Just spotted this reply to a comment on the Three blog..

To make a VoLTE call the caller or recipient also needs to have a VoLTE ready handset. If they don’t then the call will just be done as normal. The reason why you were unable to make a VoLTE call again is likely because the recipient didn’t have a VoLTE ready handset. The arrows in your notification bar are informing you that you can use VoLTE on your handset. I’m sorry to hear that you’re having issues with your battery and messages. If you can fill in our support form we’ll be able to look into this and try to get it resolved asap


I'm hoping the advisor is confusing VoLTE with HD Voice here - surely it can't be VoLTE to VoLTE only! There is a lot or misinformation around so no wonder the public gets confused!

Someone please comment on Three's blog and tell that moderator they're wrong

It automatically drops down to 2100MHz 3G when you are in an 1800MHz LTE zone, but when there is no other coverage you can make a VoLTE call. I think they mean it will only be higher quality HD voice when there is a VoLTE to VoLTE call on the same network. I'm not surprised that the staff know so little.

Has anybody got VoLTE to work on the LG G4 after flashing it with Three firmware. I've given up so I ended up flashing Europe Firmware so they don't keep counting my tethering. I don't tether a lot, it's usually less than 1GB a month, I just don't like that they slow my tethering speeds with the Three firmware.

I'm pretty sure they can count it whatever firmware you use...

Obviously they can count my total data usage, but they can't count just my tethering usage.

There are several ways for them to do it.

In Android 5.0 and later the stock firmware uses a separate APN for tethering, so it's really easy. This is also true for iPhones.

On other Android versions (and for any other phone) there are less reliable packet sniffing techniques that allow it.

On android phones it's not hard to just delete that tethering APN

Whilst you can evade tethering detection sometimes, if you're a very heavy user the network could still investigate. At some point I expect more strict tethering detection and blocking.

It is easy to see from the user agent headers which device is sending requests, let alone the fact that hitting certain URLs or IP addresses is a giveaway that you're using a desktop device.

I see still no update on the XDA chap who got 800Mhz working on a non Three firmware device. Not much info yet, but hoping Three relax the restrictions at some point or that the Three version of the G4 allows band selection for certain, those are the things I'm waiting on before I go and spend £500 wastefully if it's stuck at 0 priority on 800 with no real control over it.

What he should have said.. http://community.ee.co.uk/t5/EE-Mobi...ht/true#M58576

I've got some planned maintenance in my area on the 30th. Will this be the 10th time in a row that absolutely nothing at all happens, service as normal and no engineers turn up? Probably.

At the very least they can get the extra 5mhz broadcasting for the 1st.

Got the same thing on the 29th. I've seen the same message multiple times since 2010 and nothing has ever changed in regards to my coverage: it's still awful.

If you go into your local Three store, they can pull up info on that area on their intranet and tell you why it says planned maintenance.

They could really do with that extra spectrum in Newcastle...

http://i.imgur.com/DZuetf6.jpg

Was in London yesterday and had a very poor experience on three. On the train journey there from Bedford I experienced from poor to no signal, constantly switching from bad signal to no service, I made one call which dropped after 1 minute because I lost service, data was extremely slow when available and all this as I'm getting closer and closer to central London. I had 4g at some of the stations but never while traveling.

I don't expect to get great service when traveling at high speeds on a train but when EE is doing better in the same situation it's frustrating. EE wasn't fantastic, but it held 4g quite often and even some 4g+, it dropped to no service a lot less.

Once in central London, service from three was shocking. 1mb or less on 4g and ping times of around 120. Also coverage was poor. I was using it for Google maps and city mapper to get around, but it actually came to a point at Oxford circus where the data couldn't even load maps anymore while EE was getting 70mb on speed tests.

I had to turn off 4g to even get usable data, the 3g coverage was much better, faster and more usable than 4g. Where I could get on hotspots in London like The Cloud, they were much faster than three's data speeds.

On the train home I left it on 3g only, didn't experience anywhere near the amount of no service when I did this, much better experience with 4g disabled.

I came away surprised that in some of the most popular areas of central London, threes coverage is shockingly bad and 4g unusable. It honestly felt like I was using giffgaff.

It seems to me that quite often a phone will display no service when in fact there is.

I always liked the iPhone as it seemed to delay displaying this later than Android devices but when it did go to it, it got stuck on it for quite a while.

In Broadstairs the checker is saying that we now have very good coverage for 4G.
I live within the 'strong' coverage area.

I hardly see 4G on my phone anywhere in the area so 3 must be grossly overestimating the coverage.

I think Samsung S5's can get the new 'volte' in my area but not 100% sure about this, so if I am right, I hope they include the S6 Edge soon as I am really hacked off with the poor signal where I live. It was not like this during my first 2 years with 3, but something changed and it has not improved at all.

As things stand, when my contract expires, I am off to another provider.

I'm hoping that when Three gets the rest of the 1800 spectrum, it's going to be activated quite quickly and we can see an improvement. As long as I get faster 3G speeds like you, I'll remain convinced that Three's big problem is congestion on 4G - not the backhaul. Thus, we may well see some decent speeds again.

Of course, that will soon get congested too.

I think I'll be doing the same unless the merger with O2 has went through as I know I can get a good signal with O2.

Got the same exactly experience.
Really not sure if leave EE and move back to Three.

Strangely enough, That was one of the big reasons I swapped from iPhone to android in the end, I had one tiny stretch of my old work commute, just a long corner where all signal would vanish, my iPhone 4s would just display no signal, then go searching for ages and ages, searching for what who knows.. Communications from other planets? Then back to no signal, maybe another round of searching before back to the 3g signal or dumping me on the 3 orange 2g backup. If I put it in manual network mode it would display an annoying message about chosen network not available but switch back straight away so it wasn't that it could receive anything.
Do the same journey on and galaxy S4 and it would loose the signal in the same place but reestablish it again quickly, often without interrupting the radio stream.
I hear the iPhone 6 and above have very good reception though while the Samsung's and other androids seem to be getting worse. Might be time to swap back if my G4 doesn't work out.

The iPhone 4s had great reception and the iPhone has got worse from there The 6 and 6s are distinctly average, they're not poor just not robust as the 4s was.

6 and 6s have markedly better signal ability than the 4s, actually better than the 5 and 5s as well.

I tested them all against each other (4s, 5, 5s and 6) in a number of areas around the north east with multiple sims one day when I was bored and had a few hours between appointments, went as far north as Rothbury which is pretty much a wasteland for mobile signal.

Agree, barring the old Nokias with external antennas, the 6 is the best phone for reception I have ever owned.

4S wasn't any better than any other smartphone. Can't comment on newer iPhones. I did love my 4S though. A cracker of a phone. good camera, good size, snappy performance, felt good to hold. So I sold it and bought some Chinese thing.