Originally Posted by Thine Wonk:
“That's crap, makes me want to give in and upgrade to the G4 and buy one from Three, but their prices are high.
The coverage map difference is huge, and the nerd in me wants to go out testing. Quite annoyed as the G3 supports 800Mhz data. I can see why they've done it, or at least think of reasons why they might have done it that way given the limited amount of 800 they have.
Does anyone know if this is a temporary restriction or long-term? I would be useful to know as it might impact my decision, might just go past a Three store and buy a G4 and sell my G3 on Ebay. Paying £15 a month on contract when others pay £45 affords me the flexibility to save up the gap money to put towards devices from time to time.”
Been covered quite a bit here.
800 is being run at full power.
This means it goes way beyond current 3G coverage hence you have noticed this on the map.
Problem is there will be plenty of places where you will have a signal but no voice (outside of 3G and indoors).
The networks simply don;t do this. It would cause too many complaints and could potentially be a problem for emergency calls.
This is why the 1800 4G on EE and Three and indeed the 800 on VO2 are run at a low power to be within the voice coverage footprint.
All this was caused by 4G being launched before it had a usable voice capability.
Brilliant!
Bottom line. If your phone can't do VoLTE you ain't ever using 800 on both Three and EE, period.
The plus side is 800 at full power. Some amazing coverage expansion is coming.
Three and EE 4G at slightly better coverage than VO2 2G. Nice!