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EE 2G/3G/4G Discussion Thread (Part 2)


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Old 28-03-2016, 13:21
Minardi
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Hi happy Easter to you all, I have a question and I'm hoping someone might be able to answer it. My nearest EE mast hasn't been upgraded yet, despite all he ones around it appearing to have been, the mast in question is an ex-orange mast and is giving speeds of less than 0.2mb. 3 is non existent and EE is unusable, I'm surprised it hasn't been upgraded yet as it covers the main part of the city centre. The mast location is on Carr House Wakefield and the post code for this is WF1 1LH,

Thanks in advance guys for any info, I can't find anything on Wakefield Planning site using key words like cabinet and antenna. Using EE returns an error saying too many results.

Thanks
Looking at the position of it, on a tower block, I'm willing to bet it's landlord issues holding that one up. Being up on that building though it will cover a huge area! Given the speeds you mention that will be on an old school copper connection, so it's going to require a bit of work to upgrade properly.
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Old 28-03-2016, 14:04
Skippy2005
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Looking at the position of it, on a tower block, I'm willing to bet it's landlord issues holding that one up. Being up on that building though it will cover a huge area! Given the speeds you mention that will be on an old school copper connection, so it's going to require a bit of work to upgrade properly.
Thanks for the reply, it doesn't cover as big an area as you think, with several masts close by. The problem is my location is in a dip so the other towers only cover outdoors and marginal at that. If your in town by the cathedral the mast is more at a 2-3 storey height, it's a good walk upto the hill to the immediate town centre. The other two towers at trinity walk and police HQ cover the town centre perfectly with great speeds. Damn me for living in a dip ha ha.

The tower block is Council owned still so I'm surprised a planning application hasn't been submitted with ease.
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Old 28-03-2016, 14:23
KesterK
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I was in Manchester city centre this weekend and every time I checked VoLTE was active and usable.
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Old 28-03-2016, 17:08
beans0ntoast
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Hi happy Easter to you all, I have a question and I'm hoping someone might be able to answer it. My nearest EE mast hasn't been upgraded yet, despite all he ones around it appearing to have been, the mast in question is an ex-orange mast and is giving speeds of less than 0.2mb. 3 is non existent and EE is unusable, I'm surprised it hasn't been upgraded yet as it covers the main part of the city centre. The mast location is on Carr House Wakefield and the post code for this is WF1 1LH,

Thanks in advance guys for any info, I can't find anything on Wakefield Planning site using key words like cabinet and antenna. Using EE returns an error saying too many results.

Thanks
Afternoon,

The reason why your speeds are so poor is that Orange always tended to use copper as their backhaul source, rather than upgrading to fiber. Occasionally you will see the odd microwave link but they are not reliable either.

Copper backhaul is limited to a maximum of 2Mbps, which in general will give about 0.2Mbps to the end user - which is what you're seeing. The old Orange masts don't have Three access either.

Old microwave masts are generally in some sort of daisy chain link, whereby each mast is fed off the microwave of the previous mast. Speeds (and reliability) generally get slower along the chain of microwaves.

I believe that all Orange masts that are still switched on will be eventually upgraded to EE 3G/4G; whether it is put into MBNL (for Three access) remains to be seen. Most of them should be.

For example, an old Orange mast in Wisbech (which filled in a coverage dip on EE/Three) was recently upgraded to EE and Three 3G. This helps that area in terms of coverage.

Hope that helps!
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Old 28-03-2016, 17:15
beans0ntoast
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Ok, this has been done sooooo many times before.
4G (actually 5G,6G,7G or bloody 15G) doesn't actually make you use more data.
It simply means your data connection is faster.
In the early days of 4G (late 2012 / early 2013) people complaining that 500Mb on a 4G plan was pointless "because you could use that up in 3 minutes" really started to do my head in.
Just because you have 4G DOES NOT mean you will use any more data than you used when you only had 3G.
You're slightly incorrect there.

Some applications, such as streaming media services, will automatically adjust the data rate based on what connection you have. For example, on 3G, Tunein Radio always chooses the 48kbps AAC stream; however on 4G it tends to prefer the 128kbps (or even 320kbps) streams. That means that you will use up over 2.5x more data when listening for the same amount of time.

