Wakefield centre location at home for 1st Sept.

Forgot today was planned maintenance, and earlier (about 12pm) I lost 3G and 4G completely, and also on EE (which dropped to 2G for about 20 minutes).

However, we're currently experiencing exceptionally heavy rain (and thunder) so it's rather more likely it was related to this, as I doubt anyone would be working in such conditions - especially in a thunderstorm.

Dear Three,

Your coverage checker is currently not loading at all. Please inform me how this is making it better for me?

By not telling you that you can't get coverage in your area, you can't be disappointed. #MakeItRight

I haven't noticed any changes with the scheduled maintenance, no downtime or speed differences, heavily congested as usual in my area.

But I can just look at the 3G sign on my phone at any time to see that they haven't made it at all or in any way, better!

I'm still trying to work out how their claim of most reliable network works. They say it's from YouGov so that's not from technical evidence but asking people do you like your network presumably? I'm not sure that's really the best kind of evidence when you've got EE and Rootmetrics right next to it.

How long do three test there network, noticed when I did a manual network scan that 3 4G shown but when I pressed on it it didn't connect but said 'registered your network' but it was only 3G

Well I had the were carrying out work message on the three coverage checker page for my work area earlier this week around the TF3 (Telford) then the sorry were sh*t and you weren't able to use all services on your phone, is OK now and we'll try not to do it again message, nothing has happened to improve things much apart from the rubbish mast which seems to cover the rear of the building now has the SIB19 received message instead of the SIB19 None, still no data unless you have over 3 bars signal from it and it switches from 3g to 4g all the time now which is better and worse at the same time as it's a zero bar signal which vanishes as soon as my hands wrap round the rather deaf Note4
Still no 4g being broadcast from the upgraded mast on Whitchurch drive in shawburch, despite the upgrade at the weekend, all the masts around Market Drayton and the sticks don't show the SIB19 received message so it's a good indication nothing will likely happen around that area 4g wise anytime soon, the superfast 0.1mbps mast at Crudgington does display the message so I'm guessing they are hoping so dump some traffic away from it with 4g 800mhz at some point.
Now the million dollar question is will we see anything from three on September 1st? Or anytime during the month?
It's a shame we can't set up a poll on here to gauge opinion or a Moneyless sweep stake to see who guesses the correct launch day, though knowing three it could take some time

Well, Two days' of planned maintenance complete, and no sign of any 4G

And wooooo, look at the 3G speed - amazing!

http://postimg.org/image/520rzmr2b/

(Never yet seen more than 1 mbps from this damn mast, day or night)

So no 4G and the 3G speeds just as poor as before. No idea what the maintenance was all about, perhaps they are hoovering out the dust from the fans and removing the dead spiders from within the box.

Is Northern Ireland just being ignored? EE has very widespread coverage for 4G in Northern Ireland, even in small towns/rural areas. I was in Northern Ireland visiting family at the weekend, and whilst 3G was faultless, with fast DC-HSDPA in most places, 4G still does not exist despite promises of the same in December 2014.

Any ideas?

Upload speed faster than download speed?! Shameful!

No more so than other parts of the UK. There has been no serious movement on 4G in most of the south west of England, for some time

It looks like 800MHz will change that

Disappointing that sweet FA seems to be coming from all this work, but could it be that they are fitting 4G equipment (in some places at least) but just not turning it on until September the XXth?

The problem 3 has is that if they turn on 800 4G it will probably swamp 21003G in most areas and cause huge problems with phones showing signal but no calls. VOD already suffer from this and there are lots of threads on their forum from people saying 'full 4G signal but no calls'. They have 9002G /3G which will compete better with the 4G signal. But despite the fact that phones should switch down, they often don't as yet. VoLTE is imminent and will solve the problem for most networks, assuming it works and your phone can do it. It's a tricky one.

I can't see 3 turning on 800 until they are confident that most phones that pick it up will work with VoLTE. Your average bod on the street is not going to understand why he's got a signal but can't make a call.

They can restrict 800 to VoLTE only handsets though. I though the handset could declare its capabilities when connecting and could be bared from the 800 if it can't do VoLTE? That would solve that problem but mean not many people on the 800.

I think that is possible but the problem then is they are showing serious 4G coverage on a map which many people won't be able to get. Bit like the 3G900 thing with VOD/O2 back along. I think all the networks are in the same boat and it's going to be a bit 'challenging' with some unhappy campers along the way. On the flip side, they can't just hold back until everyone has an 800 phone. It would help if 3 weren't pushing handsets which can't do it though.

I don't envy Three when Honor 6 Plus customers discover their new phone on a 24 month contract doesn't support 800.

Even if Three never said it did, people are going to get upset.

And quite rightfully so in that case. I mean mine doesn't do 800 either but I brought it elsewhere and so only have myself to blame. (not that I did it on purpose) - But if Three are supplying phones that won't work on their own network, then that's out of order.

I would even go so far as to say that they might have a legal case to get their phone replaced or their money back.

I'm not sure there would be a legal case, as 800 wasn't available at the time of purchase so there can't have been an expectation that it would work (certainly not contractually). And it won't, technically, lose out because 800 is additional to the current network.

But morally, it stinks. It's clear that this is the reason only Three 'bagged an exclusive' on the phone as Vodafone and O2 couldn't have taken it even if they wanted to, and EE perhaps thought it wasn't a good idea with 800 being rolled out there too at some point in the future.

I do think a fair few people will start demanding refunds though. Whatever happens, it's going to be a real headache for Three.

There will also be loads of fun and games to come with VoLTE and the chance you'll need to use a specific phone supplied by the relevant network, which stitches up a lot of people buying SIM free phones or taking phones from other networks. This needs to be sorted out and may well eventually require Ofcom to step in and make it so ALL phones that can support VoLTE are allowed to do so.

Take a look at this:
http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/08...d-smartphones/
T-Mobile USA seem to be asking handset makers to turn off LTE frequency bands in software updates for unlocked devices.

Yes it's going to be complicated. My ZTE Blade 6 supports everything but I have no hopes of being able to use it when all this stuff is rolled out. Get what you pay for at the end of the day.

They could jazz it up and call it "enhanced 4G" or "4G+" or some other meaningless term, and only sell VoLTE and 800 capable phones as supporting such. Then if anyone complains they can say "you only have a 4G phone, soz"

A bit scummy but not unheard of

If they don't work with their VoLTE system it's a good precaution to be honest. They use 1900MHz don't they for their 3g and they're using band 12 700MHz now for their LTE coverage layer (you can still use their other bands even if that's disabled)

Something similar happened with iPhone 6 on T-Mobile people expected it to support 700MHz A which T-Mobile is rolling out but it didn't. Was a pain in the ass for T-Mobile but hopefully the 6S should support it couple of my friends hav delayed upgrading to the 6 so they would get the 700MHz A support with the upcoming iPhone which now that T-Mobile is the number 3 carrier in the U.S. I imagine they will be able get Apple include it.

But there certainly has been a lot of fun and games with VoLTE but we all expected it was going to be that case and don't think Ofcom could actually do that not sure if that is in that remit. At present a lot of the reasons they keeping certain devices is to to do with quality and battery life while using VoLTE.