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Three 4G Discussion Thread (Part 2)


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Old 03-11-2016, 23:58
jonmorris
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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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Old 04-11-2016, 09:07
Thine Wonk
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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
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.
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Old 04-11-2016, 09:49
pbarrass
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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!
If this is something you need, there is an alternative option - there are many companies out there who will sell you an 01/02/03 number which you can then divert to wherever in the world you like - you can then divert your mobile to that number which will then go to France.

Paul.
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Old 04-11-2016, 10:08
jonmorris
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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.
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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Old 04-11-2016, 12:36
Booster1573
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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.
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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Old 04-11-2016, 12:51
packages
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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.
I look at coverage for Alton towers a lot and I'm pretty sure 800mhz has been added recently
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Old 04-11-2016, 12:53
packages
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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.
Could you check 4G coverage for EE too?. Would have thought 1800mhz would be similar to 3 but the coverage maps paint a different story
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Old 04-11-2016, 13:04
jonmorris
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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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Old 04-11-2016, 13:50
CheshireBumpkin
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a normal user doesn't need to know - just have a way of making and receiving calls anywhere.
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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Old 04-11-2016, 14:05
Carl_Boys
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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'....
Are you talking about a galaxy s6 or another device? I'm thinking s6 is 4g compatable ha. I'm heading Alton towers on sunday with my wife and little one for CBeebies land and firework night. I'm on three and iPhone 6s but jail broken so ok lock to 4g only while there and report back if I found any issues with 4g coverage there. Wife is on EE but only has the 5s so only 1800lte with it really.
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Old 04-11-2016, 14:18
Thine Wonk
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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.
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.
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Old 04-11-2016, 14:31
jonmorris
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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.
Only code I've found (and works) is *#*#2846579#*#* but that's a service menu that doesn't reveal much info at all - only stuff about the phone itself.

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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Old 04-11-2016, 16:14
blueacid
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...I doubt you'd want to force 4G only on Three just yet.
Yeah, I've tried that from time to time and there are still several patches of the country not covered by any Three 4G. I've got a long drive tonight so I might give it another shot to see how it is from Manchester to London
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Old 04-11-2016, 16:28
old bill2
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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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Old 04-11-2016, 17:34
Denco1
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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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Old 04-11-2016, 18:08
jonmorris
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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.
A very good point. One I occasionally forget because I use my Three SIM for data first and foremost. I know I could send a text or make a call if I needed to, but I rarely would. As such, VoLTE is about getting access to 800.
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Old 04-11-2016, 18:24
Thine Wonk
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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.
For testing and data I would, not for all the time though.
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Old 04-11-2016, 18:30
_m
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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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Old 04-11-2016, 18:46
Thine Wonk
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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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Old 04-11-2016, 18:48
Denco1
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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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Old 04-11-2016, 19:03
_m
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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.
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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Old 04-11-2016, 19:41
Thine Wonk
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Meant to say that the '2G' level for each MNO includes weak 3G/4G. I'll get a number for Orange 2G soon.
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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Old 04-11-2016, 19:43
_m
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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?
I think the difference between O2 and Vodafone is caused by them not always having 4g power the same, even if they're on the same sites.
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Old 04-11-2016, 20:03
_m
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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.
I've had a reasonable experience on -100db 3G on all MNOs but it's not exactly ideal for a full train to be sat on and -100dB for 3G is the the value Ofcom use.
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Old 04-11-2016, 20:12
jonmorris
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It's surprising to see Three having 16.4% 2G coverage, I didn't realise so much Orange 3G fallback was still available.
I wonder if it actually is? I am sure in the past I've seen two 3's on network scans and one of them being 2G - but you can't register.

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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