I've noticed that a lot regarding power levels on Three.

Why don't they just ramp them up??

In reply to a post by wolvesmad:

EE 2G on Three is still very much available.

Only in very limited areas sadly, and I think only old Orange masts, not the former T-Mobile masts.

Around here all the Orange only masts have been turned off, but we never had any Orange 2G fallback.

I'm in a Three / EE 4G area and when I go deep inside the building at work it drops back to 2G (no data).

Maybe I am one of the lucky ones. Shame they don't provide GPRS and Edge on 2G.

In reply to a post by wolvesmad:

I'm in a Three / EE 4G area and when I go deep inside the building at work it drops back to 2G (no data). Maybe I am one of the lucky ones. Shame they don't provide GPRS and Edge on 2G.

That is surprising.

In Hampshire and Sussex the old 2G fallback has been removed, so indoors I sometimes lose 3G signal on my Moto G.

However in my customer site in Scotland there is only low signal Three 3G by the main road, as soon as you go into the car park it vanishes, but 2G appears with no data. Here EE has 2G only with GPRS. Its very remote

Wish they did , I can get O2 3G in all the black spots for 3 in this area.

In reply to a post by furman:

I just called O2 for my PAC code so that I could switch to sim only on three for £18pm 12month contact. I was told that Three use O2 for 4g and O2 get priority on usage

Enjoy having practically no 4G coverage then. Because if that was true, how come Three have 4G coverage in an awful lot of places whereas O2 has coverage in barely any places. It's the biggest load of rubbish since the Amstrad E-Mailer.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

EE are part of a network called MBNL which is a joint venture between EE and 3. This DOES NOT mean that EE and 3 have the same reception, they do not. It simply means that 3 often put their transmitters on the same physical mast that EE will also use. Often EE will be 10 metres higher up on that mast, with 4 transmitters pointing in all directions whereas 3 will be 10 metres lower, with just the 1 transmitter on that mast. ALSO you often find that EE have an output power of 30+ db whereas 3 are only outputting at 18db. So generally this is why EE has better coverage than 3. YES sharing same physical masts. Very different setups. It can work the other way around of course.

That's also an amusing but not accurate report. They have a RAN sharing agreement through MBNL - Three are not consistently given second best compared to EE, it's an equal venture and they both benefit mutually.

And while we're at it, they *ALSO* share 4G as well in a large number of areas - the deal was expanded. Just to clear up the other nonsense.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

So those that say we only really have 2 networks are wrong. Plenty of people nowadays are saying EE and 3 signal will mirror one another and o2 and vodafone will also. Not true

Exactly. The fact that the two MBNL 3G networks have a lot of sharing going on doesn't mean they are the same, and for 4G they're both a lot different. The two Cornerstone networks are quite different for both 3G and 4G, and its really just a physical site share.

It's significantly more complex than people like to make out.

For 4G, they share masts, backhaul etc - very sensible as the latter will be expensive as usage is drive upwards, but they install the antennas, equipment and so on independently - effectively think of it as them sharing the "connectivity" to the site - whereas they connect up whatever they want after that. There is thus in the 4G share potential for "different heights" although there is more to the theory on height vs coverage than has been made out. This is less cost effective, but means they have more freedom.

For 3G, they share base stations and antennas. - so the theory that three are located below at a lower output is total rubbish because they have the same ones - and they share spectrum, and so on as part of that - saves lots more money but means both networks effectively have to work with each other very closely.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Three is slowest to roll out 4G. I find Three 3G to be easily twice as good as O2 3G but that is outside London. Never seen any O2 4G outside the M25. In the longer term O2 has the least spectrum but most users, so will probably have slowest 4G.

Have you looked at coverage maps recently? In the real world, EE has got the largest coverage (they had a big head start), Three have the next biggest coverage, O2 and Vodafone are so far behind it is laughable.

O2 however should have wide coverage soon enough (speeds another matter) because it has an obligation to do so.