38 replies to this topic

[Br1an_g]

bit of an old thread but a couple of things to note about this.
Three has more 3g sites than t-mobile at the moment.  the big win for three is 2g roaming will be a lot cheaper for them than it is currently.  the win for t-mobile is they are getting better 3g coverage by using existing three base stations.   they both win in the fact that the upgrade costs will be reduced.

An interesting point about a takeover bid but i doubt HW will sell any time soon.

[pd.ryder]

It is indeed an old thread, but still relevant I hope.

I must admit, I haven't seen any miraculous improvement in T's signal as yet.

[nuttyphilt]

Br1an_g, on May 19 2008, 13:27, said:

bit of an old thread but a couple of things to note about this.
Three has more 3g sites than t-mobile at the moment.  the big win for three is 2g roaming will be a lot cheaper for them than it is currently.  the win for t-mobile is they are getting better 3g coverage by using existing three base stations.   they both win in the fact that the upgrade costs will be reduced.

An interesting point about a takeover bid but i doubt HW will sell any time soon.

But the network sharing agreement is for 3G services only.  Therefore 3 won't get 2g roaming on T-Mobile, it'll continue to use Orange/O2.  I think the win for them is that the costs of maintenance get significantly reduced therefore they might actually make a profit one of these days...

I'm on 3 and in my flat (North London) I get a poor signal, about 1 bar, but the T-Mobile signal is full strength, therefore I'm hoping that where I live they'll decide to use the T-Mobile site!  Does anyone know of time scales of when the networks will be fully integrated?

[Br1an_g]

nuttyphilt, on May 21 2008, 13:56, said:

But the network sharing agreement is for 3G services only.  Therefore 3 won't get 2g roaming on T-Mobile, it'll continue to use Orange/O2.  I think the win for them is that the costs of maintenance get significantly reduced therefore they might actually make a profit one of these days...

I'm on 3 and in my flat (North London) I get a poor signal, about 1 bar, but the T-Mobile signal is full strength, therefore I'm hoping that where I live they'll decide to use the T-Mobile site!  Does anyone know of time scales of when the networks will be fully integrated?

just re-read the official press release and it does say t-mobiles 2g network wont be shared.  not what i heard at a presentation on the matter.    

and if you check the HWL 2007 results, three made an operational profit last year

completion in just over 2 years was also on the press release, so 2010 is about right.

[humph12345]

Br1an_g, on May 22 2008, 15:38, said:

just re-read the official press release and it does say t-mobiles 2g network wont be shared. not what i heard at a presentation on the matter.

and if you check the HWL 2007 results, three made an operational profit last year

completion in just over 2 years was also on the press release, so 2010 is about right.

Don't count on this meeting those time scales. The first part of the plan is to replace the NEC base stations in 3's network with Nokia equipment, these are in the south of the UK. The roll out for these sites was to have started at the end of April, but has yet to start. It was due to have completed in 2 years, but have very little chance of meeting that deadline now.

From what I am hearing it will only be the core network that is shared, the base stations will still be for either 3 or T-mobile. They are installing dual network RNC's and this is where they are having problems, the software isn't working.

As for saving money on maintenance, that is already contracted out to ericsson, with the last of T-mobiles staff fully moving over to Ericsson in the last couple of weeks.

I wouldn't be surprised if this doesn't go the same way as the Orange/Vodfone network share.

[Br1an_g]

an old thread again..realised 3 will save on 2g roaming as they will have 98% 3g coverage so there will be no need for 2g roaming..lol

i though the network share was rolled out already in a few cities?  and was working ok?

[Confucious]

The point is the network coverage will not change. they are not sharing base stations. The end user won't see any difference.

[Retronana]

I thought I'd give this a bump for my own interest...

I'm on T-Mobile, nothing on 3G or HSDPA at my home address and little sign of T-Mobile looking to get our 2G network upgraded to 3G in my area  :angry

Girl that live next door is on 3 network, lovely 3G signal from her house, I thought the network share agreement would allow areas like mine to use the 3 network and if some area where 3 have no 3G coverage they would use T-Mobiles, and piggyback deal of sorts.

Is this not the case ?

[humph12345]

What I am seeing on the ground is 3 cabins being removed and the equipment being relocated into the nearest T-mobile cabin or at least planned to. Both networks remain seperate, but go up the same antenna.

This is only happening on certain sites, of the work I do only around 10% are designated as site shares.

[humph12345]

Retronana, on Sep 8 2008, 20:04, said:

I thought I'd give this a bump for my own interest...

I thought the network share agreement would allow areas like mine to use the 3 network and if some area where 3 have no 3G coverage they would use T-Mobiles, and piggyback deal of sorts.

Is this not the case ?

What they will do is install 3 equipment in the local T-mobile site. The big stumbling block is BT, they need to provide new links and they take forever.

[FragMeister]

As I had heard nothing about this for a long time, I thought I would ask T-Mobile what the current status is, as I only get an average 2G signal at home whereas "3" have a good 3G signal.

Here is their reply, suggesting I should contact their Press office. I think that offshoring T-Mobile customer support means that any reply to a question that isn't in their standard list isn't worth asking, even more than once!

Quote

Thanks for your email FragMeister, asking me to investigate about the deal between 3 network and T-Mobile.

I've check the information for you and regarding the "Mast Sharing" agreement you'll need contact our Press Office team on 07017 150 150, there are available Monday to Friday 8.30 am to 5.00 pm.

Thanks again for contacting me FragMeister, I'm sure they'll be able to help you.

If you have any further questions please feel free to email me and I'll be more than happy to help you. Or you can visit our help and advise section by clicking here.

