[GreenLantern]

Hey Guys,

So long story short, Vodafone GPRS and EDGE, I mean they're supposed to provide some data throughput somehow, even if it is minimal - EDGE should even be downright speedy sometimes.

But 90% of the time you get zero throughput, timeouts, etc.

This has long been known to be the case with Vodafone, for years now at least as far as I can remember.

Obvious question is, why ? Is it like this all over the country ?

Is this their implementation of GPRS & EDGE ?

Do they have prioritised APNs that corporate/government users use which puts us all lower down ?

(I'm almost positive there's little network traffic prioritisation going on as it seems like every man for himself to me)

Anyway just thought I'd start a thread on it and see if anyone knew the real reason their 2/2.5G networks were such a mess.

The 3G network on a good day at least used to work and now when its been enveloped in the 4G upgrade and has been given decent backhaul it seems to work pretty decently, but 2G/2.5G still, not so much.

Any ideas ?

[lightspeed2398]

Got Government Voda and O2 cards here. As far as I know they use the same but it's not my department. I can't see the settings because of PSN restrictions but I did once ask and was told it was the same by our useless IT department. They don't work on 2g either so to answer your question about government priority it's not true.

[Thine Wonk]

2G is pre 2003 technology, 12 years on from having 3G it is just no good for today's Internet or for most modern applications. EE and Thee have 98%3G coverage whereas Vodafone has the least 3G of any UK network. A decade of under investment is now finally being corrected over the next year or two for O2 and Vodafone.

[Gigabit]

O2 GPRS just doesn't work for anything in my experience. Vodafone GPRS at least lets data flow.

Vodafone EDGE is actually fairly usable when you have decent reception, again in my experience. Can't talk for O2 EDGE as I've never seen it outside London, where I'm on 3G/4G anyway!

[lost boy]

Pretty much the opposite experience to Gigabit for me. My experience (YMMV):

O2 GPRS; slow as anything, and for anything other than checking email (images off!) Opera Mini and BlackBerry services using it is an unpleasant experience.

Vodafone GPRS; again, slow, but a tad more usable than O2.

Vodafone EDGE; while the signal in general comes romping in, throughput... What throughput? When the E comes on screen, data just grinds to a halt.

O2 EDGE; it's on all of one mast here, on 1800 at that, so my experience of it is limited. However, when I have used it, it's actually remarkably fast and responsive, which makes the usual GPRS provision look even poorer.

[jonmorris]

When O2 updates a site to 4G, where depending on location you might top 50Mbps, GPRS and EDGE has worked surprisingly well. I've had about 200Kbps, which is quite good, on EDGE.

There's one problem. If you've now got good 3G and 4G, most people won't need 2G. I had to manually downgrade my connect to 2G to even test it.

Good for people with 2G only devices, although I'm not sure how much they'll be using the Internet!

At home I can be dropped to 2G and have no data flow, and the network is quite happy to shunt me on to some old legacy 2G site with no back haul, and keep me there. It's as if the site is unaware of the others around it!

All I can say is that once all sites are upgraded, 2G data actually won't be too bad. Forget streaming, but at 0.2Mbps you can do quite a few things okay.

[Gigabit]

Vodafone EDGE speed test: http://imgur.com/ewHHpK1.

[jaffboy151]

Meanwhile on three.... https://www.dropbox.com/s/nj7jk8dy36...01-11.png?dl=0

[swb1964]

On GiffGaff (o2) I get absolutely nothing, nil, zero nada when I only have 2G coverage

[Gigabit]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaffboy151

Meanwhile on three.... https://www.dropbox.com/s/nj7jk8dy36...01-11.png?dl=0

At least the ping is better.

[jaffboy151]

These are ment to be 3g though!
I'm served by 3 or 4 masts which give similar speeds to this over a 30 mile commute so not much Internet radio or Spotify for me, from what I've seen its the same on EE,
At least you've manged to get edge on Vodafone to work, just like others I can use gprs for limited things but edge is dead.

[Aye Up]

Vodafone's 2.5G and EDGE is largely piss poor, the understanding behind their upgrades was 2G/3G would be receiving similar attention to 4G. I know I have gotten wax lyrical about Vodafone in the past, however recently the network has become a joke in Manchester and the surrounding areas. In Manchester C/C 4G and 3G are no longer ubiquitous.....EDGE is becoming the fall back because Vodafone hasn't kept on top of service levels as more people migrate to 4G and use more data.

I have to say the best network for EDGE is EE, it feels much more responsive compared to VF. O2 still has good EDGE imho, obviously from when it started selling the first iPhone. Mind you the one benefit of EDGE if it works un your area, switch down to that if you are going to be out all day, saves a shit load on battery.

[Gigabit]

Vodafone's EDGE roll-out in Hampshire is much wider than O2's. I think one mast in Winchester has it for example.

