Coverage

How good is the Vodafone 3G coverage in London?

[Admin]

Pretty good.....see the attached!!!!! You do know you can perform a postcode search on our site don't you??? Follow the link:

http://www.airtimemanager.co.uk/data...-coverage.aspx

cheers - it looks very strong in London so I'm not worried about it. That map is useful though.

[Admin]

Originally Posted by mark

cheers - it looks very strong in London so I'm not worried about it. That map is useful though.

You get blanket coverage across the UK now on one speed or the other, so even where's there's no 3G you can grab a lower speed GPRS connection. Of course, like your mobile phone, there are black spots which you have to expect and appreciate, but generally there's very little to worry about in most areas now.

so the very high speed 7.2 connections are just in places like London at the moment? This I get, but will it be rolled out to the rest of the UK over time?

[Admin]

so the very high speed 7.2 connections are just in places like London at the moment? This I get, but will it be rolled out to the rest of the UK over time?

Probably not. It's an expensive rollout and for now they're looking at metropolitan areas only (key cities and airports). From there they will just monitor it and rollout those areas that, for them, it makes commercial sense to do so.

What really annoys me is that I know there is "blanket" coverage but in rural areas nothing ever seems to work. I don't know why the networks don't sort it out there.

[Admin]

Originally Posted by nick

What really annoys me is that I know there is "blanket" coverage but in rural areas nothing ever seems to work. I don't know why the networks don't sort it out there.

It's a fair point, and living in a rural area I know first hand that these things can be annoying. However, there are several sides to this.

1. First off, rural areas are not as heavily populated and therefore the return on investment for the cell tower infrastructure the networks put in will not be repaid as quickly (if at all) as other areas. A sad truth is that money is the motivator in these things, but that's life and none of us can get that annoyed about it - would we work for free???

2. I have come across many instances where networks have wanted to put cell towers in rural areas, but have had to pull out due to opposition from local residents who oppose anything which may damage the views of their landscape, not to mention those who believe that cell towers adversy affect health. I might add at this point that any health concerns were concluded as false in July 2007 when the results of a 3 year study were published. I wrote about this at the time the study was made public and you can read my article here which comments on the findings of the report. So moving back to the point I was originally making, despite the fact cell towers can be well masked in to their surroundings, some communities oppose them, but those that do have to respect that their coverage levels will be poor to non existent.

well said!!!

I admit you make some valid points with that - it is just annoying when you're one of the people that lives in these areas and you're also one of the people that woudn't mind cell tower in their location.

What do they even look like these days?