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


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Old 13-08-2016, 21:27
Stereo Steve
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Broadband with wi' nowt taken out.
I wish this forum had a like button.
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Old 13-08-2016, 21:35
jonmorris
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My costs for BT Infinity and EE mobile have actually gone down. The key is to negotiate a better deal at renewal times. It's the same with sky, haven't paid full price for years.
I'm paying £1 a month for EE broadband and paid the line rental up front to save even more, but I am yet to see how easy it will be to haggle to stop it going to £9.99 a month (plus rental) after the year.
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Old 13-08-2016, 21:58
lightspeed2398
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So BT is old gits who don't know better. EE is for the technically knowledgeable with money to spare and Plusnet is for 3 blokes in a bath going downhill fast while they reminisce about how good Hovis bread is.

I like it. Where do I buy shares in this? Oops, actually, just shorted them. Stops at 410, target 382.
the sad part is you're not too far off what BT say

BT
Premium, high quality
Trustworthy, reliable, credible,
British heritage
Family focused

Heartland: Home,fibre, family
EE
Innovative
Modern and up-to-date
Social and outgoing
Out of home and on the move

Heartland: On the go, mobile, personal
PlusNet
Honest, straight-talking
Playful
Yorkshire Charm
Value for money
Heartland: Home, broadband, value

P.S to all about data pricing

BT say they're going to 'Monetise our network advantage" with "data demand driving access fee growth", a "more for more" pricing strategy and the migration from non-4g legacy plans (16% of customers on a non-4g plan)

Also they point out the cross sell opportunity: "Focus on selling more broadband and TV to EE customers as well as other services"

On the network side 92% geographic coverage by September 2017
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Old 13-08-2016, 22:01
Thine Wonk
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How would less competition make this better sorry?
Ineffective competition isn't real competition, 3 big companies all battling it out would have been effective. Barriers to entry are so huge that there is only going to be 3 or four networks and they have to be able to take each other on and be challengers.

What we have is 1 giant who is the biggest UK telecoms outfit, loads of the supply chain sewn up, the engineering, the fibre network access, then you have the worlds biggest mobile outfit, then you have 2 others that aren't anywhere near as big, don't own fixed line, don't own fibre, aren't in such a privelleged position. BT being THE former state telecoms company and owning most of the fibre, 2 broadband companies, 2 mobile networks, 1 fixed line network and a TV service can literally do what they like now. They are having to be poked with a sharp stick by the government just to meet the broadband promises, which the government has been moaning at BT for years about. Voda also has fingers in so many pies (none of them particularly outstanding) and rests on it's laurels.

If you create a market saturated with such power, that is restricted to 4 entrants by licencing and regulation then you're going to drive prices up as the likes of BT don't have to cut margins to compete and aren't under any pressure to give the consumer the most attractive deals.
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Old 13-08-2016, 23:38
Stereo Steve
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Ineffective competition isn't real competition, 3 big companies all battling it out would have been effective. Barriers to entry are so huge that there is only going to be 3 or four networks and they have to be able to take each other on and be challengers.

What we have is 1 giant who is the biggest UK telecoms outfit, loads of the supply chain sewn up, the engineering, the fibre network access, then you have the worlds biggest mobile outfit, then you have 2 others that aren't anywhere near as big, don't own fixed line, don't own fibre, aren't in such a privelleged position. BT being THE former state telecoms company and owning most of the fibre, 2 broadband companies, 2 mobile networks, 1 fixed line network and a TV service can literally do what they like now. They are having to be poked with a sharp stick by the government just to meet the broadband promises, which the government has been moaning at BT for years about. Voda also has fingers in so many pies (none of them particularly outstanding) and rests on it's laurels.

If you create a market saturated with such power, that is restricted to 4 entrants by licencing and regulation then you're going to drive prices up as the likes of BT don't have to cut margins to compete and aren't under any pressure to give the consumer the most attractive deals.
I'm sure all is fine. BT have totally screwed up UK broadband rollout under the watchful eye of a tame government who probably valued brown envelopes over progress. Either that or they were complete morons. That latter is sadly, probably the truth. Now BT, unfettered by the govt, not punished and broken up / destroyed for ruining the UK broadband rollout has now been allowed to buy the biggest and best mobile network. Something they will now start to destroy with their own brand of toxic uselessness. Vodafone cannot compete as they are a bunch of arses who are 10 years behind the game, despite having paid out for the spectrum. O2 and 3 are screwed because they lack the basic spectrum to do so and the EU have, in it's wankish way, prevented them from becoming a serious force, backed by so many here who now face price rises from EE who have NO serious competition in the UK.

What a crock.

O2 and 3 should have been able to merge and form a decent network.

BT should never have been allowed to buy EE as they are a disgrace to the UK and all who sail in her.

