while the micros will only do tiny areas each. Yet covering the entire area would only bring you to 1% of masts upgraded, which skews numbers a bit. (I think the O2 Dome in London has at least 30-40 O2 micros in it)

Having more spectrum on its own does not mean better performance unless you use it! I completely agree.

Most were quite surprised at Vodas use of one of its 2100Mhz carriers for exclusive Femto use, which did seem like a very odd decision to me, but did mean that they never really used it on the macro network.

O2/Voda do appear to have a different rollout strategy, which looks as though they are growing out from some of the urban areas into more rural areas, e.g. Glasgow/Edinburgh. This is good for those in that area, but doesn't really help those sat in EE launch cities for the past 18 months waiting for some other provider to rock up, e.g. Cardiff/Southampton/Bristol/Belfast. This also looks quite an odd strategy looking from the outside, as they are bypassing big chunks of high population density. I would suspect this may be due to transmission dependencies around the country, but don't have any inside knowledge.

The carrier the femto uses isn't exclusive. It's just the least used one in the macro network but it's certainly in use. From memory it's the lowest frequency one (UARFCN 10687).

I have a family member who works for Vodafone in their network operations and planning team, I ahve had a number of chats with him recently about Vodafone and O2s 4G network mostly about where I live and work around Leicestershire but have discussed things in general as well.

He has said that at present there are 3 main things that is slowing down the roll out at the min they are- Equipment the base station,cabinet and mast manufacturers are working at full speed to build kit but can not keep up with demand. In fact recently a whole towns planned roll out had to be put on hold as a whole batch got held up in transit.

The second thing is roadworks as they are replacing so much equipment and masts this often means digging lots of roads up and closing roads to get cranes in lift masts. This all takes time to arrange and also like what has happened with other companies public feeling towards a company can be quickly affected if on their daily commute they keep getting delayed due to Vodafone/O2 doing work. They are also worried about upsetting local councils as tehir rollout often requires planning consent as they are replacing all equipment and adding more cabinets unlike EE who do a lot less.

The last big challange is backhaul as even once they have got the masts and cabinets up and running on 2 and 3G they often can not turn on 4G as it needs backhaul updates pulling in new fibres coonecting to BT or Voda C&W networks which the latter is also undergoing a massive upgrade and overhaul.
He has also mentioned that delays ae sometimes caused by lack of skilled staff to do the work, No problem with civil work e.g digging the trenches and installing the cabinets but then they struggle to get the guys to do all the technical rigging and wiring up.

*sigh*

In fairness actually O2 has has the second most 3G spectrum. EE/Vodafone both have 2x20MHz for 3G and O2/3 have 2x15MHz.

Well, they do now place joint second (which is still joint last), but only as a result of 2G refarming. However at the time of the OFCOM studies, that had not yet taken place.

It's worth pestering Vodafone with your issues, my plan has been reduced from £52 to £32 for the remaining 20 months of my contract. I can just about live with Vodafone's crap internet with a decent price for what I'm getting (iPhone 5s, unlimited minutes, unlimited texts, 5GB data (4G) and free Spotify).

Yes, I did say a while ago this seemed to be the case.

It's not surprising really. Equipment manufacturers have to keep staff employed and factories operational, yet the kind of upgrades we're seeing now only happen once every ten years. They can't just build a huge pile of manufacturing lines for one network then leave them sitting around doing nothing for the next nine years, nor can they stock pile years worth of stock in anticipation of future demand.

It's no surprise then that when a few networks suddenly want 100,000 antenna and 60,000 cabinets they can't produce them all in a day...

I have made my first move to getting rid of Vodafone, i have ordered a PAYG sim from 3 with a tenner on it, I will see what it is like for the month. if I like I will then look at getting a sim only contract and get my number changed over.

Also the My Vodafone online NEVER works, any time I try to log in to see my bills it brings up an error. Seems to be a different one every time.

Seriously losing patience.

I love vodafone help system, sent them a message to complain about their network and how bad their 3G is and they send me a link to their coverage page.
Hello, I know that we are suppose to be covered, but a lot of of the time we are not.

If their 3G is this bad, I feel sorry for the people who will pay more to use their 4G

i should get my 3 sim tomorrow and my on it will be 200 minutes, 500GB of data and 5000 text i think, that will do to test it for a month.