I can win for overall mast height, Belmont transmitter at 330m. Ironically for this thread, it doesn't actually have any 3 antennas on it, though does have bizarre voda ones.
Three 4G Discussion Thread (Part 2)
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At the risk of taking this thread further off track...
Mobile networks are not about big high cells, they provide a benefit for the coverage footprint but very little real benefit. For example you could coverage within the M25 with two cell sites, one on Crystal Palace Tower and the other North of the river on Alexandra Palace Tower. Great coverage on a map but dire capacity and sod all use!
Cell sites at ~30 meters provide a good balance between coverage achieved and capacity provided, as 4G matures even further you will see small cells popping up that provide further capacity uplift in locations where the macro network covers from above, the small cell can also provide better indoor coverage than the high up macro cells.
Remember ladies, bigger is not always better!
Mobile networks are not about big high cells, they provide a benefit for the coverage footprint but very little real benefit. For example you could coverage within the M25 with two cell sites, one on Crystal Palace Tower and the other North of the river on Alexandra Palace Tower. Great coverage on a map but dire capacity and sod all use!
Cell sites at ~30 meters provide a good balance between coverage achieved and capacity provided, as 4G matures even further you will see small cells popping up that provide further capacity uplift in locations where the macro network covers from above, the small cell can also provide better indoor coverage than the high up macro cells.
Remember ladies, bigger is not always better!
Originally Posted by bookey_uk:
“Remember ladies, bigger is not always better!”
“Remember ladies, bigger is not always better!
”
By the same token, perhaps it can sometimes be better to go at 100Kbps than 100Mbps...
Originally Posted by bookey_uk:
“At the risk of taking this thread further off track...
Mobile networks are not about big high cells, they provide a benefit for the coverage footprint but very little real benefit. For example you could coverage within the M25 with two cell sites, one on Crystal Palace Tower and the other North of the river on Alexandra Palace Tower. Great coverage on a map but dire capacity and sod all use!
Cell sites at ~30 meters provide a good balance between coverage achieved and capacity provided, as 4G matures even jfurther you will see small cells popping up that provide further capacity uplift in locations where the macro network covers from above, the small cell can also provide better indoor coverage than the high up macro cells.
Remember ladies, bigger is not always better!”
“At the risk of taking this thread further off track...
Mobile networks are not about big high cells, they provide a benefit for the coverage footprint but very little real benefit. For example you could coverage within the M25 with two cell sites, one on Crystal Palace Tower and the other North of the river on Alexandra Palace Tower. Great coverage on a map but dire capacity and sod all use!
Cell sites at ~30 meters provide a good balance between coverage achieved and capacity provided, as 4G matures even jfurther you will see small cells popping up that provide further capacity uplift in locations where the macro network covers from above, the small cell can also provide better indoor coverage than the high up macro cells.
Remember ladies, bigger is not always better!
”
Very true. My worry is that 3 are going on about having 98% 4g coverage by the end of the year, which of course sounds fantastic but it won't be if they haven't got enough capacity. 4g is still relatively new and already I'm seeing slow speeds - I'm just hoping that 3 have the ability to turn the power up!
Originally Posted by mhs81:
“Very true. My worry is that 3 are going on about having 98% 4g coverage by the end of the year, which of course sounds fantastic but it won't be if they haven't got enough capacity. 4g is still relatively new and already I'm seeing slow speeds - I'm just hoping that 3 have the ability to turn the power up!”
“Very true. My worry is that 3 are going on about having 98% 4g coverage by the end of the year, which of course sounds fantastic but it won't be if they haven't got enough capacity. 4g is still relatively new and already I'm seeing slow speeds - I'm just hoping that 3 have the ability to turn the power up!”
I've generally not had an issues on 4G, even on congested cells. Thankfully congested 4G seems to not be a problem here in Wales, largely thanks to the lack of 4G enable cells.
Congested 4G cells still function way better than congested 3G cells, don't get my started on 2G.