So now what? Shhite sandwich. Brilliant.
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Old 14-08-2016, 01:03
jonmorris
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Is Shhite sandwich a new MVNO?
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Old 14-08-2016, 02:17
DevonBloke
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Yeah, their best value plan is 37 minutes, 3 texts and 79.4 Bytes of data for 200 quid a month........
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Old 14-08-2016, 10:38
beans0ntoast
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Yeah, their best value plan is 37 minutes, 3 texts and 79.4 Bytes of data for 200 quid a month........
With data speeds capped at 10 bytes per second, and nothing other than basic email (without attachments) allowed...

Seriously, why was BT allowed to buy EE, as this is the result... Ridiculous prices that make even £35 per month for 16gb data with no speed cap sound reasonable...

Seriously, the Essentials plans that Three are doing, and even their standard/advanced deals (including tethering and FaH) are much better value for money than these new EE deals, especially for the lower tariffs. Can't believe the £16.49 for 300MB data ripoff!
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Old 14-08-2016, 12:15
packages
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Fastest speed I've ever got yesterday, only using an iPhone 6 too.

131 down
44 up

In the Cotswolds
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Old 15-08-2016, 10:47
old bill2
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Just been using a EE sim in my unlocked G5. I was able to make calls over 4G. No problems what so ever.
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Old 15-08-2016, 11:33
Aye Up
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Ineffective competition isn't real competition, 3 big companies all battling it out would have been effective. Barriers to entry are so huge that there is only going to be 3 or four networks and they have to be able to take each other on and be challengers.

What we have is 1 giant who is the biggest UK telecoms outfit, loads of the supply chain sewn up, the engineering, the fibre network access, then you have the worlds biggest mobile outfit, then you have 2 others that aren't anywhere near as big, don't own fixed line, don't own fibre, aren't in such a privelleged position. BT being THE former state telecoms company and owning most of the fibre, 2 broadband companies, 2 mobile networks, 1 fixed line network and a TV service can literally do what they like now. They are having to be poked with a sharp stick by the government just to meet the broadband promises, which the government has been moaning at BT for years about. Voda also has fingers in so many pies (none of them particularly outstanding) and rests on it's laurels.

If you create a market saturated with such power, that is restricted to 4 entrants by licencing and regulation then you're going to drive prices up as the likes of BT don't have to cut margins to compete and aren't under any pressure to give the consumer the most attractive deals.
I'm sure all is fine. BT have totally screwed up UK broadband rollout under the watchful eye of a tame government who probably valued brown envelopes over progress. Either that or they were complete morons. That latter is sadly, probably the truth. Now BT, unfettered by the govt, not punished and broken up / destroyed for ruining the UK broadband rollout has now been allowed to buy the biggest and best mobile network. Something they will now start to destroy with their own brand of toxic uselessness. Vodafone cannot compete as they are a bunch of arses who are 10 years behind the game, despite having paid out for the spectrum. O2 and 3 are screwed because they lack the basic spectrum to do so and the EU have, in it's wankish way, prevented them from becoming a serious force, backed by so many here who now face price rises from EE who have NO serious competition in the UK.

What a crock.

O2 and 3 should have been able to merge and form a decent network.

BT should never have been allowed to buy EE as they are a disgrace to the UK and all who sail in her.

So now what? Shhite sandwich. Brilliant.
You two really are whinging grumpy bastards?

Heaven help you should ever work in telecoms or regulatory industries, neither of you have a clue how to crack an egg.
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Old 15-08-2016, 13:37
Stereo Steve
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You two really are whinging grumpy bastards?

Heaven help you should ever work in telecoms or regulatory industries, neither of you have a clue how to crack an egg.
Easy to say when you aren't sitting in a place with sub 2mb ADSL (if you are lucky), brand new fibre along the main road a mile away and NO plans to send it down to us. Then we have mobile coverage. 3 and EE are very good but don't work in many houses around here, hamstrung by high frequencies (slowly changing and this is our best hope). VO2 haven't bothered aside from O2 rolling out some token 3G900 which simply doesn't work.

When you run a business which is internet based as I do it can get slightly frustrating when things are the same as they were 10 years ago.

Funnily enough eggs form a major part of my business and I have cracked plenty. BT have just crapped an egg and it's rotten. The thing which makes people furious is that BT hold the keys to their ADSL and nobody ever does anything even if other firms want to. Now we are on the very brink of EE rolling out 800 and possibly FINALLY getting us serious voice and data capabilities in our homes and gardens and bloody BT have bought the thing and ramped up the prices. Marvelous.

Then every time it comes up as an issue, some ******** will suggest we get Sat broadband instead.
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Old 15-08-2016, 14:01
meirion_jones1
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Easy to say when you aren't sitting in a place with sub 2mb ADSL (if you are lucky), brand new fibre along the main road a mile away and NO plans to send it down to us. Then we have mobile coverage. 3 and EE are very good but don't work in many houses around here, hamstrung by high frequencies (slowly changing and this is our best hope). VO2 haven't bothered aside from O2 rolling out some token 3G900 which simply doesn't work.

