[Pedro_C]

Try and get slightly closer up. I'm not that sure when it comes to the panels, but my gut is saying Huawei or Commscope: they certainly look like tri bands so quite possibly 800 or maybe (unlikely) 2600.
The MHAs are of the type that EE/3 regularly use so I'm fairly certain the new panels are for EE/3. Also, it's not appearing on O2's map or VF planned. O2 and VF don't appear to regularly use MHAs and they certainly do not look like those.

It's pretty common to put the newer panels lower down, while leaving the legacy higher up. Not completely sure why. Ie Mixed user masts First pic has Old Orange ontop and new EE/3 at the bottom.

[uno]

Now that Easter has been and gone most people are back at work. Is there any new VOLTE places being made live this week ?

I thought that I had originally read that all 4G masts were now capable of VOLTE if you hand over from a wifi calling call but I found yesterday around Leicester that some sites would do it while others would just dropped the call.

What was an interesting test was using my work S6 on Vodafone 4G as a hotspot then connected my IPhone 6S to wifi calling then trying to get it to handover to EE VOLTE worked sometimes but not others.

[DevonBloke]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pedro_C

Try and get slightly closer up. I'm not that sure when it comes to the panels, but my gut is saying Huawei or Commscope: they certainly look like tri bands so quite possibly 800 or maybe (unlikely) 2600.
The MHAs are of the type that EE/3 regularly use so I'm fairly certain the new panels are for EE/3. Also, it's not appearing on O2's map or VF planned. O2 and VF don't appear to regularly use MHAs and they certainly do not look like those.

It's pretty common to put the newer panels lower down, while leaving the legacy higher up. Not completely sure why. Ie Mixed user masts First pic has Old Orange ontop and new EE/3 at the bottom.

I thought they looked too thin for tri-bands. Certainly commscope who's tri-bands have quite a lot of depth/thickness. Difficult to tell though.
Maybe the reason is alternating techs. So fit the new panels lower then when 5G comes along go back up to the top? That sounds slightly dubious (even for me : ) but I can't think of a reason either.

[srw985]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DevonBloke

I thought they looked too thin for tri-bands. Certainly commscope who's tri-bands have quite a lot of depth/thickness. Difficult to tell though.
Maybe the reason is alternating techs. So fit the new panels lower then when 5G comes along go back up to the top? That sounds slightly dubious (even for me : ) but I can't think of a reason either.

I'll get a better picture of them when I get chance.

I'm sure the guys planning this stuff for a living know more about it than me, but they just seem really, really low. Especially with that hill behind it. Do they put out a full 360 degree coverage like the top antenna?

[packages]

Quote:

Originally Posted by srw985

I'll get a better picture of them when I get chance.

I'm sure the guys planning this stuff for a living know more about it than me, but they just seem really, really low. Especially with that hill behind it. Do they put out a full 360 degree coverage like the top antenna?

Yea to me (obviously not an expert) they look stupidly low. + the power that 4G is being run on at the moment just makes things a lot worst. EE really need to up the power by the end of next year. I'm not sure the 800mhz is going to be able to handle it in urban areas.

[DevonBloke]

Quote:

Originally Posted by srw985

I'll get a better picture of them when I get chance.

I'm sure the guys planning this stuff for a living know more about it than me, but they just seem really, really low. Especially with that hill behind it. Do they put out a full 360 degree coverage like the top antenna?

Yeah, better pic would be good. Need close up of panels and inputs.
They aren't really that much lower. About 2-4 metres. The panels themselves are nearly 2 metres long although they never look that big.
Could be that with the integration of TM and Orange masts they don't need them so high and if they are tri-bands then this would back that up.
4G1800 more robust than 2G1800 / more masts / 800 reaching 30% further etc...

[DevonBloke]

Quote:

Originally Posted by packages

Yea to me (obviously not an expert) they look stupidly low. + the power that 4G is being run on at the moment just makes things a lot worst. EE really need to up the power by the end of next year. I'm not sure the 800mhz is going to be able to handle it in urban areas.

