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Three 4G Discussion Thread (Part 2)


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Old 21-11-2015, 14:52
Gigabit
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I seriously wonder if Three ever intends to release 800 to a lot of its customers. There's certainly not much of a marketing push for it.
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Old 21-11-2015, 15:01
sammyelrefee1
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Hi,

I recently had my mainboard changed on my S6 under warranty.
Since then, I can't access voLTE or any of its settings.
If anyone has an S6 on three with voLTE working could you please tell me which build number you are on (Settings -> About)

Thanks in advance!
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Old 21-11-2015, 15:04
jchamier
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What should have happen is that everyone is allowed on 800mhz and then if your phone didn't do VoLTE then it just wouldn't do that but still allowing you to use 800mhz for data only.
How do you sell someone a service on a phone that has signal that does not do voice calls? I could see Three being ridiculed on the News every night for "phones that can't make phone calls".

This is why phones that don't do VoLTE can't use the 800 signal. MiFi type devices and data only tablets however should be allowed to - suspect Three haven't got that far yet.
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Old 21-11-2015, 15:09
mhs81
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How do you sell someone a service on a phone that has signal that does not do voice calls? I could see Three being ridiculed on the News every night for "phones that can't make phone calls".

This is why phones that don't do VoLTE can't use the 800 signal. MiFi type devices and data only tablets however should be allowed to - suspect Three haven't got that far yet.
Isn't this the case anyway with 4g - when you make a call it reverts back to 3g. Can't see how this would be any different if you were accessing the 800 signal.
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Old 21-11-2015, 15:12
mhs81
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In fact, when I had a 3 branded s6 I had the VoLTE symbol and it still reverted back to 3g when I made a call.
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Old 21-11-2015, 15:14
Pedro_C
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If they allow MBB devices, I can imagine it would hit speeds significantly. Guildford has one 800MHz mast, serving about 70, 000 people. It's tri-sector, so you 're looking at about 5, 000, 35, 000 and 30, 000 on each sector. 35, 000 sharing 40mbps of capacity is not going to work well if people use MBB.

"1800MHz", I hear you cry. yeah, good luck with that, they've only enabled about four sites...
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Old 21-11-2015, 15:24
jchamier
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Isn't this the case anyway with 4g - when you make a call it reverts back to 3g. Can't see how this would be any different if you were accessing the 800 signal.
You can get 800 signal in a LOT of places where there is no 3G signal.

The 4G you are getting is at 1800 and deliberately limited to ensure it covers the same places (indoors and outdoors) that get the 3G signal.
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Old 21-11-2015, 15:25
jchamier
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If they allow MBB devices, I can imagine it would hit speeds significantly. Guildford has one 800MHz mast, serving about 70, 000 people. It's tri-sector, so you 're looking at about 5, 000, 35, 000 and 30, 000 on each sector. 35, 000 sharing 40mbps of capacity is not going to work well if people use MBB.

"1800MHz", I hear you cry. yeah, good luck with that, they've only enabled about four sites...
Very true. Three (and EE) will have issues with their 2x5mhz of 800 for most things. Makes sense why EE haven't enabled it yet, and so few people on Three.

It needs to be the people who can't get anything else - the "edge cases" as it were.
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Old 21-11-2015, 15:31
mhs81
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Very true. Three (and EE) will have issues with their 2x5mhz of 800 for most things. Makes sense why EE haven't enabled it yet, and so few people on Three.

It needs to be the people who can't get anything else - the "edge cases" as it were.
Agreed but surely the way of doing this would be via masts, not only allowing customers with certain handsets to get it?
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Old 21-11-2015, 15:33
Thine Wonk
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If they allow MBB devices, I can imagine it would hit speeds significantly. Guildford has one 800MHz mast, serving about 70, 000 people. It's tri-sector, so you 're looking at about 5, 000, 35, 000 and 30, 000 on each sector. 35, 000 sharing 40mbps of capacity is not going to work well if people use MBB.

"1800MHz", I hear you cry. yeah, good luck with that, they've only enabled about four sites...
I agree, but I think 1800 would override it in the 1800 covered areas. I think that it's because for the 1st year of 800 the priority is coverage, when we get to the fill in stage starting in 12-18 months then these restrictions can be relaxed a bit.