Kind regard


Unissa Kauser

Customer Services Email Team
T-Mobile



On 28/01/09 09:20, FragMeister wrote:

    I am slightly surprised by your answer as a "mast sharing" agreement was jointly announced by your Chief Executive in December 2007.

    http://www.3g.co.uk/...ec2007/5531.htm

    Please can you investigate further and let me know if this is going ahead, or if the deal with "3" fell through.

    Many thanks;

    FragMeister

    On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 4:26 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:

        Thanks for your email FragMeister, asking me when T-Mobile and 3 network are joining forces to provide services.        

        T-Mobile is an independent network service provider and as of now has no plans of joining hands with any other service provider.

        Regarding the 3G coverage in your area, we are planning to improve on the 3G coverage in many places in the UK.        

        But I can't assure anything right now as this depends on different aspects.

        Thanks again for your email FragMeister. I'm sure this helps answer your question accordingly.    

        For any other questions, please feel free to reply to my email or visit our help and advice section online by clicking here.


        Kind regards

        
        Ruby Gager
        Customer Services Email Team
        T-Mobile


        On 26/01/09 20:23, FragMeister wrote:

            message:I heard a long time back that T-Mobile and "3" were joining forces in order to provide a better level of 3G services. I live in #######, East Sussex (BN# ###) and although I have a good "3" HSDPA service, the T-Mobile coverage checker is still showing only 2G. Please can you tell me when the "mast sharing" with "3" is going to start in my town.

            Thank you.

[pd.ryder]

FragMeister, on Feb 3 2009, 12:07, said:

As I had heard nothing about this for a long time, I thought I would ask T-Mobile what the current status is, as I only get an average 2G signal at home whereas "3" have a good 3G signal.

Here is their reply, suggesting I should contact their Press office. I think that offshoring T-Mobile customer support means that any reply to a question that isn't in their standard list isn't worth asking, even more than once!

I find this type of response to be typical of corporate customer services. It's as though their "reply machine" sucks keywords out of your email and then constructs an 'appropriate' reply without ever actually addressing the question asked

Edited by pd.ryder, 03 February 2009 - 01:06 PM.

[humph12345]

Everything I have seen on the ground points to Three giving up their existing base stations and moving their equipment into the nearest T-mobile site or should I say sharing T-mobiles existing 3G equipment.

But to remain seperate, they won't be merging, they are using seperate antennas and this is where the problem lies.

Both 2g and 3g networks use recieve diversity to improve coverage and reduce noise, to do this, each cell uses two antennas, one to transmit and recieve and one to recieve only, the two recieve signal are the compared, the result is a better recieve signal, ie. from your phone.

Now what they have done, rather than fit new antennas for Three to use, they have dumped recieve diversity and are using the second recieve antenna for Three.

Noise is a bigger problem in 3G networks, especially phase noise. This cheap fix will have a detrimental effect on coverage and will lead to more dropped calls.

[Confucious]

Oh dear - that doesn't sound good
My T contract ends in April and so far all they've offered me to renew is a £5/month discount.
As I have a £15/month discount at the moment I would be paying £10/month more to stay with them!
If the service level goes down it looks like I will have to look around.

[pd.ryder]

I'm in a similar boat Confucius. This news is not inspiring me to stay with T at all as the current service I receive in Gloucester is diabolical. I can't find myself a decent data competitor though, and although I'm not prepared to pay T's outrageous 'upgrade' prices for the Vario IV (I really wanted a Touch HD but they haven't materialised yet) the thought of having tp pay through the nose for a gig of data a month has me in a rare old pickle.

This news might well just tip the apple cart...

Humph -- I wouldn't expect you to id yourself, but could you say which team you work for or at what level? I'm likely to throw this at T when trying to negotiate a reduced upgrade figure and to say "someone on the forum said..." won't carry much weight. To say it came from a supervisor / technical lead etc would obviously carry far more bang-per-buck

Edited by pd.ryder, 21 February 2009 - 10:27 PM.

[humph12345]

pd.ryder, on Feb 21 2009, 22:14, said:

Humph -- I wouldn't expect you to id yourself, but could you say which team you work for or at what level? I'm likely to throw this at T when trying to negotiate a reduced upgrade figure and to say "someone on the forum said..." won't carry much weight. To say it came from a supervisor / technical lead etc would obviously carry far more bang-per-buck

I finished working on T-mobiles network about a month ago.

It is possible that this will only be a short term situation until new equipment is fitted.

[Confucious]

humph1234  -what do you think of O2's network?

With my T-Mob contract running out in a couple of weeks they have offered me the same terms but I mainly use data and have got an O2 PAYG SIM with a years free data (provided I top up each month) so am tempted to ditch T for that.
Yesterday I got a colleague to run speedtest on his iPhone at work on O2 - he got about 580kbs and on T-Mobile I got about 1400kbs - is this typical?

Thanks.

[humph12345]

Confucious, on Mar 25 2009, 07:43, said:

humph1234  -what do you think of O2's network?

With my T-Mob contract running out in a couple of weeks they have offered me the same terms but I mainly use data and have got an O2 PAYG SIM with a years free data (provided I top up each month) so am tempted to ditch T for that.
Yesterday I got a colleague to run speedtest on his iPhone at work on O2 - he got about 580kbs and on T-Mobile I got about 1400kbs - is this typical?

Thanks.

I would say that would be typical. O2 have invested very little in the network over the past 2 years and are starting to drop behind.

Capacity wise T-mobile have the highest. Vodafone are doing a very minor expansion at the moment and Orange are about to swap from Nokia to Ericsson equipment.

[Confucious]

Thanks for the reply - I just posted in another thread how disappointed I am using an O2 PAYG SIM - not only is 580 about the max i get but it flutuates wildly between 580 an 0 !

I hope it's not to late for me to renew my T contract on the same terms.