Is 3's fallback on to the Orange 2G network for voice calls & text still going in some parts of the UK?

I noticed where I live that 3 quietly dropped the fallback on to Orange here back in around late November or early December last year (I'm not sure about the exact date) even though having my 3 sim card out and about did see it drop to Orange 2G occasionally on my travels through most of 2014. Trying a manual search to attempt to get on to the Orange 2G network is no longer allowed with me.

So do any 3 customers still have the 2G fallback available to them where they live? Or has it quietly consigned to the dustbin everywhere?

It is still available in many areas, but as Three gets added to MBNLsites and coverage is deemed to be over a certain percent it does get turned off.

They obviously don't want to have to pay twice, for a network infrastructure and then pay again for people to use a different network.

As per my posts on the EE thread, Three users will now have great coverage in the Lee Mill 24 hour Tesco Extra near Ivybridge.
The first old Orange mast around here to go MBNL at last!!
100Mbps EE 4G as well of course...
Just thought I'd put that in there!!
Hahahaha

Strangely the upload was not that fast....
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2d5dz0jrnw...%2018.png?dl=0

Jesus christ thats faster than my broadband!

I assume this site doesn't handle a lot of traffic at the moment?

He's the only one down there using the things!

On a serious point though it's much faster than most broadband, but the slightly higher latency often means that in practice for most users it isn't as fast. On my VM I get 100 Mbps down and a 8ms ping. I'd rather have a 10mbps down and 8ms ping than 100mbps down and 200ms ping though. Download speed is good to see the needle whizzing down but for most users probably not the best metric.

I take your point, I think although these speeds are great in principle, I don't think they will ever get close to a fixed line broadband. Where I live mobile speeds are about a 5th of that given from DevonBloke. I don't think we will ever see 4G and upwards get the same pings as a fixed line, whilst I am slightly envious you with your 8ms against mine being double that at 16ms. I know in the grand scheme of things it makes no difference, but I think having a more reponsive connection can make a little difference.

Yet strangely page load times on Three mobile broadband can often match my Virgin Media 'fibre' connection. Whatever Three are doing it does seem to be working, their load pages on average faster than any other network, even EE on both 3G and 4G.

Can't quite beat your download but can beat your upload .

My local mast

http://s29.postimg.org/s6py7oglj/image.jpg

I live in Bedford and there's orange fallback going strong, and it's needed. The town centre is covered by one MBNL site and it's in an awful place (a rooftop site that is too low). Basically, if you go into any building in the town centre that's not right next to the mast, you lose signal and fallback to the orange rooftop site that covers the town centre very well.

I'd be interested in seeing how many 3 users roam onto that orange site on a daily basis, they can't afford to turn off roaming here until that site is MBNL'd or they will have a lot of angry customers. The orange site is on the top of a block of flats, and from the postcode of the flats (MK40 1JP), the residents can receive Virgin Fibre and BT Infinity so I don't think backhaul is an issue. Hurry up MBNL!

I know three is for most people than O2 and Vodafone but I wonder sometimes when a town of 80000 people doesn't have proper coverage. However if it's lots of old orange masts that haven't been brought into MBNL yet then that should at least happen ta to some point when three and EE get their act together.

Bizarre because they now have 4G on EE in Great Yarmouth yet you can still roam onto those remaining Orange 2G masts with a 3 sim card despite there being good 3G coverage from 3

Still working in parts of Cornwall.

There's plenty of MBNL coverage around me but there are clearly some ex-Orange 2G sites somewhere because a week or two ago the MBNL site went off and my phone moved to Orange 2G (rather than the ex T-Mobile 2G)


I think it's just Virgin being slow. I had Virgin for a while and I noticed that it took longer for things to get going compared to my current VDSL connection. Maybe that's a side effect of DOCSIS (as a shared medium, perhaps modems have to wait their turn to transmit requests) whereas in *DSL everyone has their own dedicated lines to the DSLAM

Still working in rural Wales too.

Working here as well https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/...44eb2c09?hl=en

RedCoat, 3 turned off 2G fallback for the whole of Northern Ireland in December 2014.
This is from a 3 employee

It seems to tally, cos up here in Derry it stopped last December , like yours did.

In my experience, it will be there if you force 2G but it won't connect automatically.

The Orange 2G roaming arrangements isn't limited to old Orange masts as far as I know, it is available wherever Three need it through an arrangement with EE. Just like if you were a legacy Orange customer you don't only get 2G in places where old Orange masts exist.

That's what I suspected, thanks. It seems that "Orange" coverage is reducing as EE 4G is being rolled out and former Orange 2G cells are reconfigured to being T-Mobile on 2G which to the best of my previous attempts couldn't get connected to for 2G fall back.

Comparing 3's 3G and EE's 2G & 3G coverage maps, there's still quite a bit of NI that 3's 3G doesn't reach that EE can reach on 2G at least in terms of geography, but I suspect that there are very few people on 3 here that are/were dependent of Orange's 2G fallback quite a bit once MBNL got rolled out.

Also thanks to other respondents noting that fallback still exists in parts of Britain.

I didn't think Three's 2G backup which was an old Orange contract was related only to old Orange masts, I thought it worked anywhere Three wanted it active based on the 'EE' network.

Perhaps these users are all wildly unprofitable for Three, thus resulting in this December 2014 disable of the 2g fallback in NI?

As an aside, there was some 2g fallback down near the Brecon Beacons back in October 2014 - although there's nothing to say that this hasn't been switched off since either... next time I'm heading to Bike Park Wales I'll keep an eye on my phone again!

There was a bit that covered some of rural Lancs between Bolton and Blackburn but it's been deactivated leaving orange 2g on EE and no service on 3. Looks as though the big EE mast hasn't been brought into MBNL yet. It's very rural covering cars and a farmer or two so makes sense to turn it off.

The thing I never had the chance to test for myself was: suppose I started in a location where Three falls back to 2g and make a voice call while traveling toward an area where the 2g fallback is forbidden?

My assumption is that the call would drop - my phone wouldn't be able to jump to the Three 3g network and take the call with it, nor could it connect to the forbidden 2g mast... is this assumption the case?

Perhaps then in some areas Three are keen to avoid this scenario unfolding: calls starting which will then cut off, rather than just avoiding the call in the first place?

I think when a mast site converts from Orange 2G to the new EE 2G/3G/4G then in theory the same process should have added Three 3G.

More than likely. TBH anywhere where a 3 customer spends a significant amount of time in a 2G fall back area isn't going to be terribly profitable for them. I suspect the time when I had a contract with 3 between 2007-09 where 3's 3G network didn't cover me, not to mention spending over 6 months in Australia abusing minutes, texts and data on 3 Like Home, didn't exactly make me a profitable customer. No wonder when I asked for a PAC to transfer to O2 they gave me quite shite retention offers!

A mast in my area went EE4G almost a year ago, but still no access for 3 customers which is annoying because the coverage in that area is terrible.

That one mast alone would fix everything.

Three have no idea when this mast will be added which is annoying, and their planned new mast for the area has been cancelled which annoyed me.

They already know that the coverage is poor in the town centre yet don't really care to do anything about it.