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Three 4G Discussion Thread (Part 2) |
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#5351 |
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Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: a land filled with trolls
Posts: 12,010
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Just got this on Three with the Huawei Mate 9, in a taxi on the motorway - doing, erm, 70mph.
https://twitter.com/jmcomms/status/794327096864755715 |
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#5352 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 14,541
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Quote:
Just got this on Three with the Huawei Mate 9, in a taxi on the motorway - doing, erm, 70mph.
https://twitter.com/jmcomms/status/794327096864755715 |
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#5353 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jul 2015
Posts: 8
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Quote:
I wrote it in and it says "Incorrect network response", so I would assume it's not supported. Yes I can call it directly. Oh well!
Paul. |
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#5354 |
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Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: a land filled with trolls
Posts: 12,010
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Quote:
Nice, were you able to enter any service menus for LTE bands? I'm thinking of buying this handset, but I would want to play and force LTE etc.
I can't therefore force 4G only. But I am off to Alton Towers this weekend and can hopefully get 800 access there, and see if there's any symbol to show VoLTE in use. |
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#5355 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2015
Posts: 91
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Quote:
The normal method doesn't work and I can't remember how to enter the hidden menus on Huawei devices, or if they actually show you.
I can't therefore force 4G only. But I am off to Alton Towers this weekend and can hopefully get 800 access there, and see if there's any symbol to show VoLTE in use. I'm not sure that there was any 800MHz, although I did go in August and it may have changed now. |
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#5356 |
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Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 871
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Quote:
Alton Towers has 1800MHz LTE on Three which covers most of the park although there are complete dead zones. The signal strength was very strong at the monorail to my surprise and very fast. More than 90Mbps download which is almost as fast as the LTE I get a work.
I'm not sure that there was any 800MHz, although I did go in August and it may have changed now. |
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#5357 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 871
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Quote:
The normal method doesn't work and I can't remember how to enter the hidden menus on Huawei devices, or if they actually show you.
I can't therefore force 4G only. But I am off to Alton Towers this weekend and can hopefully get 800 access there, and see if there's any symbol to show VoLTE in use. |
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#5358 |
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Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: a land filled with trolls
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I was at Alton Towers not that long ago too (annual pass) and coverage is pretty good with inevitable dead spots, so I can't be sure of getting 800 only access.
If you can't disable 3G then it can be quite hard to get 800 even where you know it's plentiful. If the phone shows no symbol then obviously I will have no way of knowing, other than just having signal all the time. Problem is, I suspect I'm going to have 3G in a lot of places first. Of course, for the purpose of testing, it's not ideal but obviously the whole idea is that a normal user doesn't need to know - just have a way of making and receiving calls anywhere. I'll be taking a EE and Vodafone SIM with me. EE on the Pixel XL and VF and 3 in the Mate 9. The primary purpose to take photos when there. I'll probably have a P9 for P9/M9 comparisons too. Who knows, I might even get to do some rides in between... |
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#5359 |
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Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: Cheshire/Shropshire Border
Posts: 589
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a normal user doesn't need to know - just have a way of making and receiving calls anywhere.
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#5360 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2013
Posts: 164
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Quote:
There was a classic example of how little general users know about what they're connected to on the EE forum the other day. A user complained that she didn't get 4G on her S6 (quelle suprise!) and then went on to say she never even got 3G - her phone only ever showed 'H'....
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#5361 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 14,541
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Quote:
The normal method doesn't work and I can't remember how to enter the hidden menus on Huawei devices, or if they actually show you.
I can't therefore force 4G only. But I am off to Alton Towers this weekend and can hopefully get 800 access there, and see if there's any symbol to show VoLTE in use. If you do find a way or if anyone else finds one please PM or post here. |
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#5362 |
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Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: a land filled with trolls
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Quote:
Thanks for the reply, I think that would really tempt me to upgrade, if it was 800 and supervoice enabled and if I could choose to enable that for testing then I think I'd order one (when they are out).
If you do find a way or if anyone else finds one please PM or post here. I'm happy that it supports it natively, and will trust Three to configure the network in the best way. I would certainly want it to switch more aggressively to 800 than cling on to 3G for dear life. I know when my P9 went mad once and the settings got corrupted that I was able to select from 30 or 40 options, which DID include 4G only, 3G/4G only and so on.. Sadly a reboot hid all those settings again, but it must mean that if you rooted you could edit a config file to show certain things. Not ideal, as I doubt you'd want to force 4G only on Three just yet. |
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#5363 |
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Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 1,528
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Quote:
...I doubt you'd want to force 4G only on Three just yet.
