Council Study Sees Positive Impact of Vodafone UK’s 3G Switch Off
Mobile network analyst firm Streetwave and the Northumberland County Council (NCC) in England have released the findings of an interesting study that monitored the effects of Vodafone’s recent 3G switch-off in the region. The study found this resulted in a small to modest boost in 4G/5G coverage and mobile broadband performance.
In case anybody has forgotten, Vodafone largely completed the process of switching off their old 3G network in February 2024 (here). Mobile operators have generally been compensating for the 3G switch-off in some areas by introducing upgrades for newer 4G and 5G services. The removal of 3G also freed up 10MHz of spectrum in their 900MHz band to be re-farmed for use by modern services, which could boost network speeds and coverage.
However, so far none of the mobile operators have released any solid evidence to show the practical and statistical impacts of the 3G switch-off, which is what makes the latest study from Streetwave in Northumberland – an extremely rural county in the North East of England – so interesting.
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The data appears to show that Vodafone is now providing ‘Essential Coverage‘ across 92% of locations in Northumberland (up by 3%) and their average mobile (data) download and upload speeds are faster by approximately 10% after the switch off. Operators are deemed to have Essential Coverage by Streetwave in locations where the network provides users with above 1Mbps download, 0.5Mbps upload, and below 100ms latency (covering only basic use cases / needs).
Vodafone’s Results Across Northumberland
| Network Generation: | November 2023 – Percentage of Connections | March 2024 – Percentage of Connections |
| 4G | 86% | 96% |
| 3G | 13% | 0% |
| 2G | 1% | 4% |
| Metrics | November 2023 | March 2024 |
| Essential Coverage | 89% | 92% |
| Average Download Speeds | 11.8 Mbps | 12.8 Mbps |
| Average Upload Speeds | 4.9 Mbps | 5.7 Mbps |
However, the results also show a sharp rise in dependence upon even older 2G networks (mostly for voice calling), which is something that will need to be considered when it comes time to remove 2G by 2033 (here). Older 2G signals remain useful as a low-power fallback and are still necessary for some rural areas, as well as for particular applications (e.g. many Smart Meters and other IoT / M2M services remain dependent upon 2G).
Councillor Richard Wearmouth, Deputy Leader, said:
“Ensuring our residents have access to dependable mobile signal is a key priority for the council. It’s fantastic to see that Vodafone’s 3G switch-off is benefiting our communities.”
Some local authorities had been concerned that residents might suffer potential disruptions after the 3G switch-off (e.g. connectivity problems and performance woes), although the new study appears to provide the first independent evidence of the opposite occurring. The council will now continue to monitor the switch-off of Three UK and O2’s networks, which are currently scheduled to take place in late 2024 and 2025.
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Notably, no impacts from EE’s 3G switch-off were measured, as “no 3G connections were detected” during the surveys across Northumberland.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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I see more EDGE.
Agreed! It got so bad that I had to switch to a non-VF provider.
Same on EE. In places it would fall back to 3G I now get EDGE or nothing. It’s infuriating.
Ditto- E for EDGE or even just a plain old G for GSM / 2G at times.
Am on Vodafone.
Mike, the issue isn’t as bad on EE, I rarely encounter EDGE unlike on VF.
It’s somewhat ironic that GSM has outlasted what was meant to be technological successor, 3G UMTS/HSPA. Even more incredible to think that this 1980s technology will potentially still be in use in the early 2030s. Something that is pretty unusual in cellular technology.
I second this, on Vodafone constantly EDGE or 1 bar 4G with barely any speed, before it was 3G full, they didn’t seem to enable any promised 4G/5G spectrum in the area
Since ‘5G’ arrived coverage has got much worse.
I have a brand new 5G phone however when I have the 5G icon and three or more bars, there is little or no connectivity.
I believe Telcoms should accept 4G was the pinnacle of the technology and concentrate improving that.
Going faster = less distance covered.
They need more masts for 5G to “work”
4G is no pinnacle. It’s just our networks being skinflints and the NIMBYs preventing mast installs.
What you’re describing has nothing to do with 4G or 5G. It’s related the bands used, the areas they cover, etc.
Essentially, blame the network which hasn’t invested enough in your area and not the “G” your phone shows you.
As they said all along. Refarmed 3g will move to 4g. Why is it everything they do in this country there are always naysayers. We’d probably still have 1g when a few old phones were still connected in 2008. Don’t remember a big fanfare then. 3g should be switched off immediately
It’s not naysayers, 5G is a complete load of BS.
I’ve just come back from Kuwait, 5G poles are every 200meters which will never happen in the U.K. The speed is only marginally better.
Like many I’ve been mis-sold a handset.
It may be, but it certainly hasn’t be refarmed yet, where 3G was is now 2G which is a major step backwards!
Coming to a city near you?
https://library.schreder.com/view/592123309/6/
@H2Res – Three got this setup along A45 in Birmingham, works well.
Derek, I don’t blame you because the advertisements pushed this idea, but 5G isn’t just for gigabit speeds.
With 5G you also get slightly better performance with the same bands and better coverage. Fast speeds with low bands in just one part of it and obviously you won’t see those speeds in rural areas because they lack the density of people to justify the investment.
The thing is with VF not improving its 4G meanwhile. And worse still even in area with strong 5G signal the network now switches to EDGE constantly and has to be manually reset. For those in the countryside and many less popular urban areas, they used to have 3G allowing YouTube streaming and now they got a weak 4G doing nothing or worse a 2.5G.
There you go, more 2G!
