3G getting unusable in London

[Mr Will]

Spyder5 said:

Mr Will said:

3G masts are being taken down and replaced by 4G ones, resulting in congestion on the remaining masts. Not a lot you can do about it except upgrade to a 4G phone really

Don't make stuff up, not a single 3G site has be lost during the 4G upgrade process.

This was discussed before, see my comments http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

Only repeating what I've been told, but it certainly seems to be the 4G rollout that has hammered the 3G signal here for one reason or another.

[Spyder5]

PF62 said:

Spyder5 said:

Don't make stuff up, not a single 3G site has be lost during the 4G upgrade process.

Maybe, but EE certainly shut down a lot of sites as part of the Orange /T-Mobile merger, changing a very good service into one that is utter pants.

That wasn't the 4G roll out though was it - that was a good 12 months before they started to upgrade sites to 4G. To be fair though, the Orange and T-mobile sites were so close together that if they had kept them all they would have had real issues in controlling the traffic because of overlapping cells.

'3' sites were the ones they generally got rid of because the rent was ludicrous and the sites were very insignificant in terms of infrastructure.

The biggest problem they have is capacity - there is a limited number of things a base station can do and the number of smartphones and other devices using data has rocketed way beyond anyones imagination.

I was using a 3G phone in 2003 when '3' launched there network - they were charging £65 a month then, and although the data speed was good you couldn't do anything with it and the phone died in under 6 hours! Ah, happy days....

Mr Will said:

Spyder5 said:

Mr Will said:

3G masts are being taken down and replaced by 4G ones, resulting in congestion on the remaining masts. Not a lot you can do about it except upgrade to a 4G phone really

Don't make stuff up, not a single 3G site has be lost during the 4G upgrade process.

This was discussed before, see my comments http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

Only repeating what I've been told, but it certainly seems to be the 4G rollout that has hammered the 3G signal here for one reason or another.

If you read my post it explains quite clearly why. This problem still exists and the amount of money Vodafone and O2 are throwing at it is epic. EE aren't really working on their 3G networks and perhaps aren't that bothered, but are working on improving voice capacity and a second tier of 4G.

I think that eventually only using 3G for High(ish) speed data will become obsolete as the networks find other ways to spread the load.

Where I live in i'm lucky to be able to send a text - never had 3G and probably won't. Owning an iPhone in rural Britain is a complete waste of time!

Edited by Spyder5 on Tuesday 7th October 20:23

[boxst]

papercup said:

So does this mean that if I stay with Vodafone and go to their 4G service, I'll actually get a connection?

Was just about to leave them for EE as whenever I don't get a connection [in Brighton] my girlfriend's 4G EE phone works perfectly. Every time.

Spoke to Voda yesterday about leaving and they admitted they were losing A LOT of customers because of the 3G connections, missed calls, straight to voicemail, hearing my own voice on the line on virtually all calls, etc etc

That was the case for me as I mentioned a few posts ago (I swapped to the iPhone 6 that has a compatible 4G frequency). However, my daughter has EE and she gets a faster and stronger signal than vodafone almost everywhere.

(I have Vodafone for work and no choice)