Another common example: the Ookla Speedtest app. Doing a network speed test on 4G uses more data than on 3G. For example, a 3G speed test was 11.03Mbps down (used 10MB of data, according to the Ookla app) and 2.36Mbps up (used 2.0MB).
However, on 4G, I got 91.49Mbps download speeds (the speedtest used 97.0MB) and 44.61Mbps upload (speedtest used 48.0MB). So using the speed test on 4G uses a total of 145MB data, vs 12MB of data on the 3G speed test. That's over 12 times more data!
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Old 28-03-2016, 17:51
jonmorris
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These days, even websites that embed videos are likely to use more data for the same reason - namely the bitrate adjusting for the speed.

Even this forum often has video ads, which are especially annoying if you're roaming and paying for every MB!
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Old 28-03-2016, 19:02
Pedro_C
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EE's 800MHz is available without a VoLTE capable device in some areas. Appears to switch from EE's L1800 at about -110dBm. Prioirty is between 3G and L1800.

I'll put screenshots up: EE 800MHz 4G with non-VoLTE device Cell ID 12 I got.
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Old 28-03-2016, 19:18
seatmad
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So with VoLTE becoming available in more places what devices do we know are currently using it.

I know the iPhones working but do any android phones have access to it?
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Old 28-03-2016, 19:34
DevonBloke
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You're slightly incorrect there.

Some applications, such as streaming media services, will automatically adjust the data rate based on what connection you have. For example, on 3G, Tunein Radio always chooses the 48kbps AAC stream; however on 4G it tends to prefer the 128kbps (or even 320kbps) streams. That means that you will use up over 2.5x more data when listening for the same amount of time.

Another common example: the Ookla Speedtest app. Doing a network speed test on 4G uses more data than on 3G. For example, a 3G speed test was 11.03Mbps down (used 10MB of data, according to the Ookla app) and 2.36Mbps up (used 2.0MB).
However, on 4G, I got 91.49Mbps download speeds (the speedtest used 97.0MB) and 44.61Mbps upload (speedtest used 48.0MB). So using the speed test on 4G uses a total of 145MB data, vs 12MB of data on the 3G speed test. That's over 12 times more data!
Again I concede these examples are correct. However I should have worded my original post differently. I meant as a general rule for your average data user over a month.
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Old 28-03-2016, 20:01
jonmorris
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Again I concede these examples are correct. However I should have worded my original post differently. I meant as a general rule for your average data user over a month.
If you were using data for work, then most of the time the files you're working with are the same size regardless of the data speed.

Photos, videos, documents, spreadsheets etc.

Streaming, audio or video, is however going to consume more data unless you can limit the bitrate (many apps like Netflix allow you to restrict the quality to reduce data usage).
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Old 28-03-2016, 20:42
d123
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So with VoLTE becoming available in more places what devices do we know are currently using it.

I know the iPhones working but do any android phones have access to it?
Still iPhone only from what I've heard (currently 6, 6+, 6s, 6S+)
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Old 28-03-2016, 20:49
plymouthbloke1974
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Just tried handing off a WiFi call onto 4G at home where I only have 1 bar of 4G indoors.

It did it and held the call for quite a while, then seamlessly dropped down to 3G mid-call.

Technologically impressive.
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Old 28-03-2016, 20:49
Minardi
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EE's 800MHz is available without a VoLTE capable device in some areas. Appears to switch from EE's L1800 at about -110dBm. Prioirty is between 3G and L1800.

I'll put screenshots up: EE 800MHz 4G with non-VoLTE device Cell ID 12 I got.
Very interesting! Good spot!
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Old 28-03-2016, 20:55
packages
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EE's 800MHz is available without a VoLTE capable device in some areas. Appears to switch from EE's L1800 at about -110dBm. Prioirty is between 3G and L1800.

I'll put screenshots up: EE 800MHz 4G with non-VoLTE device Cell ID 12 I got.
Yes the iPhone shows 800mhz with Serving Layer Priority as 4.
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Old 28-03-2016, 21:38
Broken Hope
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Did the London VoLTE roll out happen last week?

Do we know where it's scheduled to roll out next?
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Old 28-03-2016, 21:45
joemcd
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Did the London VoLTE roll out happen last week?

