In reply to a post by therioman:

Ignoring that you were simply impatient.

Hmmmm... Having a 4G smartphone for about 3 years whilst O2 constantly boast about their coverage and how they're expanding their 3G and 4G networks all the time does get to you eventually, when you live in an ever-expanding town with a compact population of about 10,000+ people and there's nothing but 2G and not-spots for miles around. That's changed now, but again, we are about halfway through 2016.

When I knew the upgrade of the base station was happening, I simply thought it was bizarre that I was getting an EDGE signal, as opposed to GPRS, for about a week... and then suddenly I woke up to find I was getting 4G. I actually expected a day or two of downtime whilst they worked on the mast, and was happy to have that even if I only got 3G afterwards.

But Again, cheers to the earlier posters for linking me to the hardware details, etc.

Edited by deleted (Fri 27-May-16 02:02:18)

In reply to a post by gazzyk1ns:

In reply to a post by therioman:

Ignoring that you were simply impatient.

Hmmmm... Having a 4G smartphone for about 3 years whilst O2 constantly boast about their coverage and how they're expanding their 3G and 4G networks all the time does get to you eventually, when you live in an ever-expanding town with a compact population of about 10,000+ people and there's nothing but 2G and not-spots for miles around. That's changed now, but again, we are about halfway through 2016.

When I knew the upgrade of the base station was happening, I simply thought it was bizarre that I was getting an EDGE signal, as opposed to GPRS, for about a week... and then suddenly I woke up to find I was getting 4G. I actually expected a day or two of downtime whilst they worked on the mast, and was happy to have that even if I only got 3G afterwards.

But Again, cheers to the earlier posters for linking me to the hardware details, etc.

It's possible you were getting EDGE/GPRS service from a different mast whilst your nearest was being worked on - generally speaking 2G services and frequencies travel further (it's not quite that simple, but a basic rule).

It may also be, and quite possibly was that they restored basic 2G service whilst setting up the rest (adding new frequencies means configuring to work alongside other neighbouring ones, whereas your 2G service already existed so could be recommissioned as/was once the kit was swapped.

Setting up a radio access network like this is a bit more involved than putting on a wireless unit in a home - although people often think you just connect and go, the reality is considerably more involved.

It's much the same with wifi actually if you have to do it at any scale, but that's another story entirely.

Edited by therioman (Fri 27-May-16 10:03:44)

I don't *think* I am close enough (or rather... there's a hill in the way) to receive a signal from another mast. But I take your point, and you could be right.

I think, though, that the likely answer has already been mentioned - they installed new equipment at the mast but didn't switch 3/4G on for a few days, because they were sorting out the backhaul. I hadn't though of that before, but it makes complete sense.

leegx and WWWombat said that on page 1, so blame them if you think that's impossible

I wish I could edit my thread-starting post with a note at the top saying that the problem is solved, but I can't because the maximum edit-time has expired. I posted that during the period of EDGE, and wrongly bad-mouthed O2 because I thought the upgrade was totally complete. Ever since I wrote the post beginning "Seems like I spoke too soon...", I've had a solid 4G signal.

Edited by deleted (Sat 28-May-16 22:11:25)

Do a reply to the opening post saying something similar, and alter the Subject to whatever you feel is appropriate.

People using Threaded Mode will see it immediately, and Flat Mode it just makes what you just said more obvious.

Re pages, I have 99 headings per page with Collapsed Threads and 99 posts per page, in Flat Mode . This thread is still on page 1 for me .

Pages get on my nerves.

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 28-May-16 22:55:35)

I mean you can read the whole thread if you like, but there isn't any point. Mast upgrade>backhaul upgrade delay, probably. That's the answer.

In reply to a post by therioman:

In reply to a post by gazzyk1ns:

In reply to a post by therioman:

Ignoring that you were simply impatient.

Hmmmm... Having a 4G smartphone for about 3 years whilst O2 constantly boast about their coverage and how they're expanding their 3G and 4G networks all the time does get to you eventually, when you live in an ever-expanding town with a compact population of about 10,000+ people and there's nothing but 2G and not-spots for miles around. That's changed now, but again, we are about halfway through 2016.

When I knew the upgrade of the base station was happening, I simply thought it was bizarre that I was getting an EDGE signal, as opposed to GPRS, for about a week... and then suddenly I woke up to find I was getting 4G. I actually expected a day or two of downtime whilst they worked on the mast, and was happy to have that even if I only got 3G afterwards.

But Again, cheers to the earlier posters for linking me to the hardware details, etc.

It's possible you were getting EDGE/GPRS service from a different mast whilst your nearest was being worked on - generally speaking 2G services and frequencies travel further (it's not quite that simple, but a basic rule).

It may also be, and quite possibly was that they restored basic 2G service whilst setting up the rest (adding new frequencies means configuring to work alongside other neighbouring ones, whereas your 2G service already existed so could be recommissioned as/was once the kit was swapped.

Setting up a radio access network like this is a bit more involved than putting on a wireless unit in a home - although people often think you just connect and go, the reality is considerably more involved.

It's much the same with wifi actually if you have to do it at any scale, but that's another story entirely.

(o the page thing i have mine set to something like 30 per page i don't like threaded{this is not usenet} and i also don't like 5-10 posts per page as well, i am still on one page)

if the mast is covering a large enough area on its own its very likely they would restore 2g first (there are some key main masts that only cover the area loss of them masts would wipe out the coverage for whole area so would restore 2g as fast as they can and do 3g/4g later on in most cases is under 48 hours)

from what i have found O2/(Mast company they pay to maintain them) can norm do the job in very short time if the cells themselves don't need touching under 2 hours, if they do upto 48 hours at best (in my case they allowed normal devices to connect dead on midnight when they added 4G to it) the local site was done and dusted ion 2 hours but they did not enable mast association until midnight (all services as well as new 4G)

another site they did on the back of my works car park they did it under 5 hours (that was full 8 cells replaced with a crane and all the hardware in the base station and live 4G before 5pm)

it be nice if O2 would place a mast on top of main shopping centre in warrington like EE/3 have (shared mast) as endless people coming into costa coffee to find they have no 3g on o2 any more to get there codes and inside most of the shops O2 does not work unless you use free wifi but you have to be Not moving to use it as phones love to hang onto the last wifi hotspot that is no longer in range

backhaul would of been done first once planning was approved (if any was required most of that would of been getting the crane approved if one was needed)

Edited by leexgx (Tue 31-May-16 15:00:46)