When you run a business which is internet based as I do it can get slightly frustrating when things are the same as they were 10 years ago.

Funnily enough eggs form a major part of my business and I have cracked plenty. BT have just crapped an egg and it's rotten. The thing which makes people furious is that BT hold the keys to their ADSL and nobody ever does anything even if other firms want to. Now we are on the very brink of EE rolling out 800 and possibly FINALLY getting us serious voice and data capabilities in our homes and gardens and bloody BT have bought the thing and ramped up the prices. Marvelous.

Then every time it comes up as an issue, some ******** will suggest we get Sat broadband instead.
Couldn't have put it better - Some parts of the uk haven't seen any advances in 10 years and a lot of the blame lies on the government and BT.

Living in rural Snowdonia I was also exited by the thought of 4g800 to boost coverage. However BT Infinity rollout is 2 years late in my area and still no sight of it , so we wont see any 4g upgrade until thats sorted.

Its so frustrating !
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Old 15-08-2016, 15:45
CheshireBumpkin
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Easy to say when you aren't sitting in a place with sub 2mb ADSL (if you are lucky), brand new fibre along the main road a mile away and NO plans to send it down to us. Then we have mobile coverage. 3 and EE are very good but don't work in many houses around here, hamstrung by high frequencies (slowly changing and this is our best hope). VO2 haven't bothered aside from O2 rolling out some token 3G900 which simply doesn't work.

When you run a business which is internet based as I do it can get slightly frustrating when things are the same as they were 10 years ago.

Funnily enough eggs form a major part of my business and I have cracked plenty. BT have just crapped an egg and it's rotten. The thing which makes people furious is that BT hold the keys to their ADSL and nobody ever does anything even if other firms want to. Now we are on the very brink of EE rolling out 800 and possibly FINALLY getting us serious voice and data capabilities in our homes and gardens and bloody BT have bought the thing and ramped up the prices. Marvelous.

Then every time it comes up as an issue, some ******** will suggest we get Sat broadband instead.
Pretty much describes the situation here too. Except EE and 3 are not very good at all, inside or out, if you're just using a standard phone handset.
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Old 15-08-2016, 16:13
jonmorris
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And for me. Almost every cabinet in the town has had FTTC broadband since 2012. But my cabinet missed out because BT lost paperwork that gave permission to run fibre over a bit of private road.

After FOUR years they've now bothered to go through the process to kickstart the running of the fibre, and now I have a date of June 2017 - exactly FIVE years late! It's, frankly, pathetic.

The worst bit is that in all that time, myself, my MP, local councillor, my contacts within BT's press office, and other residents ALL failed to get any indication of what was going on. BT Openreach pretty much every time just redirected us all to their website - which of course gave no information at all because the dates always slipped and eventually they just changed the dates to 'coming soon'. Well, that was helpful.
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Old 15-08-2016, 16:28
moox
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I'm the odd one out here - I do have FTTC - but as I've said on here before, I fundamentally disagree with BT's decision to use such an obsolete technology (obsolete from the day it's first installed, getting steadily more useless as time goes on, already useless if you live too far from the cabient).

I certainly don't expect an upgrade unless the taxpayer shovels yet more money at BT (meanwhile, in the FTTP areas, they can keep increasing speeds at a flick of a switch)

Classic shortsightedness. That said, the government isn't much better, with their then target of a measly 2Mbps minimum speed. That was rubbish back then and it's even worse today
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Old 15-08-2016, 16:55
Stereo Steve
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I've got FTTC as well on my cab. Problem is it's 7km away in the middle of town so really not much use to me. There is a small settlement up on the main road of maybe 20 properties, about a mile from me. New fibre runs directly past it, within feet. A cab there would not only serve them but at least I think another 30 properties that I can count who currently struggle with little or no broadband. In 2016 FFS. Or just fibre us up.

Of course FTTC is a bodge, as is Gfast and this other crap BT dream up. It's an expensive sticking plaster which will need sorting later at more expense. But I would take it right now.

We can run fibre of power lines these days so why not? I've got 11va going right over my house.

The problem is that BT seem to have some seriously tame politicians in any government who do as they are told. It's national corruption and they need to be stopped.

It makes me sick that they have been allowed to buy EE which really all started with the disruptive promise of digital comms and per-second billing (remember that?). Now BT have got it and they will ruin it. Just a matter of time.

