[Thine Wonk]

Are there many places now that have no 2G, 3G or 4G or any of the networks? Where do you know where there's absolutely no signal at all?

[Gigabit]

I know many areas with no signal when driving.

[Redcoat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thine Wonk

Are there many places now that have no 2G, 3G or 4G or any of the networks? Where do you know where there's absolutely no signal at all?

There's still plenty of spots in around rural Northern Ireland where either no mobile coverage exists at all (any generation), or where there might by a service from one or two networks it is pretty poor outdoors (i.e. barely holding on to one bar at best) with no indoor coverage.

The most notorious I know is in the Glenelly Valley in the Sperrins - travelling along the B47 road there from Omagh to Magherafelt, from around 3km east of Plumbridge there is no coverage from any network for about until you're about 2-3km from the village of Straw, a distance of roughly 25km (16 miles) or so.

There's another part of the area called Glenhull which again is a mobile blackspot though if you're lucky with mobile placement on a window sill you just might be able to get 1 bar of 2G signal from Vodafone or O2. There's a pub in the place which with no wifi is perhaps one of the few places you can still hold an honest pub quiz. However this place is due to get covered as a site for the MIP was given planning permission a couple of months ago, so might not be a dark spot this time next year.

A lot of the mid-sized villages that dot rural NI also have poor coverage overall. In the majority of cases indoor coverage from any network doesn't exist and outdoor coverage is spotty. The irony is that back in the early and mid noughties some people in these areas campaigned to stop the building of mobile phone masts in their localities - many of the same people now are complaining about poor mobile phone coverage (2G let alone 3G or 4G!) and poor/non-existent ADSL or FTTC broadband. Maybe a case of reaping what you sow, especially when mobile phone mast placement is more stringent in NI than either in Britain or the Republic of Ireland as a result of these protests! I'm reasonably fortunate that I live in such a village but Vodafone & O2 coverage across all generations is very good - I only wish EE & 3 could be better, neither are reliable enough indoors.

[jchamier]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gigabit

I know many areas with no signal when driving.

Many of my friends say this and I note they are holding phones low down where all cell signals are hitting the doors. I have my phone in a holder quite high up and find signals quite good on EE, 3G pretty much everywhere, and Vodafone is vastly better than it was 12 months ago.

[rasseru16]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thine Wonk

Are there many places now that have no 2G, 3G or 4G or any of the networks? Where do you know where there's absolutely no signal at all?

Many places around here in Norfolk still.... even on roads that are used everyday.

[Chris1973]

Quote:

Are there many places now that have no 2G, 3G or 4G or any of the networks? Where do you know where there's absolutely no signal at all?

Spent a couple of weeks in Bala, North Wales during the Summer, and noticed several sections of the A4212 has no mobile coverage whatsoever.

Closer to home, parts of the Staffordshire Moorlands and Derbyshire also have no coverage. Plenty of crappy masts dotted around in Towns which give very poor 3G from EE / 3 too - where I work in Congleton being one example, in this Town Vodafone and O2 Networks are far superior with very good 3G and 4G speeds.

[Resonance]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris1973

Spent a couple of weeks in Bala, North Wales during the Summer, and noticed several sections of the A4212 has no mobile coverage whatsoever.

Closer to home, parts of the Staffordshire Moorlands and Derbyshire also have no coverage. Plenty of crappy masts dotted around in Towns which give very poor 3G from EE / 3 too - where I work in Congleton being one example, in this Town Vodafone and O2 Networks are far superior with very good 3G and 4G speeds.

In North Wales I've noticed that as soon as you head south and cross into Powys there's a definite improvement in mobile coverage. Less Nimbys maybe, and/or a council that allows more masts?

[sills]

There's quite a few valleys in the Kent Downs area between the M20 and M2/A2 that have little or no coverage. EE have the best coverage, Vodafone are starting to fill gaps under CTIL where only O2 had coverage before. Oddly, although Vodafone have the worst coverage there, they seem to be popular in the places with no signal as they were the first with their sure signal boxes.

There's a couple of new masts I've seen on planning under the Mobile Infrastructure Project to fill some of the gaps around Elham and Pett Bottom.

[d123]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thine Wonk

Are there many places now that have no 2G, 3G or 4G or any of the networks? Where do you know where there's absolutely no signal at all?

Last time I took the DFDS ferry from North Shields I had no signal for virtually the entire journey

[bookey_uk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thine Wonk

Are there many places now that have no 2G, 3G or 4G or any of the networks? Where do you know where there's absolutely no signal at all?

Yep, I have maps showing me where those places are, I spend time trying to come up with solutions to resolve them, but often they just do not cost in.

[sills]

I guess in lot of rural areas the cost of getting power and backhaul to a site that won't serve a huge number of people just isn't worth it.

[thebennyboy]

Three are doing a lot of infill work around where i live, filling the large blackspot in the valley and replacing a few "terminally limited" sites according to their CS. One is an old orange mast which i guess is being MBNL'd and another is a brand new site, my only guess why they left it so long was insufficient backhaul. The area the new tower is going is covered by FTTP which i presume the mast will be using, the old orange tower will probably be supplied by microwave.

