Three's laughable 4G rollout

thebennyboy · 26 Mar 2015 at 12:38

Is it just me who feels that their 4G rollout is severely lacking? As it states in my profile that i live in North Wales. EE meanwhile has far more areas covered than Three. Three have just TWO, yes TWO towns that they hope to cover. :rolleyes:

Am tempted to jump ship to EE for the better coverage, i also love the Feel-at-home offer that Three has. Three are hoping to enable 4G in towns that nobody ever goes to. Colwyn Bay and Rhyl? What a joke! Why are they not covering the areas that are more popular? Llandudno is flooded with tourists for about 2/3 of the year. Do they not assess the best areas to cover? Or are Three just trying to get the largest population coverage?

TL;DR - Three's 4G coverage in North Wales is a total joke.

rhysduck · 26 Mar 2015 at 12:42

It's NW, no-one ever goes there

Come South if you want 4G. I barely get 3G up your way when I'm there!

thebennyboy · 26 Mar 2015 at 12:45

rhysduck said:
It's NW, no-one ever goes there Come South if you want 4G. I barely get 3G up your way when I'm there!

I was at uni near Cardiff last year and loved the 4G in Cardiff, coming back North i realised how bad the coverage here is. Particularly down the valley i live in, when i get the bus to the coast you are out of 3G range for a good 30 minutes.

meandu229 · 26 Mar 2015 at 12:47

Lancaster was on their 2014 road map until jan 2015 and now its not even on their jan 2-15-april 2015 road map.
Id move but all carriers here are sub 2mb 3g speeds and my three deal(£12.99 AYCE data) is far cheaper than others.

something daft already!! · 26 Mar 2015 at 12:48

I get 4G at home and work on Three. It's nothing special anyway.

meandu229 · 26 Mar 2015 at 12:49

howiepoohs said:
I get 4G at home and work on Three. It's nothing special anyway.

On Three at my parents on 3G I get 29mb down 5mb up since they put a new mast up a few months ago (I assume new mast). Which is faster than I have had from 4G from them (bar ping time),

something daft already!! · 26 Mar 2015 at 12:51

Indeed, 4G is so throttled, often 3G is faster.

mark43 · 26 Mar 2015 at 13:00

I'd rather have 3G at a sensible price, all 4G roll outs seem to have done is push up data prices. 3 made a fuss about offering 4G at no extra cost, but if you look at how much their data charges have gone up by....

Orcvader · 26 Mar 2015 at 13:03

Is there O2 4G coverage around where you are? If so 3's lack of 4G could soon not be a problem

.

Honestly though, 3's 3G is already super fast compared to other 3G networks, pretty close to some 4G speeds in some areas.

neil_g · 26 Mar 2015 at 13:08

thing is 4G is still a relatively new technology. 3G has been around much much longer and has received a lot of fettling to get it to where it is.

three still offer a fantastic 3G network that is fast and has 98% coverage*

*source ofcom

spoffle · 26 Mar 2015 at 13:09

That's why it's called a roll out, really. They're in the process of "rolling out" the new service. I'm in Liverpool, and I've noticed that my area has gone from no LTE coverage, to full, and the radius of coverage has been expanding fairly consistently to the point where I'm seeing fair LTE signal more than 3G or H+.

neil_g · 26 Mar 2015 at 13:12

spoffle said:
That's why it's called a roll out, really. They're in the process of "rolling out" the new service. I'm in Liverpool, and I've noticed that my area has gone from no LTE coverage, to full, and the radius of coverage has been expanding fairly consistently to the point where I'm seeing fair LTE signal more than 3G or H+.

exactly.

4G in Poole popped up overnight at the end of last year. i can get about ~20Mb while sat in quite a chunky office building with a single bar reception.

Sunbed · 26 Mar 2015 at 13:16

I have 4G available but I set 3G as preferred network because it doesn't drain the battery as quickly and it doesn't 'hang' when you go indoors.

Ryan-3 · 26 Mar 2015 at 13:19

howiepoohs said:
I get 4G at home and work on Three. It's nothing special anyway.

Sums it up.

Their 3G is rather decent, so i'm covered everywhere with a decent signal that's completely usable. WiFi at home on fibre.

spoffle · 26 Mar 2015 at 13:22

neil_g said:
exactly.

4G in Poole popped up overnight at the end of last year. i can get about ~20Mb while sat in quite a chunky office building with a single bar reception.

The max I've seen in my area is 60Mb. I tend to see around 40 on average though.

neil_g · 26 Mar 2015 at 13:24

spoffle said:
The max I've seen in my area is 60Mb. I tend to see around 40 on average though.

i keep meaning to try in towns where i think the mast are so better signal but never remember.

get about 30Mb on my sofa (edge of Southampton) with 2 bar.

thep02 · 26 Mar 2015 at 13:26

I remember reading over a year ago that 3 were trying to save cash by working with existing masts and using some Samsung tech and engineers, my old 3 3g was better than my current 3 4g.

Again iirc in the same article one of 3's top bods was stretching what counts as 4g.

ADT · 26 Mar 2015 at 13:34

My area picks up 4G and I don't see what the whole fuss is about, seems as fast as 3G. I only browse websites so it might be different if people are into other activities on their phones :confused:

neil_g · 26 Mar 2015 at 13:42

thep02 said:
I remember reading over a year ago that 3 were trying to save cash by working with existing masts and using some Samsung tech and engineers, my old 3 3g was better than my current 3 4g.

Again iirc in the same article one of 3's top bods was stretching what counts as 4g.

interesting to know what that said.

as far as im aware (may be wrong) 3 and 4g are completely different systems, 4g is IP based?

thep02 · 26 Mar 2015 at 14:00

neil_g said:
interesting to know what that said.

as far as im aware (may be wrong) 3 and 4g are completely different systems, 4g is IP based?

I've tried searching for the article since for threads such as this and failed