Do we know where it's scheduled to roll out next?
Yeah I was at home in London on Wednesday and it worked going from London City Airport to Stratford. Handover to 3G worked while I was on a call on the DLR.
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Old 28-03-2016, 22:13
plymouthbloke1974
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Did the London VoLTE roll out happen last week?

Do we know where it's scheduled to roll out next?
Yes..... and yes
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Old 28-03-2016, 22:22
Skippy2005
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Care to share the second yes with us
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Old 28-03-2016, 23:01
beans0ntoast
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EE's 800MHz is available without a VoLTE capable device in some areas. Appears to switch from EE's L1800 at about -110dBm. Priority is between 3G and L1800.

I'll put screenshots up: EE 800MHz 4G with non-VoLTE device Cell ID 12 I got.
That's good to know; thanks for the info!

I assume that is in areas with near continuous 3G coverage, but at least it'd allow my S4 to connect to 800MHz quite nicely, as I don't think my S4 supports Volte?

It's also good that the priority is: L2600 > L1800 > L800 > U2100 > G1800, because that'll help both 4G1800/800 and 3G2100 to work optimally. Still can't believe that Three's L800 is a "last resort", and that you won't get it if you can pick up any U2100.

I can't recall how many % it shows up (on Network Signal Info) at -110dBm but that basically shows that it switches to L800 (from L1800) at the right time, so that you're not clinging on to a very weak (and potentially unusable) L1800 signal, but at the same time, L800 shouldn't become overloaded, because EE has only 5MHz of L800.

Speeds are pretty decent too; you won't get breakneck speeds off 5MHz of L800, but 16.5Mbps down is comparable to the speed of a (good) 3G connection, whilst 6.66Mbps up is noticeably better than the upload speed of 3G (and also better than the vast majority of Virgin Media's upload speeds for broadband, other than the 152Mbps and 200Mbps packages).
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Old 29-03-2016, 12:12
keithsto
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Is 800mhz being rolled out at the same time as volte is enabled?
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Old 29-03-2016, 13:00
Synthetic42
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Is 800mhz being rolled out at the same time as volte is enabled?
Nope the two aren't connected
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Old 29-03-2016, 13:19
jonmorris
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Nope the two aren't connected
I think I posted before that the 800MHz stuff starts properly from April, and at some point in April or early May we should begin to see some consolidation of tariffs - with BT Mobile and EE, although I have no idea how this might impact things.

It's going to be a busy year for EE, that's for sure.
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Old 29-03-2016, 15:27
srw985
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This Orange mast has put out 1-2Mbps 3G for years and covers a massive area, so occasionally phones lock onto it instead of the 4G that's available everywhere.

A few weeks ago it disappeared off the 3G coverage map. It was still putting out Orange 3G. I can't tell from the coverage map if it's showing 2G coverage or not.

Just noticed those new antenna's halfway down, they've popped up in the last few weeks. It's not putting out 4G today, and I'm not sure if it's still putting out 3G or 2G today.

Why the new, lower down antenna though? I thought they'd just replace the top ones. It's at CH7 3LY. Old view.
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Old 29-03-2016, 18:08
Broken Hope
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Looks like Barclay's might be almost ready to enable Apple Pay support.

Just need EE to hurry up and roll out VoLTE to Nottingham and I'll be happy!
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Old 29-03-2016, 19:24
DevonBloke
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This Orange mast has put out 1-2Mbps 3G for years and covers a massive area, so occasionally phones lock onto it instead of the 4G that's available everywhere.

A few weeks ago it disappeared off the 3G coverage map. It was still putting out Orange 3G. I can't tell from the coverage map if it's showing 2G coverage or not.

Just noticed those new antenna's halfway down, they've popped up in the last few weeks. It's not putting out 4G today, and I'm not sure if it's still putting out 3G or 2G today.

Why the new, lower down antenna though? I thought they'd just replace the top ones. It's at CH7 3LY. Old view.
Hmm, can't see the panels well enough.
Might need resident panel expert Pedro to take a look.
Can't see that mast going off line so either it's due to be upgraded at some point (the more remote and harder they are, the longer they'll take), and will either keep the current top panels if it's not due for 800 and the lower panels are another network.
Or....
It is due 800 and they have decided to add separate low frequency panels for this purpose. This unlikely though as they would be put up beside the main ones i would have thought.

i need to summon the master of the panels to have a look. hang on......
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