Three CS have told me that a new mast is planned for this area and is due to go live in a few months. Fingers crossed it'll be a full fat MBNL 800 & 1800 enabled site. It is to fill in a black spot which has been there ever since we moved here around 8 years ago.
Originally Posted by mhs81:
“Very true. My worry is that 3 are going on about having 98% 4g coverage by the end of the year, which of course sounds fantastic but it won't be if they haven't got enough capacity. 4g is still relatively new and already I'm seeing slow speeds - I'm just hoping that 3 have the ability to turn the power up!”
“Very true. My worry is that 3 are going on about having 98% 4g coverage by the end of the year, which of course sounds fantastic but it won't be if they haven't got enough capacity. 4g is still relatively new and already I'm seeing slow speeds - I'm just hoping that 3 have the ability to turn the power up!”
It's not about turning the power up (unless you are talking about 1800), it's about the fact that Three seem to be pushing for 98% just by using 5Mhz of 800.
To this end they appear to be rolling out sites that have no 1800 to take the brunt of the traffic. This is not a good idea.
However, they are prioritising lower than 3G and very few devices can use it so I guess they can say they have 98%.
But 98% what???
5Mhz of 800 has 8-10 times less capacity than 15/20Mhz 1800.
It can handle 200 active handsets but that's 37Mbps shared between 200 devices.
Even with EE's pretty complete 1800 coverage, I'm dubious that with the low power, 800 would be able to cope if it was prioritised higher than 3G.
Originally Posted by DevonBloke:
“It's not about turning the power up (unless you are talking about 1800), it's about the fact that Three seem to be pushing for 98% just by using 5Mhz of 800.
To this end they appear to be rolling out sites that have no 1800 to take the brunt of the traffic. This is not a good idea.
However, they are prioritising lower than 3G and very few devices can use it so I guess they can say they have 98%.
But 98% what???
5Mhz of 800 has 8-10 times less capacity than 15/20Mhz 1800.
It can handle 200 active handsets but that's 37Mbps shared between 200 devices.
Even with EE's pretty complete 1800 coverage, I'm dubious that with the low power, 800 would be able to cope if it was prioritised higher than 3G.”
“It's not about turning the power up (unless you are talking about 1800), it's about the fact that Three seem to be pushing for 98% just by using 5Mhz of 800.
To this end they appear to be rolling out sites that have no 1800 to take the brunt of the traffic. This is not a good idea.
However, they are prioritising lower than 3G and very few devices can use it so I guess they can say they have 98%.
But 98% what???
5Mhz of 800 has 8-10 times less capacity than 15/20Mhz 1800.
It can handle 200 active handsets but that's 37Mbps shared between 200 devices.
Even with EE's pretty complete 1800 coverage, I'm dubious that with the low power, 800 would be able to cope if it was prioritised higher than 3G.”
So basically they are doing the whole thing for an advertising stunt were they can more big claims of 98% coverage and leave out that it's on a frequency so congested that it will be useless. Meanwhile their actual usable service will remain far from 98% coverage. (That's if they ever allow more than a handful of people on the 800mhz service for it to actually be congested)
So basically they are using 800mhz coverage to swamp the country so that they can make claims without a care in the world how many can get on it or how bad it is once you can get on it. Fortunately I have good 1800mhz coverage where I am with good 3G coverage to fall back to for calls. (Not that I make many at all) So I don't really need their 800mhz service.
I noticed today that 'Westwood Cross shopping centre' in Thanet now has a maximum (All bars lit up) signal of 4G Volte.
I live about 1.5 miles away as the crow flies so I have to assume that this is where I get my very intermittent volte signal from when at home and not my local transmitter which is under 1/2 mile away from my home.
And despite the above, I still get frequent periods of no signal at all.
And Three in touch is bloody useless on my S6 Edge. The sound echoes and I have frequent disconnects.
I live about 1.5 miles away as the crow flies so I have to assume that this is where I get my very intermittent volte signal from when at home and not my local transmitter which is under 1/2 mile away from my home.