The area drawn in black pretty much has no 3G coverage, the triangles indicate where they are placing the two new masts, the old orange one to the north being MBNL'd and the other towards the south being the brand new one.

https://i.gyazo.com/b5cf888fd76015d7...749be79472.png

[Chris1973]

Quote:

I guess in lot of rural areas the cost of getting power and backhaul to a site that won't serve a huge number of people just isn't worth it.

Not sure about the power aspect, as i've seen Traffic Lights and Fixed Average Speed Cameras in some quite remote and obscure rural locations, and surely grid infrastructure can be shared. Microwave could be used for the backhaul?.

Towns here, aren't much better, the link below is the aforementioned area where I work in Congleton shown on the EE 4G coverage checker, a little island in a vast ocean of Blue 4G. This non 4G section is also the bit of the Town giving poor 3G from both EE and '3' where 3G gives frequent 'connection error' messages and no more than 0.5mbps speeds when it does work, I believe that this mast is in or close to the Town Centre, so not sure why Infrastructure would be an issue, or why its still being overlooked for any improvement.

http://postimg.org/image/ry3ontfkb/

[Skie]

South east of Runcorn is pretty bad.

[sills]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris1973

Not sure about the power aspect, as i've seen Traffic Lights and Fixed Average Speed Cameras in some quite remote and obscure rural locations, and surely grid infrastructure can be shared. Microwave could be used for the backhaul?.

Depends on the geography I suppose. Say you need to cover a village in the bottom of a valley. If you put the mast in the village you'll be near power, but won't be able to see over the surrounding hills to use a microwave link. Put the mast on a hill at the side of the valley so you can use a microwave link and then you'll have to run power up to it and possibly build an access road, etc.

[natbike]

Quote:

Originally Posted by thebennyboy

The area the new tower is going is covered by FTTP which i presume the mast will be using, the old orange tower will probably be supplied by microwave.

It almost certainly will not use FTTP. The only likely benefit an area being FTTP'd would bring is cleaned/unblocked ducts. FTTP is not really suitable backhaul for cell sites and would not fall within the current agreements that I've seen for FTTP usage terms.

They'll be leased lines of one sort or another and likely microwave if that's not economic.

[thebennyboy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by natbike

It almost certainly will not use FTTP. The only likely benefit an area being FTTP'd would bring is cleaned/unblocked ducts. FTTP is not really suitable backhaul for cell sites and would not fall within the current agreements that I've seen for FTTP usage terms.

They'll be leased lines of one sort or another and likely microwave if that's not economic.

That sounds more correct. There is a whole load of new ducting for the FTTP which i guess will make it easier to run a line up to the tower, the new site will be in line of sight of the soon to be MBNL'd orange site so i'm guessing it might relay a microwave signal to it? The existing orange site isn't currently in line of sight of any other microwave relay which i guess is why it wasn't MBNL'd sooner.

[Zee_Bukhari]

in and around my work place which is in Watford, just out of London, very busy area.

My work has installed an O2 booster box, which is pretty massive high up near the ceilings and we're also getting a Three booster box installed shortly as majority of the staff are on Three.

You get no 3G coverage on O2 or Vodafone inside the building and no 2G coverage on Vodafone inside the building or around the building same goes for 3G. As for O2 you get 2G coverage inside the building but if you go about 20 feet or a little less inside the building you lose all signal.

On EE and 3 is difficult to get 3G coverage inside the building but this is improving a lot lately, and those who now have 800MHz on 3 have noticed a sharp increase in coverage for 4G inside the building.

I noticed all this when the O2 boosterbox went down, and has been down for about 3 weeks now.

Vodafone is by far the worst, very poor 2G and 3G and no sign of 4G at all.

[Minardi]

Loads around the Peak District. North Yorkshire was very poor when I was up there before Christmas. Most of the highlands of Scotland (though that's particularly difficult to cover). Loads of Cornwall. Loads of Wales.....

[Minardi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bookey_uk

Yep, I have maps showing me where those places are, I spend time trying to come up with solutions to resolve them, but often they just do not cost in.

Is the govt's MIP making any difference to this?

[bookey_uk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minardi

Is the govt's MIP making any difference to this?

More to come in 2016 that will reduce the troublesome locations, but not all of them.

[Minardi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bookey_uk

More to come in 2016 that will reduce the troublesome locations, but not all of them.

Hopefully I'll notice when I'm out hiking! Assume they usually go all bands 2G1800 3G2100 and 4G1800 from launch?

[Redcoat]

MIP masts only have agreements from MNOs that they will provide voice & text at a minimum, i.e. 2G minimum for EE, O2 & Vodafone while 3 will use 3G for this of course. The individual operators can include more services (3G/4G) beyond this if they wish to at their own expense.

Also I think the funding for the MIP project is due to run out in at the end of this year (a few days time!) but I'm not 100% certain on that.

[mupet0000]

I don't think any operator in 2016 would build a new site and then only install 2G equipment. A new site is always going to be built with multiband antennas and 2G+3G+4G equipment.