I think people need to understand the business side to see why they do things from a technology standpoint. Each year there's a CAPEX and OPEX budget given by the CFO of companies, they will break that into 4 quarters. The CAPEX buys equipment and the OPEX pays for staff and other operations costs.

They can physically only buy X number of cabinets, poles, base station controllers etc and that can only send off orders to x number of suppliers or issue contracts within that budget. They can't over spend and invest above and beyond what makes economic sense for the business.

So what they do is plan the best way around it given the constraints you'll never get rid of in business. I suspect they have restricted 800 in the first phase to enable them to focus on coverage. If they let everyone on to 800 with so few sites the service was be affected and people would be screaming and shouting and making jokes about how poor the speeds are for 4G. So during the build out they are going to restrict it.

When the wider coverage is done and other urban 1800 masts and some more 800 masts get enabled, I suspect they will begin to reprioritise and relax the restrictions.

We're only what 6 weeks in to 800 and supervoice? over the next 6 months that device list will slowly grow and grow till in 12 months they might just flip the allow all switch with 1800 as priority and 800 as fallback for all.
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Old 21-11-2015, 15:33
mhs81
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You can get 800 signal in a LOT of places where there is no 3G signal.

The 4G you are getting is at 1800 and deliberately limited to ensure it covers the same places (indoors and outdoors) that get the 3G signal.
I must have been accessing the 800 at this time, as I had the VoLTE symbol..
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Old 21-11-2015, 15:41
Brian The Dog
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I seriously wonder if Three ever intends to release 800 to a lot of its customers. There's certainly not much of a marketing push for it.
So what is the point of the coverage checker bringing up 'wow you are super-pumped, aren't you lucky' if it's meaning less when hardly anyone can actually use it?

It's like a supermarket advertising it's all new self service checkouts that will bust all queues and then only have it open for 5 minutes on a Tuesday afternoon.
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Old 21-11-2015, 15:41
binary
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Isn't this the case anyway with 4g - when you make a call it reverts back to 3g. Can't see how this would be any different if you were accessing the 800 signal.
Not very successful if there's no 3G signal to revert back to.
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Old 21-11-2015, 15:45
mhs81
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Not very successful if there's no 3G signal to revert back to.
Good point. Personally I'd rather have data and no signal for calls, but I can see how this would make 3 look bad (or worse).
However, I would have thought the in touch app could be modified to work with 4g,without needing VoLTE.
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Old 21-11-2015, 15:48
Brian The Dog
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How do you sell someone a service on a phone that has signal that does not do voice calls? I could see Three being ridiculed on the News every night for "phones that can't make phone calls".

This is why phones that don't do VoLTE can't use the 800 signal. MiFi type devices and data only tablets however should be allowed to - suspect Three haven't got that far yet.
How do you do it? You have updates for the vast majority of phones written and ready to go before you launch the service and an app that allows anyone else to be able to use VoLTE on phones that don't have an update available.

Does Virgin Atlantic announce a fabulous new destination starting on Monday, but that 'we don't have any planes yet to actually allow anyone to use that new service'?

It's basic business that you don't launch something without all the necessary things in place to make it possible or else you haven't actually launched anything.
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Old 21-11-2015, 15:54
Thine Wonk
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And therein lies the entire cock-up.
No, opening up 800 for everyone this early in the rollout phase would be the mother of all cock ups. That's why it is launching in phases over the next 12 months.

You're just being impatient, we're 4-6 weeks into 800 being launched, more devices will be added to the list in the coming weeks and in the longer term I suspect the restrictions will be relaxed, but they are probably needed at the moment as the focus is not on capacity and launching 50 800 masts in a city, it is on coverage and launching 5, but instead using 800 for much wider coverage and slowly adding more devices to it as the cell density increases later in the rollout phase.

When you're operating over 16,000 cell sites you can't just click your fingers and turn something on, it takes several years of work. We are at the phase now where 800 is still in early rollout, so the restrictions are needed at the moment., otherwise people like you will be the first to scream and shout.
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Old 21-11-2015, 15:59
Gigabit
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The thing is, I think indoors Three customers will spend a lot of time on 800 because in my experience, Three just never works well indoors on 1800.
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Old 21-11-2015, 15:59
mhs81
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No, opening up 800 for everyone this early in the rollout phase would be the mother of all cock ups. That's why it is launching in phases over the next 12 months.