800 won't be that prevalent in urban areas. Only where it's deemed necessary.
4G1800 on normal power will be more than enough for most urban areas.

[beans0ntoast]

Quote:

Originally Posted by srw985

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.

I can tell why it wasn't very fast, as it was probably halfway along a daisy chain of microwave links! (Noticed that both MW links on there are from the Orange days.)

Those antennas never used to be there so I can assume that it might be EE with new 2G/3G/4G antennas, and that 2G/3G/4G might be broadcasting from it one day in the future when the site is ready for the upgrade?

I don't know why the antennas were added lower down though. I'd have thought that they'd have replaced the old Orange antennas at the top. Unless they are in a temporary position until the Orange panels are replaced?

Someone who knows more about panel setups could answer this, hopefully Pedro or Bookey.

[red_snow]

I'm not sure if there is a lot of tweaking and testing going on at the moment but EE are certainly not winning any reliability contests around here at the moment. I'm getting seriously poor handover performance between masts at the moment ........ a LOT of dropped calls.

Today I was trying to watch my signal as I was on a call. It was on H with no bars when the call dropped. I then observed IMMEDIATELY there was a 3 bar H+ signal and I was able to redial. This has happened quite a lot recently in 3 independent locations!

I have to say that this call performance is poor and very frustrating :-/

[packages]

Quote:

Originally Posted by red_snow

I'm not sure if there is a lot of tweaking and testing going on at the moment but EE are certainly not winning any reliability contests around here at the moment. I'm getting seriously poor handover performance between masts at the moment ........ a LOT of dropped calls.

Today I was trying to watch my signal as I was on a call. It was on H with no bars when the call dropped. I then observed IMMEDIATELY there was a 3 bar H+ signal and I was able to redial. This has happened quite a lot recently in 3 independent locations!

I have to say that this call performance is poor and very frustrating :-/

Why do you think EE have dropped all the Root Metrics accolades now? Three beat them for reliability. Haven't had any problems with calls dropping though for a long time although I'm not the biggest caller.

[red_snow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by packages

Why do you think EE have dropped all the Root Metrics accolades now? Three beat them for reliability. Haven't had any problems with calls dropping though for a long time although I'm not the biggest caller.

Ah OK, says it all really. I've tried the main 4 and IIRC Three and perhaps O2 in my experience seemed to be the best for call reliability

Seems Three are also moving well ahead with VoLTE and 800MHz using TinT and VF\O2 are catching up big time with 4G.

I hope my gamble upgrade to stay with EE does not end up biting me!!!

[packages]

Quote:

Originally Posted by red_snow

Ah OK, says it all really. I've tried the main 4 and IIRC Three and perhaps O2 in my experience seemed to be the best for call reliability

Seems Three are also moving well ahead with VoLTE and 800MHz using TinT and VF\O2 are catching up big time with 4G.

I hope my gamble upgrade to stay with EE does not end up biting me!!!

In the end I think EE will easily be the best network due to their soon to be 800mhz (with correct priority) and ridiculous amount of capacity, they are just slow at launching it! I've seen a video where they wanted launch 800mhz this time last year!

[kev]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Broken Hope

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!

EE's network round here has been getting rather good hasn't it - 4G data now works reliably for streaming, just need VoLTE so that when the phone rings it doesn't go "No Signal"... Although that being said, those gaps are vanishing too - I've noticed the 2G signal is more reliable in places where it never used to work well before (including at home) - either that or 2G is now being prioritised above poor 3G? IME It's either 4G or Edge nowadays.

Hopfully Barclays adding Apple Pay means they will be on Android Pay soon after launch too...

[jeffersbnl]

Another successful VOLTE call in London (on an iPhone 6s Plus) - nothing exciting (sitting inside, call to a landline) but nice to see it working.

[KesterK]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kev

EE's network round here has been getting rather good hasn't it - 4G data now works reliably for streaming, just need VoLTE so that when the phone rings it doesn't go "No Signal"... Although that being said, those gaps are vanishing too - I've noticed the 2G signal is more reliable in places where it never used to work well before (including at home) - either that or 2G is now being prioritised above poor 3G? IME It's either 4G or Edge nowadays.

