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.

In reply to a post by olisun:

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

This is not true in the general case. The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 LTE can support each of those three bands, but no available variant supports all of them.

LTE handsets are immature at present - it will take a little while for multi-band handsets that support all the UK bands and have decent battery life to become available. This certainly will happen, in time.

In reply to a post by David_W:

In reply to a post by olisun:

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

This is not true in the general case. The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 LTE can support each of those three bands, but no available variant supports all of them.

LTE handsets are immature at present - it will take a little while for multi-band handsets that support all the UK bands and have decent battery life to become available. This certainly will happen, in time.

errr.. each product has variants which cater for different markets since different markets use different bands...

The EU versions of the LTE handsets support all 3 bands except IP5...

I am now tempted to get a new phone, my iPhone 4 is showing its age.

But what to get?

There is no phone that excites me, nothing with a must have feature. I'm unlikely to get an iPhone 5 unless I simply can't be bothered to get something different ... I know I'd be disappointed with the iPhone 5 as nothing has really changed that much.

I think if I changed from an iPhone to something else I'd miss AirPlay, don't use it much but really useful sometimes.

The Xperia Z looks good but not sure I'd want a 5" phone in my pocket. The 3.5" sereen on the iPhone 4 is big enough although not impressive any more when compared to an SIII for example.

Might be best to wait until Apple launch a NEW iPhone, something that isn't just a very slight adjustment of the previous one ... might be waiting some time for that though as Apple seem to be stuck in a no innovation hole at the moment.

Might have to wait until the year 3000 (and something) for Mom to launch the eyePhone...

In reply to a post by pcoventry76:

I get 5 bars indoors. Mind you I can see the cell from where I am sitting (about 100M away)

I have a T-Mobile mast about 60m away from me. My PAYG 3 MiFi (22meg HSPA+ model) gets about 7megabit on a good day. My iPhone 5 on T-Mobile SIM only contract gets between 13 and 19 megabit on what I'm assuming is DC-HSPA.

I'm waiting for DC-HSPA to roll out nationwide - will be a good fallback to LTE; and supported well by my Nexus 4

Edited by deleted (Thu 07-Feb-13 11:15:53)

In reply to a post by pcoventry76:

I forgot to say I did hit the 20 mark tethering via USB on my Iphone 5 the other day. I think that might have been a fluke as I've not see it since. But was happy with that

I can get 20meg download and 2.5meg upload at around 3am here on T-Mobile. I suspect everyone else is asleep

In reply to a post by pcoventry76:

In reply to a post by 5km:

I am now tempted to get a new phone, my iPhone 4 is showing its age.

But what to get?

There is no phone that excites me, nothing with a must have feature. I'm unlikely to get an iPhone 5 unless I simply can't be bothered to get something different ... I know I'd be disappointed with the iPhone 5 as nothing has really changed that much.

I was disappointed with the S3 so I sold it to get a 5. Happy with it.

Could never get my S3 and Ipad to talk - these 2 do ofcourse

I'd wait on MWC(mobile world conference) 25-28th of Feb and then samsungspissible S4 announcement after it...be good few phones due for release then

In reply to a post by jchamier:

I can get 20meg download and 2.5meg upload at around 3am here on T-Mobile. I suspect everyone else is asleep

I can get 3G+ T-Mobile at 3am, but often it stalls every few minutes, then won't connect until I re-insert the dongle.
WHY IS THAT ?

Luckily I can switch to Orange, but that's just 3G and quite slow.
Regards,
Martin

I regularly get over 25MB but tends to slow a lot in the evenings. I'm wondering if I am being traffic managed - I'm on the One Plan with Three.

You may be, but contention is likely in the evenings. There is only so much spectrum to go round (LTE will help with this)