"We're in the stickiest situation since Sticky the stick insect got stuck on a sticky bun"

There is a debate about the call quality advantage 3G has over 2G. This debate would be worthwhile if we had cross network HD Voice. We don't. It would even be a good debate to have were it not for the fact the majority of people i've spoken to (on the phone, oddly enough) don't even notice when the call switches from 3G to 2G. The call continues, that's all they care about.

You'd probably be looking at almost doubling the number of masts to make a 3G network dense enough to stop the breathing affect from what I read. I don't think the networks would be happy to pay out all the money needed for your expansion or the red tape it would make to get planning permission for all those new masts and the bad publicity from all the nimby people who would have a hear attack at the thought of a new mast on their street. I think it would be an impossible task.

I think you will be alone in your view of this style of network improvement.

I guess people's opinions vary. personally I find
- some calls I make from 3 or landline to O2 are awful (always seems to be O2 - half rate codec)
- many calls are just fine (oe 3 to landline)
- some calls are extra crystal clear - ie my kids are on three and it's wonderful to hear much better quality audio

Personally I don't see an issue with 3G, but that's possibly because it performs exceptionally well where I am... 20+Mbit down and great indoor coverage..

The first is the legendary O2 2G voice quality - which I thought was going away in upgraded areas. 3G is fine, but 2G is horrendous. Vodafone and EE's 2G is good.

The crystal clear is the HD voice, which only works when both phones are in 3G coverage and on the same network. This may be fixed when all networks have 4G voice calling (VoLTE). EE to EE, or Three to Three, or Vodafone to Vodafone - or O2 to O2. (yes they finally launched HD voice!).

You're ignoring that the US is a very different market to the UK. The majority of people in the UK get their main TV via terrestrial - in the US it's just 1 in 10. The change was inherently more disruptive in the UK.

Comparing a 2G or 3G switchover might be just as complicated.

Ignoring the trials (e.g. Ferryside and Whitehaven in the UK, IIRC the US had something similar) it took about four years for the UK to switch over. Of course both the UK and USA had digital transmission before that date, and the USA also continued with some smaller broadcaster on analogue for a further three years. So about four years in both countries for the real switch over.

I guess you could switch off 3G quicker (keeping 2G for M2M) if you decided to fund the upgrade of 3G phones to 4G. A text sent to all phones where a user is connected with a device that doesn't support 4G, offering a form of voucher to upgrade by a certain date - or be forced to use 2G only.

That would cost the industry a fair amount perhaps, but it might be considered worthwhile for the long term benefits (refarming all spectrum for 4G) and the speeded up switch.

You could be offered a specific handset, or a fixed amount towards any handset. I'm sure that given the profit margins on many phones, it won't be as expensive as it appears.

It took so long for us because it was decided that every transmission site had to be rebuilt with modern technology and proper redundancy. IIRC the original digital transmission network was done on the cheap and it was done quickly to allow for the original launch date (first DVB-T commercial transmissions worldwide, I think).

We don't have an army of broadcast engineers, and people who are prepared to go up 200m masts, so those who will had a very busy few years doing all that work.

The US didn't have the same issue, and they had a lot more people (basically every TV station owns their own transmitter, and thus they all have a team of engineers to maintain it). FWIW the US did take several years from launching digital TV, to announcing analogue closedown, to actually doing it - and they did extend their deadline once. They also had an expensive programme of handing out digital tuners to people via taxpayer money, whereas we let the market slowly build up the install base

This is how the US/Canadian networks have done it in regards to the slow decline of CDMA - they have a load of ridiculously cheap 3G/LTE phones that they'll hand out to anyone who wants them. . Though at least one US network has decided to keep UMTS and shut down GSM..

I guess you could also offer an early, no-fee upgrade for anyone who is still in contract with a non-4G phone

So https://coverage.ee.co.uk appears to be up to date (certainly for my area) when compared to the EE coverage checker on their website. Not sure why they would be different?

I didn't even know their were still two maps!
Yes that one pretty much up to date.
What the hell is going on.

They seem to have removed the ability to check frequencies with the latest update. The update file is dated March 10th but has only shown on the EE website from this morning.

It’s not just having a 4G handset, though. It needs to be a VoLTE capable 4G handset before 3G is going anywhere – and many of the 4G handsets out there at the moment, particularly the older/cheaper ones, aren’t and can’t be upgraded.

By the time you'd be doing this, most phones should be compatible and you just offer upgrades based on IMEI the same way as a 3G only phone.

We're not getting rid of 3G anytime soon.

Guessing there's no chance that Apple or EE will announce VoLTE is launching today with the release of 9.3?

Seems like I'm waiting forever for both Barclays to support Apple Pay and EE to support VoLTE.

The 3G switch off will be like VO2 4G rollout. The small urban masts will go off first leaving people with decent 2G EDGE or 4G and maybe a weak 3G signal from far away. Then it will roll out across the country.

I think it might happen sooner than we think. You can't hold progress back because there is a small core of people with 3G only phones who demand that it is retained forever. They'll have EDGE so they can check the bank and they'll just have to get with it if they want more.

I know that when I make a call to a Virgin Mobile phone (my main sim is Virgin Mobile), the quality of the audio is pretty good - and I'm always in a 3G area. So I'm pretty sure that HD Voice is what I'm using for voice calls.

I haven't made calls to other networks in a long time... so can't remember what the voice quality was like. But I did notice a BIG difference between the normal 3G calling (on 3G only) and the time that I got shunted down to EDGE.

I didn't realise how impressive EE's 4G coverage in the SW looks on their map. I'm not a customer so I don't know how it stacks up in real life, but if that's purely using 1800 it is a very good achievement. They've even filled in the annoying blackspot that all the other networks have near me

Once 4G1800 is cranked up (one day) then a load will be taken off 3G. It will be only legacy 2G/3G devices on it so I think at some point then, a chunk of 2100 will be brought across to 4G (perhaps leaving just 5Mhz for 3G).
This will still leave those users with 3G but at a much reduced speed and in fact it could be even throttled to encourage users to upgrade.
This a way off I would have thought though.
Or that could be crap! : )

It is pretty close to accurate. It's a bit over optimistic in places but generally ok.
They have been going totally mental lately.
Only one or two left near me now.

The Orange masts being converted are the best bit as it's pretty much like having a new mast put up. these are filling massive holes here where you would either get just EDGE or your phone would refuse to switch and stick to useless 3G. Now 80meg 4G!

Once 1800 power is up (which as Lucan keeps reminding us will be quite a while yet : ) and the 800 is rolled out I think it might actually be hard to find somewhere where there's no service.
800 will be rolled out beforehand anyway and this will help massively in the interim.

Still haven't done that flippin Eden Project mast though. haha

Pretty sure the live coverage checker has been updated too now.

EDIT: Yep! Definitely updated. Every mast that I know has gone live since Jan is now showing on map.

Yep - that 800 is needed quite badly. If you take a look at the maps and from experience, indoor coverage is still poor.

It's the missing link. Sure it will be coming soon. Better to get it right than just launch it and tell everyone they are going to be pumped by a purple frog monkey puppet and their house will be smashed down.