This is because the networks (Vodafone in this case) have not boosted the 4G coverage to compensate, since 4G power has always had to remain within the weaker boundary of 3G 900 (also remember that 3G had cell breathing).
I don’t see this issue but I have seen more weak spots or total not spots. I have disabled 2G on my phone because 2G should have been switched off years ago.
Yes, well there’s your problem. They should have done this before they switched off 3G, not left a huge chunk of the population without a phone service…
once again wondering if the people who think their service has got worse actually have an appropriate device, plan and have VoLTE enabled.
I do. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw 3G on EE when it was still up and running, and unsurprisingly I haven’t noticed a big difference in coverage and performance afterwards.
Also wrong to assume that they’d be turning off 3G and immediately turning on 5G nationwide. Doesn’t work that way.
I have had to disable Wifi-Calling/VoLTE on my Pixel 8 Pro as it was constantly dropping out on the very weak 4G signal I have.
Well that don’t make sense!
which network?
As I understand it, the network operators can tune these parameters to their preference. I notice that my EE SIM uses wifi calling whenever available and I can’t think of the last time it switched to 2G after the 3G shutdown.
The same phone has a Lebara/Vodafone SIM in it too, and it doesn’t prefer wifi calling anywhere near as much. Not noticed any major coverage issues in my semi rural area though.
My reception in rural area of Northants has gotten much much worse since Vodaphone 3g switch off. Basically everywhere i used to get H/H+ 3g now i get EDGE. Ive gone from slow data access to effectively no data at all. That chimes with those figures in the table above where I see EDGE usage quadrupling.. it’s really hard to say the switch off is benefitting everyone when you see that.
I’m not against the switch off or anything, i just think networks need to do a lot more rebalancing before they fill the gaps left by 3g.
“That chimes with those figures in the table above where I see EDGE usage quadrupling.. it’s really hard to say the switch off is benefitting everyone when you see that.”
The table doesn’t say EDGE, it says 2G. That is important pedantry because it is far more likely that this is phones having to move to 2G when in a phone call, because their phone doesn’t support VoLTE, it isn’t enabled on their phone for some reason, or because their chosen MVNO doesn’t support it (are there any on Vodafone?)
My experience is much the same up in Moray.
I’ve gone from having a reasonably good, albeit slow, 3G connection, to having a poor 2G or 4G connection which are as good as useless for data.
Ivor, EDGE is very similar to 2G, where data is virtually non-existent, I’ve managed to get about 0.1 Mb/s but that was with a very strong signal…
EDGE has a theoretical max of 200kbps. In real world usage, likely 100kbps max. Good for absolutely nothing. Hence I’ve disabled it because st least the phone will try and stay on 4G for as long as possible.
So (Susie Dent), no need for fibre-runs to the “Not-spots”.
Thank goodness Ofcock sanctioned a schema for full fibre introduction which wasted economic resources by allowing successful license bidders to “Cherry-pick” and “Over-build” some areas and do absolutely nothing in others.
Its almost as if they had some dystopian future in mind, where customer service was a despised word and corporate excess profits (For doing sod-all) were the order of the day, . . . . with the very odd consequence that another financial elite was created, . . . at the expense of universal service provision on a fair-handed basis.
Who would have guessed . . “Divide and Rule” at all times.
There were no licences to bid for.
It’s private capital to spend as they wish.
Zero evidence the market-led approach came at the expense of a full fibre USO: one has never been on the cards, whether via regulating the private sector into it, wouldn’t have happened, the taxpayer picking up the tab or a public-private partnership.
For all the villages, communities and major thoroughfares that are not “Economically feasible” to connect by fibre to the nearest main network link, what’s wrong with separate closed local networks, of whatever topology, equipped with their own 5G repeaters attached to local telegraph poles (Existing), church and water towers and other high buildings, with Starlink connections (Or erquivalent) paid for by the local Network provider (And re-charged to users) linking the local network to the nearest trunk system.
Exactly what the Americans did in the 1970s with rural cable.
At least it obviates the need for every network user having a mini satellite dish on their roof/in their back-garden.
Ofcock – the principal architect of “Mountains-out-of-molehills”
Indeed! Why can’t they do what the Americans did in the 70s for analogue TV. Before they had to get fibre everywhere to permit 2-way communication, and then run fibre increasingly deeper into the networks to cope with demand.
Obviously the effect of the switch-off of rural 3G was well tested and anticipated by Ofcock (Lazy barstewards)
Slightly off topic, Three will need to make some major considerations about withdrawing 3G in urban areas, as it stands my 3 Business Data Sim has been struggling for sometime now to do basics such as load web pages and emails, this is nothing new to me with this line and yesterday I logged another complaint but speed tests reveal that bandwidth from 3’s 4G network using either APN is about as fast a 2G on other networks.
I can’t see them being able to turn off 3G without help of another network, errrrm maybe Vodafone.
Three seem to put a lot of their eggs in adding 5G to its network and as it stands currently there upgrades seem to have stalled with many POW’s rejected or not being turned on once installed….
O2’s doing well at upgrading things around me however, but costs of being on that network have risen drastically and why would I O2 well in some areas when I can EE well in all areas.
Vodafone is busy upgrading and improving an already good performing network too.
“Vodafone is busy upgrading and improving an already good performing network too.”
Not sure I agree on that, it used to be very good but since the 3G switch off, I feel they may now be the worst provider, at least around here…
I was happily using TalkMobile (VF MVNO) for quite sometime until the 3G switch off. Lost any worthwhile signal on a good chunk of my commute. Effectively breaking Waze and music streaming.
Didn’t mean better 4G & 5G, just more 2G/EDGE.
Left for an EE based network and that’s much better.