10 years from now, EE will probably be the worst, most backward looking network in the UK and that is very sad after all the work that has gone in.
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Old 15-08-2016, 18:32
ozz
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Only seeing improvements. Plenty of 4G coverage now around Hunstanton, faster speeds here than at home with BT Infinity. Very impressed.
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Old 15-08-2016, 18:44
Stereo Steve
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I should add that most of us poor gits out here who have barely usable DSL and next to no sensible mobile coverage are paying council tax bills that will make your average town dweller's spleen implode. For what? Bins picked up if we are lucky. And? ......Erm.
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Old 15-08-2016, 19:37
Minardi
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Easy to say when you aren't sitting in a place with sub 2mb ADSL (if you are lucky), brand new fibre along the main road a mile away and NO plans to send it down to us. Then we have mobile coverage. 3 and EE are very good but don't work in many houses around here, hamstrung by high frequencies (slowly changing and this is our best hope). VO2 haven't bothered aside from O2 rolling out some token 3G900 which simply doesn't work.

When you run a business which is internet based as I do it can get slightly frustrating when things are the same as they were 10 years ago.

Funnily enough eggs form a major part of my business and I have cracked plenty. BT have just crapped an egg and it's rotten. The thing which makes people furious is that BT hold the keys to their ADSL and nobody ever does anything even if other firms want to. Now we are on the very brink of EE rolling out 800 and possibly FINALLY getting us serious voice and data capabilities in our homes and gardens and bloody BT have bought the thing and ramped up the prices. Marvelous.

Then every time it comes up as an issue, some ******** will suggest we get Sat broadband instead.
Couldn't agree more. As you posted below, about FTTC, we are in the same position. Cab is about 200m from the exchange, we are over 3km from it and it's not even worth bothering. Openreach have been over 4 months trying to fix my ADSL and they still haven't. It's currently working about 2 days in 7. EE are the only network with useable coverage here (congested down to 5Meg, wonder why!) and I'm currently reliant on it to run my business. What a frankly diabolical state to be in in 2016. BT were having to fight with EE's rollout, at least here, but now it's all the same what incentive is there?

As a final kicker, BT's main fibre backhaul runs across my ground....

I should add that most of us poor gits out here who have barely usable DSL and next to no sensible mobile coverage are paying council tax bills that will make your average town dweller's spleen implode. For what? Bins picked up if we are lucky. And? ......Erm.
Some roads that are barely driveable? Car pulled in our yard today, hit a pothole and deformed the wheel, could they leave it? From here there is no option but to drive, we spend vast amounts on fuel tax and yet the roads are never maintained. I had a two year fight with the council over one section of road trying to get it fixed. It was in an appauling state.

Anyway, we're getting OT....
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Old 15-08-2016, 20:03
Stereo Steve
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Couldn't agree more. As you posted below, about FTTC, we are in the same position. Cab is about 200m from the exchange, we are over 3km from it and it's not even worth bothering. Openreach have been over 4 months trying to fix my ADSL and they still haven't. It's currently working about 2 days in 7. EE are the only network with useable coverage here (congested down to 5Meg, wonder why!) and I'm currently reliant on it to run my business. What a frankly diabolical state to be in in 2016. BT were having to fight with EE's rollout, at least here, but now it's all the same what incentive is there?

As a final kicker, BT's main fibre backhaul runs across my ground....



Some roads that are barely driveable? Car pulled in our yard today, hit a pothole and deformed the wheel, could they leave it? From here there is no option but to drive, we spend vast amounts on fuel tax and yet the roads are never maintained. I had a two year fight with the council over one section of road trying to get it fixed. It was in an appauling state.

Anyway, we're getting OT....
Do you know how deep the backhaul is? Also, do you have a decent plough or even better a subsoiler you need to try out?
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Old 15-08-2016, 20:38
Minardi
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Do you know how deep the backhaul is? Also, do you have a decent plough or even better a subsoiler you need to try out?
Not that deep, the electric company dug through it putting our uprated 3 phase in a few years ago
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Old 15-08-2016, 21:24
Aye Up
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Funnily enough eggs form a major part of my business and I have cracked plenty. BT have just crapped an egg and it's rotten.
Damn it you got me there
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Old 15-08-2016, 22:18
beans0ntoast
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Only seeing improvements. Plenty of 4G coverage now around Hunstanton, faster speeds here than at home with BT Infinity. Very impressed.
Excellent, last time I was in Hunstanton, 4G was pretty much nonexistent and 3G was also weak, due to the antennas not being placed in optimal positions for covering the town.
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Old 15-08-2016, 22:51
ozz
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Excellent, last time I was in Hunstanton, 4G was pretty much nonexistent and 3G was also weak, due to the antennas not being placed in optimal positions for covering the town.
Indoor 4G coverage in Costa on the High Street. Think it's only just been activated as there isn't any coverage showing on the map yet.

Set my phone to 4G only from Stamford to Heacham, the only time the signal went and lost streaming radio was at Thorney. The mast at Thorney is a tall ex Orange mast which hasn't been touched yet.
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