T-Mobile UK and Orange UK to start sharing their 3G networks - rolling out next week

kona786

kona786

kona786

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Finally - Great news for those of us who are on either T-Mobile / Orange.


http://www.gsmarena.com/tmobile_uk_and_orange_uk_to_start_sharing_their_3g_networks-news-3266.php

T-Mobile UK and Orange UK are continuing their push towards unification of their networks, the so-called "big switch-on" plan. Now, the two carriers form Everything Everywhere, the biggest communications company in the UK, and are about to start sharing their 3G networks very soon.
That means if you're a customer of either carrier, you can use the other's 3G network to access the Internet at no extra charge or anything - in effect, it would be no different than using your home network.
The upside is that it will improve coverage and data speeds. The "big 3G switch-on" starts rolling out next week by regions and should complete in a few months.
T-Mobile UK and Orange UK already share their 2G networks - meaning calling and texting. A total of 1.7 million hours of calls have been made and 5 billion texts have been sent by people
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please let us know if anyome gets a tex telling them its been enabled, im on t mobile and im capped at 1.8mbs which is fine for phone, hopefully i may get faster speeds on orange!
 
MagicUK said:
please let us know if anyome gets a tex telling them its been enabled, im on t mobile and im capped at 1.8mbs which is fine for phone, hopefully i may get faster speeds on orange!
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I think you will find any restrictions on your account such as a speed cap will still be in place even when roaming on an orange cell.

Cheers
 
englishpremier said:
That's not what Myshra believes. He reckons that Orange don't have the same ability in place to cap like T-mobile do. Or something to that effect.
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Indeed, I speculate (because I lack a schematic for the choke they use) the way T-M are doing their cap isn't the same way oranges data network works so it will either be harder to achieve and we likely didn't bother or they brought in new kit to assist with throttling which they are keeping secret. It's been a mega undertaking to achieve, even to make the networks even talk together to be honest.

By and large T-M throttle by stopping the connection from jumping from your base "3G" speed to HSDPA. This is a dead easy fix if you think about it, make a DB - put all your custs in it with their max spd - check this when establishing data connections. Orange never had this, by design you either have access to a data bearer or you don't but crucially the bearer was whatever is available at the site - GPRS, 3G, HSDPA etc..

I have a fairly large post planned about the network share to explain the ins and outs as it's one of the things that people seem to bring up a lot.

EDIT: Please don't get your hopes up about improved speed as there will likely be an element of preferred network going on (as with the 2G share) which may make your handset unhappy as your network decisions.
 
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