5. You are in one of specially selected major cities that has a patch of 800MHz coverage.

Hi, does anyone know what the rollout plan for 800 is? Is Three planning to rollout 800 out to every mast for both coverage commitments and capacity? The last I heard 1800 was only going to be deployed to 80% of the country. Is this still the case?

Again.... I read that 3 plan to increase the mast count from 14000 today to 17000 by 2017, how can EE plan to have 19000 and three only 17000, I thought MBNL was an equal RAN share, I know the 4G roll out is different.

I'll eagerly wait a response to this one, I'm keen to hear the answer(s). 😀😝😀

Yeah I don't understand how people don't get it. All it simply is being allowed access to 800MHz and if you meet the requirements then hey presto you get to both call and use data on 800MHz.

Thank you.
I should point out (thanks d123 for this, I was getting to it : ) that other phones will be added to that white list in due course.
No, there is no point in complaining, Three don't care.
They are doing it this way for a reason.
They have to protect their network.
IMS is the first time in mobile history (about 30 years) that pure IP based access to the network has been allowed. Up till now it's been propitiatory and controlled.
VoLTE and WiFi calling add a significant security risk to each network (especially in this day and age).
It's their network, they want to protect it, as you would if it was yours. If you don't like it, go elsewhere.
End of.... AGAIN!.

Devon bloke your very touchy tonight, have EE switched your mast off 😜

To be honest I think it needed saying
I know Three have done a poor job communicating about 4G Super Voice however it has been explained countless times on this thread and still some people ask a question which was literally answered in the previous post.

One thing I would like Three to do would be to copy T-Mobile USA and only sell devices which are compatible with both VoLTE and WiFi calling, but I can't really see new #makeitright Three doing that, but old #allyoucaneat Three may have done it.

My main bugbear with Three is not how VoLTE has been rolled out as it is arguably the most sensible way with the current network, but Three's shocking 1800MHz rollout. I have a feeling if that was better then average 4G speeds would be much improved and it may have been dense enough that VoLTE over 1800MHz may have been feasible.

If 1800MHz was rolled out properly I bet the amount complaints about not being able to get 4G Super Voice would have been tiny.

T-Mobile USA did have the problem with band 12 though didn't it Denco? I don't think the iPhone supported it until this model which is a pretty big issue.

What is the point in 800MHz if the chances of you actually using it are very low?

Even in my house, I have a bar of 3G which doesn't work for anything but I always get stuck on that (I assume), because it is a higher priority than 800MHz.

It seems to me that Three want 800MHz to be their second 4G network, which would be fine if the 1800MHz network actually reached a decent amount of places. But it doesn't.

Haha, no. They haven't even switched the ******* thing on yet. (for 4G that is... as everyone knows).
It just drives me mad. I mean how much simpler can it be?
If your phone does 800 & VoLTE & has Three firmware & is on the white list, you can use 800. That's it!!! End of... Period!!!!
Joe public doesn't understand or care but if you are on here and you kind of understand, why not just listen to those who know and just, sort of, get it?

EDIT: As I have posted elsewhere, (on the EE thread) I suspect EE will also do 800 on the lowest priority too.
I have my reasons (as I hope so does Tom Bennett) for this.

I have the iPhone 6plus so I'm quite happy, any chance you could answer my previous question at the top of this page? Cheers!

Yes only the 6S/6S+ support band 12. I wouldn't say it was a major issue though, at least the iPhones supported WiFi calling and VoLTE from the off on T-Mobile. Band 12 is less of an issue for T-Mobile imo than Band 20 is for Three, simply because T-Mobile have a very good 3G and now 4G Band 4 network in cities, just that Band 12 helps with coverage inside buildings and rural areas.

As Three have a crumbling 3G network in places and nonexistent 1800MHz 4G in so many areas, Three as of now really could do with selling only VoLTE compatible devices. They could still continue for now to sell older phones like the M8, but I feel that every new phone they sell should be VoLTE compatible from release on Three, wouldn't be difficult considering nealy all new models are VoLTE compatible on at least one network in the world. It would also drive uptake of VoLTE compatible phones and reduce confusion among customers as they would know that any new model bought from Three would essentially be future proof with regards to VoLTE, at the moment it is a guessing game on which handsets Three will choose to support VoLTE on in the future.

I guess the priority may be 'adjusted' in time. At the moment they can boast a lot of coverage which only a few people who have the right phones can use so it's an ideal test bed. Obviously hanging on for dear life to a very weak 3G signal is not ideal and would affect me too where I live. So I assume they will tweak this after a while.

They aren't planning 800MHz for every mast, that was one of the incentives for Three that they could rollout 800MHz on less masts than if they had used 1800MHz but still cover the same or more area.

1800MHz will probably end up covering even less than 80% of the population now, although that is just my speculation and nothing that Three have said.

I'll leave someone else to explain the MBNL situation as I'm sure they can do a far better job
I'm not sure EE were planning on having as many as 19000 total sites though, I don't think MBNL sites plus Orange sites waiting to be upgraded amounts to 19000? I could easily be wrong on this though.

Surely they will need to add more 800mhz in areas as demand grows, or are we hoping 1800mhz and 3G will keep down demand!

I'm hoping they have still plenty of 3G to add into the MBNL agreement, I hope 3 will match EE's 3G coverage.

Three "network" section down in their website. No idea if it means anything at all, you never know:

http://www.three.co.uk/static/html/s...available.html

Their whole website is down...

Well there is this on-going takeover of O2 which will give 3 a lot of much needed spectrum, if it goes through. They also have a lot of 1400, which may be handy in the future. At the moment they really don't have enough spectrum to compete with EE or Vodafone.

I thought EE and Three had around 18,000 masts for MBNL (3G).
For 4G It's different. EE and Three are going their separate ways and installing their own kit,
EE - Huawei
Three - Samsung.

I think most people on here ARE aware by now which devices under which conditions will work on three's 800mhz 4g...
The reason they keep banging on about it is the sheer disbelief that three has seemingly spent so much time developing a system that so few people can access and even if they can seems to give little benefit. All this at the expense of the 1800mhz roll out it seems.
It's a good idea and will be of some limited benefits such as ringing your wife when you've lost her in the middle of the shopping centre and you want to get the hell out of there, but against what the 1800mhz could give, it's a waste of time. EE have the correct approach, build up 1800mhz coverage then introduce 2600 & 800mhz as bonus features later, but develop the core network first!
Then the ideal user situation should be 2600mhz, then back to 1800mhz, over to 3g legacy on 2100mhz but higher power, then last resort 800mhz.

This will benefit EE the most, but they should roll out 800 to all but allow 3G/2G CSFB on non compatible kit. Not the slap-dash half-arsed attempt that is currently rolling out on other networks...

I tell you what..... there aren't that many shopping centres around here.
Its's mostly hills, valleys, cows, sheep and a lot of open space.
If EE do do 800 as the lowest priority, as an i{Phone 6 user, I will be happy....

So if you can flash the Three firmware on an S5 (for example) and 800MHz works, Three aren't doing the blocking by IMEI.

What other information does the carrier get about the phone? I'm just wondering if there might be a way to spoof a device.

As you know changing the IMEI is a criminal offence under the Mobile Telephones (Re-Programming) Act 2002.

Most likely embedded cryptographic keys.


http://www.gsma.com/network2020/wp-c...CM.01-v1.1.pdf

UE is user equipment, I'd say that it's all done on the device firmware and it involves complicated cryptography.

Unless of course it's checking to see if there is VoLTE in the firmware.

It'll be the same proviso as WiFi Calling on EE. Just needs the right firmware and the product activating on the account..