Never had any problems on Vodafone EDGE, O2 EDGE does work too but like I say I'm never on it long enough to test it.

[mrMick]

Don't think i've ever managed to get EDGE or GPRS to work for very long for several years.

[jonmorris]

If you've got a 3G or 4G phone you likely never will. Once a site is upgraded, you'll be on 3G or 4G. Thus, when you are forced to go onto 2G there's a high chance it's a 2G only site and that will be unusable.

[Gigabit]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonmorris

If you've got a 3G or 4G phone you likely never will. Once a site is upgraded, you'll be on 3G or 4G. Thus, when you are forced to go onto 2G there's a high chance it's a 2G only site and that will be unusable.

You'll be on 2G for a long time if you go from Alton to Winchester on O2 where GPRS doesn't work at all. Vodafone have some 4G in Alton, Alresford and Winchester but between those places it's EDGE where data does work, sometimes.

[japaul]

It's not backhaul or anything like that (backhaul is relatively trivial for 2G) but an incompatibility with a lot of modern handsets. If you have an old phone, try it and you'll probably find that GPRS or EDGE will work fine with them even though you get zero throughput on say an iPhone. Up until a few weeks ago, my local Vodafone sites were like this - no 2G data on an iPhone (it didn't matter if they were GPRS or EDGE sites) but putting the same sim in a Nokia N95 and using the same settings on the same site gave really good 2G speeds.

There are changes afoot. Just having a 4G upgrade doesn't necessarily mean they get fixed as it can be separate but mine were done a few weeks ago and from nothing on an iPhone I consistently now get almost full EDGE speeds (>200Kbps).

It's not unique to Vodafone but I think they are the worse. It depends on the vendor kit installed some years ago which varies in different areas. That's why others find it okay or other networks don't work. I know on EE I've seen the same issue particularly on the old Orange sites. The new Huawei kit though is really good on EDGE.

[moox]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonmorris

If you've got a 3G or 4G phone you likely never will. Once a site is upgraded, you'll be on 3G or 4G. Thus, when you are forced to go onto 2G there's a high chance it's a 2G only site and that will be unusable.

Even Vodafone 3G is unusable in some places. Like the cell site serving my house. It must literally have a 56k modem as the backhaul - and it must have only been 3G'd in the last 2 or 3 years

It's a shame, because the coverage (on 900MHz) is great. Perhaps I'm just spoiled by the superior performance of MBNL

[Gigabit]

All the people who seem to be having issues on Vodafone EDGE (who I know) are those with iPhones. I've got three Android phones and it works great on all of them.

Obviously I cannot prove this but it is something I have noticed.

[japaul]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gigabit

All the people who seem to be having issues on Vodafone EDGE (who I know) are those with iPhones. I've got three Android phones and it works great on all of them.

Obviously I cannot prove this but it is something I have noticed.

iPhones are definitely among the worse but a lot of Android devices suffer from it too. Obviously there's far more variation with Android so some are okay. Old phones almost always work though!

As i said though it isn't unique to Vodafone and you see the same on a lot of networks abroad but also in the UK. It's just that Vodafone seems to be the worst for it because of the particular kit in place. It will be changed though.

Aside from the 2G data issue, a lot of phones also struggle with signal on 2G (where they are fine on 3G or 4G). I think it reflects the low importance placed on 2G by a lot of manufacturers when the inevitable compromises need to be made on modern smartphones. Ofcom now allow for this and have raised the signal strength requirement for 2G when they publish their coverage stats.

[jonmorris]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gigabit

All the people who seem to be having issues on Vodafone EDGE (who I know) are those with iPhones. I've got three Android phones and it works great on all of them.

Obviously I cannot prove this but it is something I have noticed.

It certainly isn't just the iPhone. All my tests are with Android phones, from multiple manufacturers and with different chipsets.

[japaul]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jonmorris

It certainly isn't just the iPhone. All my tests are with Android phones, from multiple manufacturers and with different chipsets.

Haven't you still got an old Symbian phone or something like that you could try? If it doesn't work with that then it's probably a fault (assuming you remember to put your settings in right)!

[jonmorris]

I do, although I am not sure about where the charger is.

[Denco1]

I've just tested Vodafone edge on a LG G4 and got 138ms ping, 0.11mbps down and 0.07mbps up. It felt faster than EE edge, probably because the ping is around half what I would get on EE.
My service menu said it was 115kbps up and 115kbps down, I'm not sure why it wasn't configured for the maximum 236kbps, unless it was only using two timeslots?
Something else interesting is that I can set my phone to 4G/2G and calls work perfectly. I have no idea how CSFB is or isn't working but my phone will go into edge as fast as it would 3G, and after a call it would also leave edge and switch to 4G faster than I have ever seen it do 4G to 3G.