No more 2G for 3

[m419]

3 has withdrawn it's 2G service for most of the UK, its 2G service leased from Everything Everywhere's Orange network is no longer accessible to a majority of 3 customers as the 3 network is strong enough to cover everyone. In a space of a year, 3's poor network coverage has increased vastly bringing it to one of the best networks.

Has anyone been disrupted by this?

[Zee]

Nope because 3's signal is very good in the majority of areas. They have more masts in my area then any of the other networks.

[squirrel1970]

My mobs on 3 and I've got absolutely no issues at all with it

[Jameseh]

What happens when 4G/LTE becomes mainstream over here, do they change their name?

[richard1960]

Yes i have been affected but mostly its ok,i vist my parents in the CM16 area of essex and i used to get quite a good signal there,but just recently i get one bar if anything(even though 3 boast about better signals),3 may have improved its signal in the majority of areas but not here,i guess the reason i am getting no signal there now is because 3G is a bad signal (in my parents part of essex),and now the back up 2G is not available to us anymore.

Was it widely publicised i wonder.?

[Zee]

In any area that you get a bad signal, just contact their technical team and they will have someone investigate it. I did, and boosted my "3G" signal from 0 bars to 2-3 bars in my home. this was done about 1 month after my complaint.

They even put a 9 metre "lamp post" style mast near the end of my road after my complaint. I complained further to try and get a better signal then this and work is being carried out tomorrow hopefully i'll get a full signal afterwards.

[richard1960]

Originally Posted by Zee

In any area that you get a bad signal, just contact their technical team and they will have someone investigate it. I did, and boosted my "3G" signal from 0 bars to 2-3 bars in my home. this was done about 1 month after my complaint.

They even put a 9 metre "lamp post" style mast near the end of my road after my complaint. I complained further to try and get a better signal then this and work is being carried out tomorrow hopefully i'll get a full signal afterwards.

Thanks for the info i might give them a call monday.

[dragon]

My AAISP sim (They operate as a virtual network on '3') never had any 2G fallback and Usually it still manages to get coverage.

Tends to be in shops and places where it loses the signal but I suspect the higher frequancy (2100Mhz) doesn't penitrate the buildings quite as well as the lower frequiencys used for 2G


Otherwise coverage is ok, but then I don't actually use that phone very often so maybe i'm just not noticing when it does lose signal.

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by Zee

In any area that you get a bad signal, just contact their technical team and they will have someone investigate it. I did, and boosted my "3G" signal from 0 bars to 2-3 bars in my home. this was done about 1 month after my complaint.

They even put a 9 metre "lamp post" style mast near the end of my road after my complaint. I complained further to try and get a better signal then this and work is being carried out tomorrow hopefully i'll get a full signal afterwards.

You should have asked them to put the mast in your front garden.

[m419]

Originally Posted by Jameseh

What happens when 4G/LTE becomes mainstream over here, do they change their name?

The plan is for 3 to bid for as much 4G spectrum as it can, if it doesn't get enough, Hutchison will off load 3 UK to a rival, that rival could be Everything Everywhere however that could be stopped for competition reasons. However if 3 does get enough 4G spectrum, it will eventually rebrand once a full 4G service and full range of phones and devices become available.

Hopefully 3, will not make the same mistake again and start marketing its product too early when the network is half complete and people start having problems making phone calls and using internet.

A rebrand would be good for the UK arm of 3 as it will improve the companies reputation and image.

When you say the words 3 or T-Mobile, certain things pop into your mind and usually most people automatically think, bad reception,shoddy service,unfair contract terms and foreign call centres.

Hopefully such problems are a thing of the past and a rebrand would be good not just for 3 but for T-Mobile as well and possibly Orange.

If 3 doesn't get the 4G spectrum it wants and decides to sell, a good buyer would be Virgin Media, that way Everything Everywhere has a slice of it as well and the competition commision don't have a say in it. Virgin Media buying 3 UK would mean it would be able to have it's own 3G infrastructure, Virgin Media will also be able to lease 4G spectrum from a rival, apparently UK Broadband approached Virgin Media about this. Virgin Media would own 50% of MBNL, the 3G infrastructure shared with T-Mobile and means it would no longer have to pay a high lease to Everything Everywhere to use it's network.

Virgin Media could then force off 2G customers or make them upgrade and eventually get rid of all 2G services completely and only offer 3G and 4G services.

Otherwise it could fall into the hands of BT, I already heard that BT and Everything Everywhere are trialling out 4G services.

Anyway who know, we'll have to wait till 2013 to find out