And despite the above, I still get frequent periods of no signal at all.
And Three in touch is bloody useless on my S6 Edge. The sound echoes and I have frequent disconnects.
Originally Posted by bookey_uk:
“At the risk of taking this thread further off track...
Mobile networks are not about big high cells, they provide a benefit for the coverage footprint but very little real benefit.”
“At the risk of taking this thread further off track...
Mobile networks are not about big high cells, they provide a benefit for the coverage footprint but very little real benefit.”
Except of course when you specifically want to target areas that might only have sheep but no humans. Sheep are very undemanding on network capacity unlike those awkward humans.
But networks are really about (human) population coverage aren't they? Well it turns out some pesky governments have been specifying geographic rather than population voice targets. So if it's about to hit the fan as you approach the deadline, the networks have in reserve the tactic of finding your tallest remote TV masts. Just pop some antennas at the top and point them in the direction of the least amount of humans you can and bingo, a massive chunk taken out of the geo target with no capacity problems whatsoever. Great opex figures too. If they fail nobody cares so you don't have to fix them but they still count towards the target.
Originally Posted by DevonBloke:
“5Mhz of 800 has 8-10 times less capacity than 15/20Mhz 1800.
It can handle 200 active handsets but that's 37Mbps shared between 200 devices”
“5Mhz of 800 has 8-10 times less capacity than 15/20Mhz 1800.
It can handle 200 active handsets but that's 37Mbps shared between 200 devices”
37Mbps between 200 devices? Really? I doubt there are any device connected to 800 here as the area is pretty much completely covered by 3G. That said, my phone connected to 2G backup over 800 4G so the priority must be set to only connect if there is nothing else...
Originally Posted by thebennyboy:
“37Mbps between 200 devices? Really? I doubt there are any device connected to 800 here as the area is pretty much completely covered by 3G. That said, my phone connected to 2G backup over 800 4G so the priority must be set to only connect if there is nothing else...”
“37Mbps between 200 devices? Really? I doubt there are any device connected to 800 here as the area is pretty much completely covered by 3G. That said, my phone connected to 2G backup over 800 4G so the priority must be set to only connect if there is nothing else...”
yeah, Devon's about right. I've used Three's VoLTE in Hull's buildings quite a lot and the speeds were not great-generally about 5-10mbps. However, this is significantly preferable to no signal though.
Originally Posted by Pedro_C:
“yeah, Devon's about right. I've used Three's VoLTE in Hull's buildings quite a lot and the speeds were not great-generally about 5-10mbps. However, this is significantly preferable to no signal though.”
“yeah, Devon's about right. I've used Three's VoLTE in Hull's buildings quite a lot and the speeds were not great-generally about 5-10mbps. However, this is significantly preferable to no signal though.”
Definitely, in fact if I had the choice between 3mbps everywhere I went vs 30mbps+ in 40% of places, 20mbps in 50% of places and less than 0.2mbps everywhere else I'd take the former any day!
5Mhz LTE at 800Mhz is very roughly equivalent to 10Mhz (DC-HSDPA) 3G at 2100Mhz.
In other words (taking bits per hertz into account) LTE is well over 4 times more spectrally efficient.
EDIT: about 37-40Mbps is what these carriers can manage absolute max.
There would be overheads though with a lot of devices active.
In other words (taking bits per hertz into account) LTE is well over 4 times more spectrally efficient.
EDIT: about 37-40Mbps is what these carriers can manage absolute max.
There would be overheads though with a lot of devices active.
Originally Posted by thebennyboy:
“37Mbps between 200 devices? Really? I doubt there are any device connected to 800 here as the area is pretty much completely covered by 3G. That said, my phone connected to 2G backup over 800 4G so the priority must be set to only connect if there is nothing else...”
“37Mbps between 200 devices? Really? I doubt there are any device connected to 800 here as the area is pretty much completely covered by 3G. That said, my phone connected to 2G backup over 800 4G so the priority must be set to only connect if there is nothing else...”
