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4g+ and 5G rollout in towns?

cbdeakin

Regular Member
Is it likely to be 2023 or later before we see 4g+ in most UK towns?

Is 4g+ a prerequisite for 5g in most cases?

As I understand it, Three is upgrading some towns with 4g+ capable Radio masts, but there isn't much information about it right now. Link here:
http://www.three.co.uk/hub/network-...809_81706312a434f5913edbd11f157ccf2e&aidset=1

I probably won't upgrade my phone for a while, especially since it already has support for LTE cat.6, and therefore supports '4g+'.

I haven't yet found any info about if or when EE will upgrade more towns to 4g+. I assume they are focused mostly on rolling out 5G to cities.

Can anyone let me know what download speeds they get with 4g+ ? How does it compare to a Fibre (FTTC) connection in terms of speed and latency?

Also, does anyone have any info regarding when Three is planning to complete their upgrades to 4g+ in towns?
 
Also, Three's 'nationwide' L-Band rollout is planned to be completed by 2023, does this imply 4g+ equipment will be installed?

If not, how would they be able to deliver speed increases of upto 150% as they claim?
 
Here's the rub, you don't need 4g+ as its absolutely capable of delivering 150Mbps on band 3 alone. With 4g+ 300Mbps is what we "should" be seeing.

But no one does. Why is this the case?

Because the carriers are not prepared to give customers faster speeds as they'd rather oversubscribe too many customers across their networks and exceed the available core bandwidth.

Most folks in reality see up to 60Mbps on 4g and EE only promises speeds of up to 90Mbps on their 4g+ service.

So in my view the mast bandwidth spectrum isn't the issue with speeds, its what the carriers are paying for their data to and from their hubs after the masts.
 
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Yeah, I think you are right, it seems like there is insufficient capacity on 4G networks at the moment. I thought that 4G+ improved capacity for users? I don't qite know why though. LTE-A has 256QAM, I wonder if that is part of the reason for improved capacity?

EDIT - Yes apparently 256QAM does improve capacity " even a small fraction of users in a coverage cell using 256 QAM create improvements in network capacity performance. Link:
https://technology.informa.com/5761...eatures-paving-the-path-toward-gigabit-speeds

Also, most 4G devices won't have a perfect signal to the mast. RSCP is what is used to measure signal quality on 4G I believe, and you need a figure of about -60dbm for an excellent signal (100%). If the signal is any weaker, then a device probably won't get the 'max data speeds' possible. Link:
https://wiki.teltonika-networks.com/view/Mobile_Signal_Strength_Recommendations
 
I think there is more than enough masts close to most peoples homes to provide a good to excellent signal on home 4g+ routers. (I have 3 masts that I know of, all within 500 yards of my house for example.)

Thats why the majority of folks on here going for expensive antenna might get a better quality of service but don't see much of a speed increase. The same can be said with the B535 and the rabbit ears providing little if any improvement in most cases.

Mast spectrum isn't the limiting factor we keep being told it is.

Interesting read from 2012....

Fixing the back haul bottleneck


2.8 says it all, 8 years and here we are.
 
LTE-Advance (LTE-A) is a term that spans a number of technological advances developed on top of the original LTE specification, over time.

Those developments include things such as:
  • Carrier Aggregation (CA) - multiple frequencies are used to transfer data from an mast to a device (downlink) or from the device to the mast (uplink). This requires multiple blocks of spectrum in either different Bands, or the same Band, as well as User Equipment (UE) that supports Carrier Aggregation (CAT6+) on the bands being aggregated.
  • Higher orders of MIMO - e.g. 4x4 where 4 channels of signal are used to transfer data. This requires an antenna on the mast capable of 4T4R (or more) and also UE that also contains 4 antennas (usually the more expensive ones, as designing the hardware antennas becomes more of a challenge)
  • Higher orders of quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). I believe this is dependent upon the radio hardware installed in the base station at the mast, but also the UE needs to support it too (again, usually the more expensive ones due to higher orders potentially introducing data errors that well developed modem design to account for).
  • Supplementary Downlink (SDL) - a frequency band that is used for downlink only, however as it provides no uplink it must be combined in CA with a band that does allow uplink. Therefore this is dependent upon multiple bands being in use on the mast and the UE supporting CA.
From knowing the base Band in use and the additional CA/SDL Bands with the spectrum widths the provider owns, the order of MIMO and QAM, you are able to calculate the theoretical maximum speeds that are achievable with a given combination of LTE-A features across that radio interface between mast and UE.
However, this it is most definitely theoretical - noise/interference, current load, distance from mast, available backhaul capacity and any number of other variables will impact the physically achievable speeds at a given moment.

There is also no guarantee if/which technologies a provider may choose deploy, if any. And by deploy, that often means paying the radio/antenna hardware provider a subscription for the features. There are also ongoing increased electricity requirements to consider as usually the features need more power to drive them.

Sometimes, some providers highlight the use of LTE-A features by showing a 4G+ symbol on the UE, however EE for example never do - I believe they don't want users in non-LTE-A areas to feel the network there is inferior to other areas.
 
That post was mainly to give an background overview, but now to answer your questions directly...

Is it likely to be 2023 or later before we see 4g+ in most UK towns?
Who knows! The Huawei ban has probably put delays on things, however just saying 'town' is a pretty wide sweeping; if one site in a town has an LTE-A feature deployed would that define it as being deployed to a town?

