The gains aren't enough to balance the cost/losses. Rural areas don't have coverage, so aren't a pressing issue for a company and while the networks are interested in expanding coverage, the hurdles they have to jump through to inevitably be denied permission to build their network is ridiculouse and all that costs them before they even get started. Urban areas have coverage but are plagued with problems that inevitably cause complaints and that leads to compensation being paid = losses Issue is that the two issues aren't the same. I was hoping to find a Vodafone B1 DSS mast too to test, I might have an idea where one may be so I'll have a look tomorrow.Ĭurrently I'm a minority here for saying while Three are fast and have been a game changer for many with Broadband at home, I'm more a fan of O2's new approach in its UNWIND program, and its new Orion poles that feature two sets of 5G spectrum on one site.
I've not had the chance to find or test any of these new 5G bands from EE, I can't say I've come across them in Birmingham yet, Whilst on the subject of EE and their 5G across lower spectrum, EE can do this as they have spare spectrum on Bands 1/3/7 and possibly more, they don't seem to be using existing spectrum currently and other networks are not fortunate enough to be a monopoly of three different mobile networks and a national telecoms infrastructure.
Other networks aren't as fluid as Three has been with setting up all their masts as 4G anchors, for instance I'm in range on n28 5G from EE but the 4G site I connect to hasn't been setup as an anchor 'yet' and that 5G site also has configuration issues whilst standing next to it 5G will not connect because it is to focused on bonding 5 carriers of 4G together, however reconnecting normally triggers the right primary 4G band to connect the n28. This isn't something I come across much with Three, it is something I once criticised but now see the benefit of having active. Meanwhile in urban metropolitans Three's expansion or rather " new network in quite a lot of places" has been quite a success and has brought the network into a nice place performance wise, and in comparison to EE even O2 has been doing a hell of a job with innovating its network both existing and new.Ī question I must ask too, your obviously an EE customer, but have you even tried Three, all my oppinions are based what I can see and check myself, thats why I have contracts with Three, EE, O2 and Vodafone.Ĭlick to expand.There is parameters to which 5G will and won't connect, but a more pressing issue would likely be that the mast for which 4G is coming off or even just the cell thats being used a primary band isn't configured as an anchor for 5G.
Three have a firm plan when it comes to their 5G rollout and while in your neck of the woods (which I know well enough) might not be full of 5G cells from Three yet, it don't sound like the other operators are really bothered either and that will be well down to the investment vs. While EE have been somewhat innovative with its 4G offering, I'm afraid as a customer and even just recently showing some poor performance from EE's 5G, I can't say they are doing the right thing, rather they seem to be experimenting. What EE hope to acheive in my oppinion is a method where future developments in smartphone hardware will be able to carrier aggregate multiple 5G and 4G bands together from multiple mast sites to acheive higher peak speeds but also level the usage across a sector instead of a single site. The limitations of using B1/3/7/28 for 5G is currently the bandwidth devices can actually acheive, no more than 200mbps really in real world usage. The main reason against using lower bands for 5G is bandwidth, as already mentioned using such low ammounts of bandwdith doesn't give much breathing room and even on new 5G cells bandwdith availability is pants.
They only operate in 2x2 MIMO instead of 64圆4 MIMO (the average 5G device connected using 4x4 where available),Īlso the broadcasts are coming from passive antennas so do not beamform signal. Some networks such as EE and O2 have deployments on n28 using a tenth of the spectrum Three has available on its only 5G band however these bands become easily overwhelmed for many reasons as such. you seem to be looking at this from a one sided point of view and also not considering the technical aspect.įirst off all (as has been mentioned) the coverage from n78 on active antennas is very good due to the technicality behind the antennas beamforming signal where required for multiple users at one time.Įnabled 5G on B1/3/7 isn't all it seems, the reality is that these bands have between 1/10 - 1/5 of the bandwidth configurable on n78 spectrum.