I thought I read somewhere before 5mhz 800 could handle 200 user at full speed before it started slowing down?
I wonder if Three carry out maintainence without informing the effected user base.
Last Saturday and most part of Sunday I got a lot of network errors and on Sunday evening I realised that I was getting approx 3 bars of constant 4G signal in the house.
I thought the phone had latched onto the 800Mhz but it was 1800Mhz. I assumed it was going to be temporary.
But I am still connected to 1800Mhz 4G and getting a constant approx 25mbs dl and 15mbps.
I am finally getting usable 4G in the house since 4G was launched by Three.
Last Saturday and most part of Sunday I got a lot of network errors and on Sunday evening I realised that I was getting approx 3 bars of constant 4G signal in the house.
I thought the phone had latched onto the 800Mhz but it was 1800Mhz. I assumed it was going to be temporary.
But I am still connected to 1800Mhz 4G and getting a constant approx 25mbs dl and 15mbps.
I am finally getting usable 4G in the house since 4G was launched by Three.
Originally Posted by tarzion:
“I wonder if Three carry out maintainence without informing the effected user base.
Last Saturday and most part of Sunday I got a lot of network errors and on Sunday evening I realised that I was getting approx 3 bars of constant 4G signal in the house.
I thought the phone had latched onto the 800Mhz but it was 1800Mhz. I assumed it was going to be temporary.
But I am still connected to 1800Mhz 4G and getting a constant approx 25mbs dl and 15mbps.
I am finally getting usable 4G in the house since 4G was launched by Three.”
“I wonder if Three carry out maintainence without informing the effected user base.
Last Saturday and most part of Sunday I got a lot of network errors and on Sunday evening I realised that I was getting approx 3 bars of constant 4G signal in the house.
I thought the phone had latched onto the 800Mhz but it was 1800Mhz. I assumed it was going to be temporary.
But I am still connected to 1800Mhz 4G and getting a constant approx 25mbs dl and 15mbps.
I am finally getting usable 4G in the house since 4G was launched by Three.”
Wow Three have definitely done something in my area, I could never get 4G inside my house, just tried again after reading your post and now have 3-4 bars of 4G did a speed test and got an amazing 69.98 down and 25.30 up 45ms ping. Could they have turned up the power on my local mast. I have always been in small gap in 4G of about a mile which was always outside coverage only as their coverage map and reality showed. Coverage map hasn't changed but defiantly getting good usable 4G now indoors
Originally Posted by jchamier:
“That's insanely tall. I suspect you're right that's the tallest. Looks like some I've seen in the USA. The Arqiva Tower at Emley Moor is pretty insanely tall (330m), but I don't think they have any cellular antennas near the top - maybe halfway up.”
“That's insanely tall. I suspect you're right that's the tallest. Looks like some I've seen in the USA. The Arqiva Tower at Emley Moor is pretty insanely tall (330m), but I don't think they have any cellular antennas near the top - maybe halfway up.”
Yes I think it's the tallest in terms of the antenna height above ground. As you say there are a number of TV masts that are taller but none of them have cellular antennas anywhere near the top like here.
I guess if someone was being pedantic they could point out some of the indoor distributed systems could be higher. e.g The Shard has units in the ceiling going right up to the top floors so given its height, technically they could be further up.
Originally Posted by Skippy2005:
“I thought I read somewhere before 5mhz 800 could handle 200 user at full speed before it started slowing down?”
“I thought I read somewhere before 5mhz 800 could handle 200 user at full speed before it started slowing down?”
In which case the mast would need 7.4Gbps to manage that.
How much bandwidth would an 800 cell normally be assigned? 1Gbps?
I don't see an issue with putting low frequencies high up on TV towers. If you look at the mast at Princetown, an 800 signal would cover a hell of a lot of Dartmoor where currently there may be no service and that could save a lot of lives over the years. Maybe they've already done it, I'm not sure but I think covering remote spots even if you only get a sniff of a signal is very sensible.
Originally Posted by thebennyboy:
“In which case the mast would need 7.4Gbps to manage that.
