Originally Posted by DevonBloke:
“I think they will, in time. If it's still on then it will eventually get the full EDGE/DC 3G/4G treatment.
We still have some Orange EDGE masts down here.
I do find that Tunein does drop out when passing those.
Being EDGE, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
So I think your general statement that "Tunein doesn't work on 2G" is a bit inaccurate.
It will mostly work on EDGE but not GPRS.
Mind you, I normally work best on edge too... lol
I think if EE put 4G 1800/2600/800 on every mast then the UK would be the envy of the world quite frankly.
It would be amazing!”
I remember you saying about your Orange EDGE masts
Most of the MBNL sites still use GPRS for 2G though, not EDGE - and on those sites, you won't get Tunein working at all.
Quite a few of the older Orange sites may have unusable EDGE (like you mentioned), some may just about work OK if you choose a low quality stream.
The newer upgraded 2G/3G/4G sites will have EDGE and generally work well.
But (on a slightly related topic) I tried Giffgaff's EDGE (running off O2) and that behaved pretty much exactly like what GPRS behaves like. It didn't work one bit.
So generally, until every mast gets EDGE as standard, that does 150-200k comfortably, my generalization remains - 2G and Tunein Radio don't get on with each other, and you'll be lucky to get it working.
4G1800/2600 on every mast would be awesome though - and if non VoLTE phones can get 800 for data (a bit like using Three InTouch, as an example) then coverage would be so awesome that we'd never see 2G again, let alone 3G.
Originally Posted by DevonBloke:
“Yeah but don't you think that A: most people don't really care as long as they can speak to the person the other end and B: Wouldn't it coax those still on legacy handsets to upgrade?”
Chances are, most people fall under category A - it's only people like me who are very observant with audio quality, that can really tell the difference. However, I can tell the difference between 2G and 3G calling - it was quite noticeable!
If my S4 didn't drop to 2G so aggressively, it wouldn't have been an issue - as I'd have taken whatever call quality I was given, and I'd always had 3G data (unless there was no 3G).
Originally Posted by DevonBloke:
“You say that like they thought it was a wise idea.
The fact is, most of these old 3G Orange masts were upgraded to 3G when hardly anyone had a 3G phone and at the time, maybe 2006 - 2008 down here for example the kit was only capable of 1.8 or 3.6Mbps.
You got a decent 2Mbps link most of the time and that was pretty cool back then.
Clearly if Orange had stayed orange then they would probably have been upgraded by now but the merger happened and for whatever reason, it was decided to leave the Orange upgrades to later on in the 4G rollout.
You will probably find it gets microwave first since capacity wise, at the moment, that is more than enough to cope depending on site location. Fibre will come because long term the entire network will get it.
A network only pays for the backhaul speed it needs. So you don't pay for 1Gbps if the site only needs 250Mbps. Here, fibre's main advantage is latency. Microwave is more than capable or handling the load.”
I see what you mean now - chances are, when 3G was first put on those Orange masts, it wouldn't have been HSPA 7.2/14.4/21.1 etc, meaning that the backhaul would have been fine then. If it was done in 2006 then most people would have still used 2G, as smartphones weren't about in that time. So 2Mbps would have been ok.
However, nowadays, with 3G being much faster nowadays than it was then, and 4G being rolled out, copper backhaul just can't cope anymore.
I don't know the order of upgrades - most of the masts around my area, that are MBNL 3G, have stayed 3G for quite a while - yet some of the Orange masts are getting upgraded straight to 4G (and MBNL 3G).
I do agree that micro may well be sufficient at the present time; however I was thinking more about future proofing the network. Fiber will definitely future proof the network, for if extra capacity is required later on down the line - meaning that backhaul wouldn't needed to be upgraded again.