Well it looks like the Shawbirch and surrounding areas in Telford will not have to wait too long for 4G from Three, they are replacing the pole today on Whitchurch Drive, the cabinet was installed some weeks ago, which others posted on here.

Here is some eye candy ...

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi...nt=photo%2cjpg

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi...nt=photo%2cjpg

I think this goes further to add weight to those who are saying that the Three/MBNL rollout is slowing down are talking rubbish!

The roll out DID slow down, but only because a lot of the work shifted to adding 800 - and the decision to hold it back until a specific launch date, rather than activating sites as and when.

Yes there have been 1800 activations throughout the year so far, but relatively few. Hopefully 800 on the other hand has been quite substantial.

How will the 800MHz roll out go? Massive switch on in September covering bits that don't have 4G or another tepid snails pace roll out much like 1800MHz maybe serving bits that already have 1800MHz? Sure 800MHz can cover large areas but not without a hit on the speeds.

Coverage checker is now showing this for my area:
We carried out essential works in your area recently. We're really sorry if you couldn't use all your services. Good news - everything's working fine now.

The maintenance checker still shows planned work for the 27th though.

There wasn't any downtime yesterday and I don't see any physical changes to the site.

If you type in ST2 9EB on the coverage map, it comes up with this

We're aware there's been a network problem in your area since 21 May 2015 to 22 August 2015. We're really sorry if this is affecting your services. We're doing all we can to fix the problem. We update this information every 30 minutes so please check for updates.

4G is intermittent at this location and the coverage map two days ago said about more engineering work will be carried out 25th and 26th August. I wonder if this will be for 800mhz.

That must be the shared massive mast at the top of the hill.

It appears VF/o2 have been doing updates there for ages now.

I have this:

"We're planning some network improvements in your area on 26 August 2015 to 26 August 2015. We're really sorry if this affects your services. It's crucial work that will improve your network experience."

I do hope that this might get speeds back to a reasonable level, as it's been crazy slow (relatively speaking) for quite a few months now.

How long after (any given date where they fire up 4G) does Three's coverage map update to show that it is now getting 4G?

Haven't used Three 4G for awhile but really disappointed tonight.
Tested it next to the MBNL mast that covers my home (the mast is right next to the local Indian takeaway ha!!) Three 4G provided 8mb down & 7mb up... EE4G 55mb down & 40mb up.. Thats right at the mast and when its fairly quiet. At the edge of reception where i live i get a poor 2mb.. yet EE over 25mb

They can't blame it on capacity.

Too little spectrum for the number of users who are still on unlimited plans and don't actually use WiFi at home? Or poor backhaul provision ?

All will change in September when they get extra 1800mhz spectrum and begin rolling out 800mhz. I haven't faith in Three.

Just got my fastest 4g speed ever. 103.87 down 43.72 up. I'm literally just by the mast though -82db. Oh, and EE.

Is the massive difference in speeds due to the available bandwidth being so heavily favoured for EE against 3? I.E, the mast can dedicate 70% of available bandwidth to EE and 30% to Three. Obviously more people on the mast downloading means lower speeds, but because you have a greater slice of it, it won't matter so much?

I heard, somewhere on here I think, that on MBNL sites, where 3G is shared, is it a 70/30 split of capacity. Also 4G is not really shared is it, after the MBNL agreement was a little 'modified' there is loads of 4G just from EE until 3 pay their money and 'tack' on their own 4G?

I would hope that EE is much faster in every way, it has to be to maintain it's 'premium' offering in terms of it's brand. However, if I get to exceed 10GB a month on my phone, it will be back to Three for Unlimited data, because, slower on not, it will still work!

I was driving down the m40 yesterday and noticed my phone locked on to 4g, in the past I switched off 4g as it would get a sniff them switch back and disturb my radio app, things are def getting better with the rollout, looking forward when they get this additional spectrum on 1800 giving to them and now I got an 800lte phone hopefully will see some big improvements there, looks like it wil be whstsapp calling as phone doesn't support VOLTE but maybe three can tweak the in touch app and make it work with 4g.

Thanks for the pics, it seems to be the case I'm always off work when things happen at sites around where I work and working when things happen around sites at home!
It's not the type of mast I was expecting, looks more old school, hopefully 4g will be on in a few a days and fill some space where I have to rely on the Crudgington mast speed of 0.1mbps.

I see this quite a lot of three 4g, some mornings at 5am you can get 65mbps others 3 or 5mbps, same in the daytime hours, it doesn't seem like mast congestion but something further back in the chain..
I'm on my hols next week so could miss the big 4g switch on...
That said don't think I will cancel my plans just yet as three are notoriously bad at sticking to any timetable.

Did you do a few tests? Bar the odd spike on speed test, I am convinced there's a 100Mbps cap on EE.

Hovered around 80-100. Looked outside my hotel window. The mast is literally on top of the hotel

I too would like to see Feel At Home extended out further, it needs to target countries outside the EU as by summer 2017, all allowances will can effectively be used in all participating EU countries, so I would think the likes of Turkey and Morocco would be good places to roll out their incentive. Maybe even Dubai as well.

Someone I know at EE (not a shop, btw!) said there's a cap, but I can't see anything official anywhere that states there is.

I did a good 40-50 tests by one site, and it was 95-98 nearly every time, with a couple that topped 100 - but only just, and Speedtest will always fluctuate a bit, with the odd spike.

So, in my mind, there's definitely a cap. So even if you're next to a site, with a Cat 6 LTE device (and support on the base station), this is all you'll ever get.

Cat 9 will likely be available only to people on a special tariff from what I'm told, so perhaps that's the reason for the cap.

Of course, this isn't really for further discussion on a Three thread, but if Three can get its speeds up in more places - there won't be such a huge difference because of EE's artificial restriction in place.

I find some speedtest servers have a 100Mb/s cap...

I don't have faith in Three as I know damn well they will do 4G in my town in 800mhz just to smite me as my phone doesn't do 800mhz whilst the silly little suburb just outside my town already has Three's 4G on 1800.

Too much a leap of faith that they will light up 4G on both in my area.

Stick a frozen chicken on your window sill and it will be done in about 20 minutes!

However, your ability to have children will diminish considerably!

Have you checked any of the locations again on the 3 site?
On Thursday evening I checked a number of locations here in Northern Ireland and all were showing planned maintenance for a day or 2 at most over the next 2 week period. Today I check the same postcodes and it says no maintenance planned for any of them.

The Woodbridge Meadows Site, Guildford is around 8mbps/8mbps on one sector, but I found that going on the other side of the mast (same cell ID aside from last digit), I could get 50/20, so I assume spectrum is a major issue. EE is about 40/20 on all sides.

I've switched to a 3 SIM from EE for data and have found the 3G to be generally 'snappier' and for the amount I use, 321 is far cheaper. Still got a VOD sim for calls and I suspect any 3G advantage that 3 have over EE is purely down to the amount of users. Lately though, often when I've had a strong 3 4G signal, I get no data at all. Nothing happens. The phone eventually drops down to 3G and all is well. Any ideas on this? 4G with very little backhaul? 800 testing? If it carries on I'll have to switch off 4G for a bit.