You're just being impatient, we're 4-6 weeks into 800 being launched, more devices will be added to the list in the coming weeks and in the longer term I suspect the restrictions will be relaxed, but they are probably needed at the moment as the focus is not on capacity and launching 50 800 masts in a city, it is on coverage and launching 5, but instead using 800 for much wider coverage and slowly adding more devices to it as the cell density increases later in the rollout phase..
I get that it's about coverage, but is it fair that only some customers feel the benefit? Doesn't seem equitable to me.
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Old 21-11-2015, 16:02
Thine Wonk
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I get that it's about coverage, but is it fair that only some customers feel the benefit? Doesn't seem equitable to me.
You will over the course of time as the rollout progresses, we're 4-6 weeks in.

The benefit is that if you have a compatible device (list will grow monthly) then you will get LTE 800 when 1800 isn't available and you'll get voice coverage even outside of 3G coverage.
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Old 21-11-2015, 16:14
d123
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Seems strange to me - I've got a bt mobile sim that works on all 4g networks with a phone not running special firmware, and my wife's unbranded phone works on Vodafone 4g no problem - as far as I can see it's only Three that restrict customers
You misunderstand, you are on BT Mobile, how do you find WifiCalling is working for you? EE as a network have it as a feature, but it's restricted to certain handsets and only to their direct contract customers. The same will happen when they launch VoLTE.

Your wife is on Vodafone, if she doesn't have an iPhone 6s or + you will also find they have restricted her use of WifiCalling. This will also be true of VoLTE when they launch it.

Three is the only network restricting VoLTE at present, mainly because they are the only ones who currently offer it.
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Old 21-11-2015, 16:48
mhs81
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You will over the course of time as the rollout progresses, we're 4-6 weeks in.

The benefit is that if you have a compatible device (list will grow monthly) then you will get LTE 800 when 1800 isn't available and you'll get voice coverage even outside of 3G coverage.
Hmm you seem quite forgiving of Three, whereas myself and I'm sure a lot of customers are very annoyed that we were promised a service nearly 12 months ago, and now that it seems it's eventually being rolled out, we're expected to sit back and wait even longer for our phones to be added to the list.
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Old 21-11-2015, 16:49
mhs81
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You misunderstand, you are on BT Mobile, how do you find WifiCalling is working for you? EE as a network have it as a feature, but it's restricted to certain handsets and only to their direct contract customers. The same will happen when they launch VoLTE.

Your wife is on Vodafone, if she doesn't have an iPhone 6s or + you will also find they have restricted her use of WifiCalling. This will also be true of VoLTE when they launch it.

Three is the only network restricting VoLTE at present, mainly because they are the only ones who currently offer it.
I wasn't taking about VoLTE or wifi calling (features I don't really care about) I'm talking about being able to access 4g on these networks and without being told I've got to have permission to access certain bands.
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Old 21-11-2015, 17:14
d123
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I wasn't taking about VoLTE or wifi calling (features I don't really care about) I'm talking about being able to access 4g on these networks and without being told I've got to have permission to access certain bands.
As has been explained, without VoLTE you can't have 800Mhz, there isn't any way currently for their 3G signal to cover the same area as 800Mhz will on 4G. The network won't allow phones that can't use VoLTE to use 800Mhz as it will mean those customers could easily end up in a situation of strong signal but no calls.
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Old 21-11-2015, 17:21
mhs81
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As has been explained, without VoLTE you can't have 800Mhz, there isn't any way currently for their 3G signal to cover the same area as 800Mhz will on 4G. The network won't allow phones that can't use VoLTE to use 800Mhz as it will mean those customers could easily end up in a situation of strong signal but no calls.
I don't dispute any of this but none of these technical issues are our concern. The fact that 3 has misled customers into thinking and expecting to receive a service that they can't access is my concern. They promised a rollout timescale they couldn't deliver and they're now restricting this rollout to certain customers. The next thing will be when they finally relax the restrictions and the network can not cope with the demand, as they've under invested in 4g. If I wasn't on such a good sim only plan I'd switch straight away. Unfortunately I might be forced to switch to BT anyway as I've noticed significant slowdowns in 3g recently.
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Old 21-11-2015, 17:24
Ryan_English
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So a question, they've added new antennae to my mast and all that and this is the third day of work. They turned the mast back on now but I don't have 4G so I'm assuming it's only for EE then. How long does work typically last on a mast?
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