How much bandwidth would an 800 cell normally be assigned? 1Gbps?”
“In which case the mast would need 7.4Gbps to manage that.
How much bandwidth would an 800 cell normally be assigned? 1Gbps?”
If we round up to 40Mbps for 5Mhz of 800 then a single cell (sector) wouldn't need more than that, or 100Mbps would be fine.
For a standard 3 sector site then you are going to need just over 120Mbps
Fo 10Mhz (VO2) then you need to double this. So 250Mbps would be fine for a full 3 sector Vodafone 800 10Mhz site.
Not even a 3 sector 20Mhz 1800 site would quite need 1Gbps. A similar 2600 site would need a bit more.
If you add 20Mhz 2600 + 20Mhz 1800 + 5 Mhz 800 + 10Mhz 2100 and you want to leave room for that possible 3400, an extra 10-15Mhz 1800 and another 15Mhz 2600 then you are headed in the direction of 10Gbps.
Originally Posted by tarzion:
“I wonder if Three carry out maintainence without informing the effected user base.”
“I wonder if Three carry out maintainence without informing the effected user base.”
The normal checker website doesn't return anything but I can see the following when making the API call.
"Work is planned in this area on the dates shown below. This may affect your normal network service, but should only last for about 6-8 hours. From 05/12/2015 to 05/12/2015, from 01/12/2015 to 01/12/2015, from 07/12/2015 to 07/12/2015."},"devicespeed":{"postcode":"800","speed":"1"}
Is VoLTE currently only working on 800? Tried making a call on 1800 and it drops down to 3G. Force 1800 and the call doesnt connect.
Originally Posted by thebennyboy:
“Is VoLTE currently only working on 800? Tried making a call on 1800 and it drops down to 3G. Force 1800 and the call doesnt connect.”
“Is VoLTE currently only working on 800? Tried making a call on 1800 and it drops down to 3G. Force 1800 and the call doesnt connect.”
Only on 800 on selected devices.
Originally Posted by DevonBloke:
“If we round up to 40Mbps for 5Mhz of 800 then a single cell (sector) wouldn't need more than that, or 100Mbps would be fine.
For a standard 3 sector site then you are going to need just over 120Mbps
Fo 10Mhz (VO2) then you need to double this. So 250Mbps would be fine for a full 3 sector Vodafone 800 10Mhz site.
Not even a 3 sector 20Mhz 1800 site would quite need 1Gbps. A similar 2600 site would need a bit more.
If you add 20Mhz 2600 + 20Mhz 1800 + 5 Mhz 800 + 10Mhz 2100 and you want to leave room for that possible 3400, an extra 10-15Mhz 1800 and another 15Mhz 2600 then you are headed in the direction of 10Gbps.”
“If we round up to 40Mbps for 5Mhz of 800 then a single cell (sector) wouldn't need more than that, or 100Mbps would be fine.
For a standard 3 sector site then you are going to need just over 120Mbps
Fo 10Mhz (VO2) then you need to double this. So 250Mbps would be fine for a full 3 sector Vodafone 800 10Mhz site.
Not even a 3 sector 20Mhz 1800 site would quite need 1Gbps. A similar 2600 site would need a bit more.
If you add 20Mhz 2600 + 20Mhz 1800 + 5 Mhz 800 + 10Mhz 2100 and you want to leave room for that possible 3400, an extra 10-15Mhz 1800 and another 15Mhz 2600 then you are headed in the direction of 10Gbps.”
So in theory am I right, I also was led to believe 10mhz of 800 could handle 400 users before slowing down. I'm sure I read this on another DS forum
Originally Posted by Skippy2005:
“So in theory am I right, I also was led to believe 10mhz of 800 could handle 400 users before slowing down. I'm sure I read this on another DS forum”
“So in theory am I right, I also was led to believe 10mhz of 800 could handle 400 users before slowing down. I'm sure I read this on another DS forum”
Depends what those 400 users are doing surely, that's per cell sector is it you're quoting?
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