In reply to a post by adamtemp:

More masts at 1800mhz due to its poor in building penetration / range o2 and voda 900mhz travels further and penetrartes buildings better hence the 800mhz 4g is even better for in building penetration

That's the theory, but nobody has seen if its the same in real world yet. I can't wait for some real third party tests

In reply to a post by adamtemp:

More masts at 1800mhz due to its poor in building penetration / range o2 and voda 900mhz travels further and penetrartes buildings better hence the 800mhz 4g is even better for in building penetration

the former is better?

a mast that penetrates more means less masts which means higher contention ratio?

or do these high penetration masts somehow have higher bandwidth capacity?

You need both.

1800Mhz will provide capacity for those near the mast and 800Mhz will provide indoor coverage and connectivity for those that are too far (or receive poor signal).

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

or do these high penetration masts somehow have higher bandwidth capacity?

Generally each 4G/LTE mast from any vendor will have a 1Gbps backhaul link, as I've read.

The networks with good capacity plans (EE and Vodafone) both have bought 800, 1800 and 2600mhz allocations to ensure they can make a good stab at capacity. Vodafone's majority of capacity will be at 800, and EE's at 1800, but they will both add the others for rural long reach and city capacity. You want the least number of users per sector on a mast.

The other two networks currently have paid less and received less, and will in the end (given shared load), have a slower network. That is assuming end users are spread relatively the same across all 4 networks and we know that never happens as marketing and personal judgement come in to play (I know people who say "I've always been on network xx but I never get 3G" when 2 other networks have 3G in their house, they just never knew).

Sorry I am a bit late to this thread...

Firstly I work for EE Corp. so my comments might be biased.

Speedtest in Trowell Services on the M1 Northbound yesterday
Double Speed area. Handset iPhone 5.
To a server selected based on ping by Speedtest.net app
DL - 77.72
UL - 19.80
Ping - 37ms

To your preferred server
DL - 63.68
UL - 18.36
Ping - 82ms

Edited by bookey (Thu 01-May-14 16:45:13)

77Mbps is not possible without using a bandwidth of 15Mhz+. I don't believe this result.

Perhaps you can answer what set up EE have:-

Are they using MIMO or SISO?
What bandwidth are "single speed" and "double speed" areas?

In Kent where I an able to test they are using 10Mhz bandwidth in a "single speed" area but this must only be SISO as the max is about 20Mbps throughput (10Mhz SISO is about 36Mbps max whereas 10Mhz MIMO would be about 72Mbps max).

I have O2 4g in Birmingham..... Coverage and speeds are [censored] and it's been here for sometime now and nothing has improved....

Vodafone however have brilliant coverage and EE have the best of both here

I would go with EE as they have licenses for all LTE Spectrums and widest coverage .... Also they where voted best network by root metrics

In reply to a post by 5km:

77Mbps is not possible without using a bandwidth of 15Mhz+. I don't believe this result.
It's 20Mhz, so it's valid.

Perhaps you can answer what set up EE have:-

Are they using MIMO or SISO?
There is no MIMO on the LTE side as yet.

What bandwidth are "single speed" and "double speed" areas?
Single = 10Mhz of 1800Mhz
Double = 20Mhz of 1800Mhz

In Kent where I an able to test they are using 10Mhz bandwidth in a "single speed" area but this must only be SISO as the max is about 20Mbps throughput (10Mhz SISO is about 36Mbps max whereas 10Mhz MIMO would be about 72Mbps max).

In reply to a post by bookey:

Speedtest in Trowell Services on the M1 Northbound yesterday
Double Speed area. Handset iPhone 5.
To a server selected based on ping by Speedtest.net app
DL - 77.72
UL - 19.80
Ping - 37ms

Wow at LHR airport in Dec I saw 62 Mbps DL and 18 UL on my 5s - in a 20mhz area.

In Farnborough, Hants, a 10mhz area, I've seen 45 Mbps at 1am, but normally get much lower than that, average 10Mbps, and I suspect the service is popular around here