I could be wrong but I was under the impression that Three's 800 sites were not at max power precisely because they have it so thin and crispy. If you have a single 5Mhz cell covering too big an area all by itself, then it will get quickly swamped.
I note that EE appear to be enabling more than one 800 mast per town down here.
Totnes for example is not particularly big and I expected only one of the two main masts to be enabled for 800. In fact, they both are.

hi
on my sammy fone(s5 and s3), i could enter code *#0011#* and i get a ServiceMode screen up showing what 4g band(s) i am using.

I now have a lg g5 and wish to find the same info but i cant find a tool to show me...any one know of anything?

Try

*#546368#*850#

That worked when I had the lgg5 ya have to go into one of the settings but I can't remember which without having it in front of me

Almost identical process to LG G4 Field test

Thank you Ash and Pedro, just what i wanted, and also handy to find is the ability to force it onto 2g, or 3g only, and found i could also force 4g onto any of its supported bands too

EE currently have 800 MHz switched on in my local town centre. The power doesn't appear to be set very high. The outcome of this is that you tend not to connect to it very much yet. It's easier to see it by forcing 4g-only mode. Since I was using a VoLTE phone, I couldn't confirm whether the 800 MHz was restricted to VoLTE devices or not. I would assume that it's available to everyone at the moment, judging by the low power and indoor coverage which does not exceed the current 2g service.

Strangely, my phone 'got stuck' on band 20 for about 5 minutes, in an area (outside) which also has good band 3 and 7 coverage. I wondered whether this is because they are adjusting some settings on the mast.

Download speeds were clearly much less on 5 MHz of band 20 than on bands 3 and 7 in the same area (20 MHz of each), but the ping/latency was still low (26 ms). A phone call connected very quickly over band 20 VoLTE, far better than the 2g/3g call set up time. It appears that band 20 may be more useful for indoor phone/text coverage, while not been amazing for data. This is what I would expect.

If set right, you would use 1800 or 2600 outside and only fall to 800 indoors, where it's a case of slower speeds or nothing (or 2G).

My phone was briefly stuck on band 20 after leaving a building with very poor indoor signal, as if it didn't switch back straight away. I've never been on band 20 outside before, that I'm aware of. Band 7 is available outside that building normally.

Mine get's stuck on B20 but only on a couple of masts. Some masts you see a flash of B20 before it returns to B3 and most masts now you don;t see it all, although it's there.

Also of course outside in rural areas where 1800 doesn't reach.

Observation with respect to EE's VoLTE...

It seems that if I leave my Samsung phone in 4g-only mode for more than about 12 hours, VoLTE is switched off and will not reactivate until switching back to a standard network mode eg. 2g/3g/4g auto.

I have no intention of leaving my phone in 4g mode, but used it yesterday to help check for band 20.

how would EE enable 4G800 only for VoLTE capable devices if a lot out there are just 4G. How will they know? I do not get it

Hi,

The network can detect whether a device connected to their service is VoLTE-capable. Three UK already do this with their 4g 800, which is not accessible at all from incompatible phones or those without the necessary software updates.

Thanks Ed. got it

In recent years yes, but the iPhone 3G and 3GS were both Intel (as Intel acquired Infineon whom make the modems). The iPhone 4 switched to Qualcomm I think.

Quick q.

Are EE liable to do the same?

I have EE & 3 sims in a dual sim non volte phone, at times I see 3 4g and can't access it , so I'm assuming 800.

Would I get on EE 800 ?

Not without VoLTE support, at least not when properly launched as during testing I believe you can.

So every phone without being a network approved Volte job, won't be able to access 800 on 3 or EE?

That's poo for folk like me.

EE phoned me a week back and swore blind as he was trying to upgrade me, that if I could get it I would.

The reason is that no network can provide what looks like a signal where voice calls don't work. This is what could easily happen if any 4G phone could connect to 800 and there was no other 3G or 2G signal around to carry a voice call.

How do I check on my Iphone if there is band 20 available too if I am on band 3. On LG G5 you can force the phone to 4G only and see but Iphone cant do that. I just want to check where I woork if there is also band20 with the band 3

You can't on most phones see what other bands are around, only the one you are connected to.

If you have an iPhone 7 or 7 Plus then the old 'field test' no longer works. On the 6s and earlier you can use Field Test to show which band you are connected to. It is a bit unreliable on the 6 and 6s and might need you to toggle AirPlane mode a few times to get it to show information. The 5s was the best for this.

http://www.ubersignal.com/field-test-mode

The LG G4 and G5 are unique in that you can 'band lock' and force a search on any of the LTE bands. Some other phones can do this if you root them but the LG G4 and G5 do this from their engineering menu.

Thanks for the info jchamier

Considering I don't want 'voice'

So the rich only connect.... Sigh....

Take it you can't spoof your phone to be a dongle lol.


Actually.....

Rich? Not sure that's quite true, there are some cheaper phones with VoLTE support. The Android world seems to have made it very hard to do these newer technologies. (Not really new, Verizon were doing VoLTE about 4 years ago in the USA).

5mhz of LTE is not really that good for data, once its shared, you're better off with WiFi when indoors anyway. Vodafone and O2 have 10mhz of 800 each as their main allocation, and this is often slow in my office but LTE works better at high levels of load than 3G - so you get only 1.5 mbps of speed but low latency.

Rich as in "supported Volte phones" , hell they can be sub £100 now.
But not supported by the networks, so you need to be a dedicated follower of fash ion.

Plus, the EE guy said when the 800 launched, my phone would connect automatically. Which youz guys are saying it won't.