2G on EE is via the 1800MHz spectrum, you might be getting confused with Vodafone/O2 who use 900MHz for 2G.

EE 800MHz will be used for 4G, and only 4G - they don't have enough spectrum to use it for more than one technology, plus there's hardly any phones that support 2G800.

2G1800 is at it's highest power. 4G1800 is not. 4G800 is not (and is not live to most users yet). 4G800, on higher power (when fully released), will give much better coverage than 4G1800 and even 2G1800. In time, 4G1800 will match the current 2G1800 power levels, but there's only two ways of getting more coverage than current 2G1800: build more sites, or use 4G800 (when on full power).

I see, so the hope is that by adding 4G 800Mhz to more sites they can improve the coverage? But they'd have to increase the power also.


Haha, maybe more help to explain the "no" bit. I was indeed thinking of O2/Voda 900Mhz.

Any idea where that mast on the M3 from Southampton to London is?

4G800 should be added to the vast majority of rural sites, and quite possibly some urban sites too where indoor coverage is an issue. Don't know whether L08 (LTE @ 800) will be put on all masts though.

L08 is currently at a lower power, but when it is fully launched to the public, at its higher power, it will have more coverage than L18 and even G18 (GSM @ 1800).

Yeah, I thought that you were confusing EE with Vod/O2 G09. Vod/O2's G09 travels further than G18 but usually this means that masts are spaced further apart (though not in all cases).

Good stuff. It'll be interesting to hear how you like it in the longer term. How's the cell reception in comparison to the Honor?

From what I have seen most main town masts are getting 800 so coverage is going to be a bit mental generally.

You can't compare power levels between 1800 and 800.
Basically it's like this.
2G1800 as Beans said is the current highest power.
4G1800 will one day be brought up to the same power level as 2G1800 but because LTE is a more robust technology it will still go slightly further than 2G1800.
800 won't actually be running at as high a power as 1800 (hence why I said comparing them is pointless) but because it is a way lower frequency is will still go approximately 30% further from a given mast than 4G1800.

4G1800 and 4G800 currently both on low power and now 4G+ 800+1800 carrier aggregated being rolled out. At some point the 800 will be cranked up. Get ready when they unleash that bad boy. : )

As above, from what I can see, most towns will have at least one 800 site.
There are a lot of towns here with only one main serving site. Nearly all of them have active 800 now.
EDIT: Makes sense. EEs main bugbear has always been poorer indoor. By sticking just one or two well placed 800 masts in a town, you fix that problem for good.

I wonder if the 6 months of Apple Music and 6 months of BT Sport are offers every new customer/upgrade gets? Quite a good double offer if so:
https://shop.ee.co.uk/comingsoon/apple-music

Not really been out and about yet but seems pretty good. Didn't have EE on the Honor so can only compare to 3 and that's tricky as EE have more 4G here than 3 currently.

I wish EE would add it in for more than 6 months. They'd have a real Vodafone competitor then.

Personally I hate these short deals which rely on the customer not bothering to cancel. Of course you know what you are signing up for and it gives you a chance to try but relying on inertia just seems a bit cynical. Typical BT technique.

As much as I agree they should do it properly or not at all, when I'm buying a phone contract these extras shouldn't be seen as making a real competitor, that should be made with the primary focus, viz. the network and maybe the offering of phones.

I do think there is an increasing market for a cheaper contract without all the bells and whistles for the person who just wants calls, texts and data nothing more a network.

EE's strategy with BT Sport made some sense in that it was leveraging internal assets but this is external so they're clearly paying money for this. Clearly they must have some research which says this is a good way to get customers. (A personal tip of mine to EE would be ditch Bacon and start advertising properly - o2 I think has a very powerful brand for example)

I notice that there have been no 100GB sims for a while now, I suspect it has ended now they are BT? I wonder if they will ever repeat?

Vodafone have good branding as well IMO.

Side by side with the iPhone 4, the SE appears to pull in a better signal most of the time. In marginal areas, it's more likely to be showing a single bar where the 4 will have no service. Nice to have wifi calling too everywhere around the house / barns. I don't have any friends apart from my chickens and the dog so nobody is going to call me but it's nice all the same.

Off topic, it's a lovely little phone, perfect size for me and nice and snappy with all the cool bits like Pay etc. I think I'm going to like it. Off to take a photo of a Splash Marans cockerel. I hope he appreciated the technology.

I get the idea that they were more of a test to see what people would do with 100GB of data and how much they'd actually use.

Not as good as O2.

Vodafone has issues that if you live in an area which hasn't been touched yet, then you end up with no data at all. This makes modern apps such as WhatsApp unusable. My town (Farnborough) was like this in 2013/2014 and early 2015 as the upgrades for 4G arrived the 3G was also fixed.

O2 always worked but it was very slow. Tmobile and Orange (then EE) always worked, and Three worked if you had signal. Vodafone had signal, voice calls were great, but data didn't exist. Forum members in the south west of the UK report its pretty much that experience on Vodafone today.

Lets hope the extra few £bn that Vodafone UK have obtained from the Group will solve this finally...

I was going though my local town of Saffron Walden very early this morning. I noticed that my G5 was showing 4G+. I quickly ran a speed test a d was very disappointed with the results. 38.00 down and 10.00 up. Ok for normal 4G but not what i was expecting from 4G+.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08...for_customers/

BT price rises? And they said blocking mergers would cause increased competition.

Competition doesn't mean lower prices. Especially when £bn's are being spent upgrading all the networks in the UK ; maybe BT/EE were the first to rise but I suspect they all will.

The UK population are demanding more and more from their phones, all these new masts and fibre backhaul (10 Gbit/sec) connections are EXPENSIVE and have to be paid for.

Before the push for 4G the UK had some very cheap mobile price plans but we had (and still have) some pretty poor networks compared to our European colleagues. This is what Olaf Swantee noticed in the EE 'manifesto' issued a couple of years ago. The plan is starting to show but there is a long way to go. (E.g. In car coverage on motorways).

I love how the argument changes depending on whether it's EE or Three under discussion. If Three had been putting prices up by so much there would be uproar. BT do it and it's to invest in the network and not related to giving them an easy ride competition wise.

If that's a comment to me then I think ALL 4 networks will put up prices, but Three have spent the least so far, on the spectrum auction and the speed of upgrades. They may be funding from standard cashflow rather than investment cash. Different RoI objectives to Vodafone, EE and O2 perhaps. (This of course is the EE thread, so talking about Three is a bit obtuse).

If you've got a much smaller user base sharing the spectrum maybe that's proportionate though, doesn't seem to be affecting customer growth.

Some of those EE price rises are quite big, 20% increase in voicemail charges, international calls up to 60% increase.

I'm so tempted. I really need to get off my @rse and go to the phone shop to get hold of one and see if I could deal with the screen-size reduction. I really like the idea of (a) a relatively future-proof iPhone, and (b) a small, but powerful phone.

I was really tempted but for the money, I could get a device with a much better radio and generally higher spec. Having said that I don't have a modern Apple device.