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#5364 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jan 2008
Posts: 621
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Try the Android app Signal Guard. There is Radio Locking setting on it which will let you force 4G only. I have used it on the S7 and the Huawei P6.
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#5365 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2015
Posts: 983
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You still wouldn't want to force 4G only as currently there's no widespread VoLTE on 1800MHz, so in most areas 1800MHz was present you'd have no call fallback. The most you'd want to do was to lock the phone to 800MHz only, but you loose out on the speed front.
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#5366 |
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Join Date: Jul 2002
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Quote:
You still wouldn't want to force 4G only as currently there's no widespread VoLTE on 1800MHz, so in most areas 1800MHz was present you'd have no call fallback. The most you'd want to do was to lock the phone to 800MHz only, but you loose out on the speed front.
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#5367 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 14,541
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Quote:
You still wouldn't want to force 4G only as currently there's no widespread VoLTE on 1800MHz, so in most areas 1800MHz was present you'd have no call fallback. The most you'd want to do was to lock the phone to 800MHz only, but you loose out on the speed front.
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#5368 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 149
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Hull-London Tests
I've been travelling to and from London a fair bit recently so decided to test each MNO on G-Net. This only takes coverage into account so full bars legacy 3G at 69Kbps is seen to be the same as 3G at 30Mbps but it's still a nice comparison.
Maps of the logs can be found here with colours as follows: Green= 4G stronger than -115db Orange= 3G stronger than -100db Red= 2G, 3G weaker than -100db, or 4G weaker than -115db Black= No Service EE: Points recorded on no service: 1.8% 2G (red): 18.1% 3G (orange): 7.9% 4G (green): 72.2% 3G and 4G combined (likely 'usable' for data): 80.1% Three: No service: 3.8% 2G: 16.4% 3G: 48.9% 4G: 31.0% 3G and 4G: 79.9% Vodafone: No service: 2.8% 2G: 23.5% 3G: 4.2% 4G: 69.5% 3G and 4G: 73.7% O2: No service: 2.3% 2G: 29.7% 3G: 4.1% 4G: 63.8% 3G and 4G: 67.9% |
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#5369 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 14,541
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So only usable data 67% of the time on O2, but around 80% on EE and Three. I'm surprised you're seeing Three 2G fallback so much, from my experience it's 99% of the time Three is able to see 3G or 4G and never really see 2G, it's as rare as anything normally.
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#5370 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2015
Posts: 983
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Very interesting _m
It's surprising to see Three having 16.4% 2G coverage, I didn't realise so much Orange 3G fallback was still available. It's also interesting that Vodafone is stronger than O2 even with the East being O2s rollout. I guess Vodafone still have a large number of legacy sites which have not been upgraded, explaining that result. Vodafone is very close to surpassing Three on 3G/4G combined coverage for this commute. Edit: Thinking about the O2/Vodafone disparity the main difference is 4G coverage rather than 3G, so I'm not sure what's going on there. Also does the 16.4% include weak 3G/4G coverage? |
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#5371 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 149
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Quote:
So only usable data 67% of the time on O2, but around 80% on EE and Three. I'm surprised you're seeing Three 2G fallback so much, from my experience it's 99% of the time Three is able to see 3G or 4G and never really see 2G, it's as rare as anything normally.
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#5372 |
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 14,541
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Quote:
Meant to say that the '2G' level for each MNO includes weak 3G/4G. I'll get a number for Orange 2G soon.
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#5373 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 149
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Quote:
Very interesting _m
It's surprising to see Three having 16.4% 2G coverage, I didn't realise so much Orange 3G fallback was still available. It's also interesting that Vodafone is stronger than O2 even with the East being O2s rollout. I guess Vodafone still have a large number of legacy sites which have not been upgraded, explaining that result. Vodafone is very close to surpassing Three on 3G/4G combined coverage for this commute. Edit: Thinking about the O2/Vodafone disparity the main difference is 4G coverage rather than 3G, so I'm not sure what's going on there. Also does the 16.4% include weak 3G/4G coverage? |
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#5374 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Apr 2016
Posts: 149
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Quote:
I thought that sounded odd for Three, on 1 bar of 3G you can still get very good performance on Three. That's why I was saying my experience was very different.
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#5375 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: a land filled with trolls
Posts: 12,010
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Quote:
It's surprising to see Three having 16.4% 2G coverage, I didn't realise so much Orange 3G fallback was still available.
Might there be sites still showing up that are forbidden now? Perhaps just an oversight or an easier way to handle things? |
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