Thought: how well will threes lte rollout go?

Unlike all the other networks three are offering LTE to all customers AND the iPhone 5 will be compatible with it (same as EE but you have to sign up for a new plan)

I imagine on day one there is going to be an awfully large amounts of phones going on to LTE. Are they going to gradually roll it out or not?

In reply to a post by mr_mojo:

Are they going to gradually roll it out or not?

Yes, city by city. I think Three's rollout will be a lot slower as they have the problem of no 2G fallback for voice - so you could end up in a situation where you have 4G data but no 3G voice in a building. I wonder if Three will launch with VoLTE enabled.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Yes, city by city. I think Three's rollout will be a lot slower as they have the problem of no 2G fallback for voice - so you could end up in a situation where you have 4G data but no 3G voice in a building. I wonder if Three will launch with VoLTE enabled.

Did you mean 3G fallback for Voice rather than 2G ? I can't think why they would want to fallback to 2G rather than 3G ?

While they might launch with Volte it's not going to be an immediate solution to the above as there are no handset's that support VoLTE yet. VoLTE also requires a new IMS core network which given 3's attitude to 4G so far as a simple speed increase I doubt they have plans for yet.

In reply to a post by alanframe:

Did you mean 3G fallback for Voice rather than 2G ? I can't think why they would want to fallback to 2G rather than 3G ?

Take EE as an example, their 4G and 2G are both at 1800mhz, so they are both likely to have the same in-building coverage. Three only have 1800mhz for 4G, and 2100mhz for 3G, so this is where the in-building problem might occur.

While they might launch with Volte it's not going to be an immediate solution to the above as there are no handset's that support VoLTE yet. VoLTE also requires a new IMS core network which given 3's attitude to 4G so far as a simple speed increase I doubt they have plans for yet.

I thought Qualcomm's baseband all supported VoLTE today, it was the networks that weren't ready.

In reply to a post by pcoventry76:

3 have 2 chunks of 800mhz too.

It will be interesting to see if they use this for the initial roll out. EE seem to be waiting to use this, maybe in cities, but 1800 is all they're rolling out so far. Maybe because they have so much 1800 spectrum they can do the 2 x 20mhz which the others can't until aggregation comes in (LTE-advanced).

Yes, obviously it's city by city. But three might have 250,000+ LTE enabled devices in London (a guess, but assuming that 10million people will be covered by the London rollout, it's not hard to think between all the iPhone 5, 5C and 5S plus various android/windows phones).

That's a hell of a lot of people to support on day one - especially if they only enable macrocells like EE, O2 and vodafone to start... Can't see the network holding up well at all (especially in train stations).

Interesting point but three only generally have 3G enabled with no fallback in urban areas. The only time I see 2G is when I'm out in the sticks on a train. I don't think any of the lte cities will have a 2g fallback enabled.

Do phones display or have a state available for showing data coverage with no voice?

In reply to a post by mr_mojo:

Interesting point but three only generally have 3G enabled with no fallback in urban areas. The only time I see 2G is when I'm out in the sticks on a train. I don't think any of the lte cities will have a 2g fallback enabled.

No, I don't see three enabling any 2G sites, that would be a backwards step for them.

Do phones display or have a state available for showing data coverage with no voice?

No, they all currently use circuit switched fall back to jump from LTE to 3G or 2G automatically and transparently.

As Three don't have any 2G, and 3G in building penetration is lower, this *could* be why they are last to roll out.

It would be interesting having someone with a good 4G signal, being unable to make a call

Edited by deleted (Mon 14-Oct-13 20:06:41)