Three to offer unlimited 4g at no extra cost

http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/03/threeuk-lte-price...

Must say I am impressed.

Now we just need Three to have indoor coverage...

Really think Three should change back to O2 as their fail-over network where they don't have coverage. Orange's 2G coverage is about the same as Three's own 3G coverage.

Haven't Three got rid of most (or even all) of the 2G fallback roaming now?

Clearly pricing is only part of the 4G mix - until coverage is available to test, it's impossible to judge which network comes out in the lead for your requirements. I expect Three will be bidding for some of the 800MHz Band V spectrum in the auction in an attempt to improve their in-building coverage.

Orange 2G fallback is still on in (east) Kent.

Yeah I really hope they get a good chunk of the 800Mhz band. Three need it more than O2 or Vodafone as they already have sub-1Ghz (900Mhz) for indoor coverage.

That is the problem it's about actual coverage over percieved.

I am on Three and my wife is on O2, both of us on 3G yet no matter where we go I get the better coverage on Three than she does with O2.

She is also annoyed with the constant drop outs she gets with O2.

So when her contract is up she is moving to Three.

In reply to a post by 5km:

Now we just need Three to have indoor coverage...

Really think Three should change back to O2 as their fail-over network where they don't have coverage. Orange's 2G coverage is about the same as Three's own 3G coverage.

Orange (now EE)'s 2G coverage is pretty good actually, its just Three turned off the fallback roaming after they'd spent a few billion upgrading the 3G network. Round here we get fantastic Orange and T-Mobile 2G service (1800mhz) and pretty awful O2 and Vodafone (900mhz). Probably because they had to build more transmitters in the 90s they did, and that's helped in the long run.

If Three launch LTE at the 1800mhz frequency (as EE have) this could be good for radio propagation as 1800 is much better than 2100.

The 800 and 2600 frequencies being auctioned at the moment will be interesting to watch as which handsets will support these.

Edited by jchamier (Mon 04-Feb-13 13:43:38)

All the LTE handsets with the exception of IP5 support all the 3 frequencies i.e 800, 1800 & 2600 Mhz

Edited by olisun (Tue 05-Feb-13 12:02:09)

It's an impressive statement and I suspect they made it to stop customers moving away in the short term to EE. By adding LTE handsets to their range in the next month they can also attract customers wanting 4G but not willing to pay EE's rather steep charges.

Having been on Three I also suffered the poor indoors coverage issue, and ended up moving to Giffgaff (O2). It would be nice if Three could gain some 800MHz spectrum to help but I thought LTE was a data-only carrier? Does anyone know if Three will be implementing VoLTE for voice calls? If not then the handset will fall-back to 3G to make/receive calls & texts which will be interesting in an area with data-only coverage. This could leave Three in the position where handsets are used purely for data with messaging via IM clients and VoIP for calls taking revenue away from Three.