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UK Three - Who needs EE LTE?

monty77 said:
Get a PAYG SIM and try it .. only way I'm afraid, you cannot believe any coverage maps. According to them my village has very patchy coverage but I get great signal and speeds.

M
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I'm currently on a 1 month rolling plan, so I'd be looking at getting another 30 day contract and seeing what happens with the network maybe?

The other way round would be to
Sign upto 12 months with T mobile.

I'm not in the town centre either, in a village called sprotbrough. But signal seems ok on the map. (I know it's best to try it out 1st.
 
Pennine said:
That's because you can't turn off 3G on there's network! On an iPhone.
Turning off cellular network does just that but your still on the 3G network. With Cellular Data turned off, you can't send or receive any data via a carrier's cellular network. This includes notifications.
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I cannot find the post right now but there was a chap on a cell forum testing this theory with an app on a JB iPhone so he could tell which cell the phone was using and it showed that it flipped from Three to Orange in this circumstance.

Found the official Three PR too:
http://www.threemediacentre.co.uk/P...range-as-new-national-roaming-partner-7a.aspx

..although interestingly it mentions data roaming too via GPRS.
 
monty77 said:
I cannot find the post right now but there was a chap on a cell forum testing this theory with an app on a JB iPhone so he could tell which cell the phone was using and it showed that it flipped from Three to Orange in this circumstance.

Found the official Three PR too:
http://www.threemediacentre.co.uk/P...range-as-new-national-roaming-partner-7a.aspx

..although interestingly it mentions data roaming too via GPRS.
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It's a bit out of date!
Three have turned off any roaming agreement.
They only use their own 3G network now.
The iPhone on three doesn't have a 3G toggle unlike the other providers.
It's probably the cheapest and best 3G network in the UK though.
Think that sums it up!
 
I think it depends on where you live. I am in Maidstone and in town the speeds are shocking, like 0.15mbps - 0.82mbps...It improves somewhat once I get home to around 8mbps, but certainly not the 18mbps you are getting!

I am on a rolling contract currently, and have made a complaint about the speeds to Three. They are currently monitoring my speeds over the next few days.
 
monty77 said:
Where did I say I had data? I've specifically said in multiple posts that the roaming is voice only. It's a limitation granted but it means I can make/receive calls just fine.

In fact in my very first post I specifically said:

"Tripe. Three has a national roaming agreement when there's no 3G coverage:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutchis...United_Kingdom

..you cannot use data in roaming mode however, calls only."
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Try this: in general > mobile, turn on data roaming. Now to test this go in to settings > carrier and turn off automatic and select '3' and not '3 (3G)' - this is the fallback service.

Does data roaming work?
 
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This is the best I can get on Three
 

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I almost always have good coverage with 3, but the speeds rarely go above 1.5Mbps, and quite often are around 0.5Mbps. Hopefully 3 will keep working on improving speeds on 3G, but the AYCE data and low cost more than make up for slower speeds for me anyway.
 
I couldn't believe it when I realised how quick it was. It's way quicker than using my wifi at home!!! Nearly 18mpbs here too.

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Pennine said:
Three won't be using EE's network, they have purchased some from EE for there own use. It belongs to Three now. The problem with Three is they don't have a 2G network! So when you have a poor or non existent 3G/4G reception you won't be able to use your phone. EE's 2G network covers about 98% of the UK.
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Complete nonsense. Three continue to use Orange for 2G coverage. This is only not used in small areas where Three have enough 3G bandwidth to cover everyone.
 
I am in process transferring from O2 to Three.

My iPad is already on Three, some times I can't distinguish the difference between wifi and cellular. Considering I have BT infinity.
 
4G speeds on EE will be around 30-40mbps.
Don't listen to the average. EE are just covering their asses.
 
Network operator 3 has started to switch off its 2G coverage leaving some customers without signal.

While the network doesn’t have any 2G infrastructure of its own, it has let customers roam onto another network when they are out of 3G signal – originally O2, but now Orange.

Now 3 has decided to stop this option in areas where it believes it has strong enough 3G coverage, such as central London.
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Full text: 3 cuts customer access to 2G networks
 
My Max speeds on 3, the 19mb is the Iphone 5 screenshot.
Both tested in the same location :)
 

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FYI when using the SpeedTest app, be sure to manually select a few other servers around you. My local one was really slow, but by choosing one slightly further away the speed picked up.

Interestingly, I tried picking one down in Germany and still managed 10mbps!

Anyway, here's my screenshot. I'm in Hertfordshire and had to avoid doing tests on the closest three servers as they were in London, and were pretty inaccurate.
 
monty77 said:
This is what I see when I switch off 3G .. look, it fell back to a 2G network that they do not have ;-)
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The lack of the 3G symbol does not mean you are on 2G. It can mean you are connected to the mast using the 3G/UMTS standard but no data connection is established. One example of this is when you are on the verge of a connection, and the modem connection is unstable but you are able to receive and make phone calls.

It is usually a sign when the signal level does not change between the two. Even 2G and 3G signals from the same mast have different signal levels because they are measured differently and the bandwidth and modulation is different.

However, you should know that three do share orange's 2G network.

Jonathan
 
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