Hopfully Barclays adding Apple Pay means they will be on Android Pay soon after launch too...

Barclays have said they won't be joining Android Pay.

http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-...the-uk-1317629

[Cloudane]

E: Will ask in t'other thread

[mrMick]

Quote:

Originally Posted by red_snow

I'm not sure if there is a lot of tweaking and testing going on at the moment but EE are certainly not winning any reliability contests around here at the moment. I'm getting seriously poor handover performance between masts at the moment ........ a LOT of dropped calls.

Today I was trying to watch my signal as I was on a call. It was on H with no bars when the call dropped. I then observed IMMEDIATELY there was a 3 bar H+ signal and I was able to redial. This has happened quite a lot recently in 3 independent locations!

I have to say that this call performance is poor and very frustrating :-/

Yeah, just had a couple of dropped calls here too. First time for ages. GF's iPhone simply said "Use WiFi Call" apparently. No such luxury for me, my phone isn't compatible and neither is BT Mobile lol

[Broken Hope]

With BT owning EE now, you'd hope BT would gain Wifi calling and VoLTE.

You'd also hope that EE data allowances would end up similar to BT also but I can see it going the other way and BT ending up more expensive with less data.

[mrMick]

It'll all happen. Eventually. Just a matter of biding your time I guess.

[bookey_uk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by packages

Why do you think EE have dropped all the Root Metrics accolades now? Three beat them for reliability. Haven't had any problems with calls dropping though for a long time although I'm not the biggest caller.

We have not dropped RootMetrics, we have just used Ookla / Speedtest for the top claim.

[Broken Hope]

Whilst you're here Bookey, any info or hints on where VoLTE is rolling out next?

[Aye Up]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KesterK

Barclays have said they won't be joining Android Pay.

http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-...the-uk-1317629

Not true, currently being tested internally by staff and a very limited number of customers. Just like Apple pay, they are going to be taking their time with it (for no reason really), it will launch, just there is no fixed date. Seeing how Apple Pay develops will dictate the speed at which Barclays supports Android Pay.

Both platforms have been in testing for a while, Apple Pay more so. Barclays knows the future of contactless payments will encompass mobiles as well as individual debit or credit cards, it will happen eventually. I should add the way it works presently its a bit iffy and payments don't always complete, needing a referral back to the trusted plastic. There are still some kinks to work through, don't expect it to launch until the back end of this year at the very earliest

[KesterK]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aye Up

Not true, currently being tested internally by staff and a very limited number of customers. Just like Apple pay, they are going to be taking their time with it (for no reason really), it will launch, just there is no fixed date. Seeing how Apple Pay develops will dictate the speed at which Barclays supports Android Pay.

Both platforms have been in testing for a while, Apple Pay more so. Barclays knows the future of contactless payments will encompass mobiles as well as individual debit or credit cards, it will happen eventually. I should add the way it works presently its a bit iffy and payments don't always complete, needing a referral back to the trusted plastic. There are still some kinks to work through, don't expect it to launch until the back end of this year at the very earliest

Ah ok, was just going by what I read.

[The Lord Lucan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by red_snow

Ah OK, says it all really. I've tried the main 4 and IIRC Three and perhaps O2 in my experience seemed to be the best for call reliability

Seems Three are also moving well ahead with VoLTE and 800MHz using TinT and VF\O2 are catching up big time with 4G.

I hope my gamble upgrade to stay with EE does not end up biting me!!!

Not sure how you come to that conclusion. EE's VOLTE is on all frequencies. Threes only on one. EE have by far the biggest roll out of 4G nationally and that's using exclusively 1800, not 800. It may seem like in some places the others are catching up but in reality it is a false sense of security for them as EE is yet to activate 800 nationally. The jump in coverage when that happens will be huge over the others.

The issue is they have the most 4G users and generally the most costly tariffs so changes only happen when they are perfect. Threes VOLTE was and still is a horrific car crash.

[The Lord Lucan]

Barclays are embracing both Android and Apple Pay. They just had not tested it very deeply as they genuinely thought they had a better product... Now playing catch up.