Is 4g+ a prerequisite for 5g in most cases?
No (but in practice, it probably means 4G+ will be available if 5G is added)
Fepending on the provider's current deployed hardware at a given mast that is planned to get 5G radio and antenna changes may be required. For Three, for example, their old 3G/4G radio deployments are Samsung units and at the moment 5G requires 4G hardware from the same radio provider. Three's plan was to use Huawei for their 5G deployment so that requires 4G Huawei hardware too. In the most basic upgrade deployments they are replacing the Samsung radios with Huawei units and they have also chosen to also re-farm some of their 3G spectrum on B1 (2100mhz) over to 4G too, which enables CA.
Additionally, 5G in the UK is currently non-standalone (NSA), which does need a 4G anchor to be able to 'add' a 5G stream to the connection. In the future there'll be 5G standalone (SA) which will not need any 4G present.

As I understand it, Three is upgrading some towns with 4g+ capable Radio masts, but there isn't much information about it right now. Link here:
http://www.three.co.uk/hub/network-...809_81706312a434f5913edbd11f157ccf2e&aidset=1
You likely won't see much info about a providers ongoing plans (which are likely delayed/derailed with the Huawei ban and COVID).
Peter has detailed the variations on site upgrade 'levels' that Three were doing/planning here:

I probably won't upgrade my phone for a while, especially since it already has support for LTE cat.6, and therefore supports '4g+'.
That's totally your choice. If it does what you need then there is no need! It would also be a 'waste' to upgrade if none of the LTE-A features were deployed to the areas you visit (and use data at).

I haven't yet found any info about if or when EE will upgrade more towns to 4g+. I assume they are focused mostly on rolling out 5G to cities.
Same as above, you're unlikely to hear about technical details of planned deployments. Sometimes if the provider has to get planning permission your council planning website may show the plan documents for what antennas/masts are due to be replaced and this can give an indication of what a new site would feature.

Can anyone let me know what download speeds they get with 4g+ ? How does it compare to a Fibre (FTTC) connection in terms of speed and latency?
Theoretical speeds vary massively, depending on provider/bands/spectrum/lte-a features. Practical speeds even more so, as that depends what is available from the mast you're connected to and other factors (noise/interference/current load/backhaul).
Comparing from person to person, place to place isn't really viable. If you need to know what speeds are in a given place you need to figure out what the connected mast/provider combination supports and test things out.

Also, does anyone have any info regarding when Three is planning to complete their upgrades to 4g+ in towns?
As mentioned above, you're unlikely to find this. There was a plan and I remember seeing a few press releases giving broad timelines for some things but Huawei/COVID will have changed those.
 
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Also, Three's 'nationwide' L-Band rollout is planned to be completed by 2023, does this imply 4g+ equipment will be installed?

If not, how would they be able to deliver speed increases of upto 150% as they claim?
Three's 'nationwide' rollout for B32 never said that it would be deployed to all masts, but as B32 is an SDL band, that does mean that if a mast gets B32 deployed to it then it would have to be CA with at least one other band - I think it's common for B32 masts to also have B20 deployed. That is in addition to Three's B3 base 4G layer, but also as it'll need new radios to add B32 I believe B1 also gets refarmed on them too.
 
Comparing from person to person, place to place isn't really viable. If you need to know what speeds are in a given place you need to figure out what the connected mast/provider combination supports and test things out.

But here lies the problem, you can't really test it out and nail it down. With the mast signal alone there is too many variables, so the best you can do is average it out over time/season/weather/obstacles/interference etc, and that's before you even accept back haul is the main contention variable (which in itself is impossible to even factor in). You can throw in latency over time tests, but they too are affected by the very variables mentioned above, so effectively prove nothing.

Its a fruitless cause trying to nail down what's in essence "smoke and mirrors" from ISP's delivering LTE home broadband currently. In 2020 they could ALL provide 4g+ providing a solid 100Mbps day and night. They just don't want too.
 
Yeah, I think you are right, it seems like there is insufficient capacity on 4G networks at the moment. I thought that 4G+ improved capacity for users? I don't qite know why though. LTE-A has 256QAM, I wonder if that is part of the reason for improved capacity?

EDIT - Yes apparently 256QAM does improve capacity " even a small fraction of users in a coverage cell using 256 QAM create improvements in network capacity performance. Link:
https://technology.informa.com/5761...eatures-paving-the-path-toward-gigabit-speeds

Also, most 4G devices won't have a perfect signal to the mast. RSCP is what is used to measure signal quality on 4G I believe, and you need a figure of about -60dbm for an excellent signal (100%). If the signal is any weaker, then a device probably won't get the 'max data speeds' possible. Link:
https://wiki.teltonika-networks.com/view/Mobile_Signal_Strength_Recommendations
The various LTE-A (4G+) features are all designed to improve upon non-plus 4G. CA is probably the widest used feature as it provides a way for providers to make best use of the slices of spectrum they own across their various bands.
CA does improve capacity, but not directly, by transferring the data faster that frees up the radio waves quicker for other users to use them.
Its possible to also deploy multiple bands but choose not to allow CA of them, though I don't think this generally occurs much.

LTE-A doesn't have 256QAM, it's a possible feature in the set that could be deployed if chosen to.
256QAM, like CA, doesn't improve capacity directly, rather it improves spectral efficiency - that is, using the available spectrum more efficiently - again by transferring the data faster that frees up the radio waves quicker for other users to use them.
 
But here lies the problem, you can't really test it out and nail it down. With the mast signal alone there is too many variables, so the best you can do is average it out over time/season/weather/obstacles/interference etc, and that's before you even accept back haul is the main contention variable (which in itself is impossible to even factor in). You can throw in latency over time tests, but they too are affected by the very variables mentioned above, so effectively prove nothing.

Its a fruitless cause trying to nail down what's in essence "smoke and mirrors" from ISP's delivering LTE home broadband currently. In 2020 they could ALL provide 4g+ providing a solid 100Mbps day and night. They just don't want too.
The same could be said for getting WiFi to work well everywhere in your own home! Radio is hard.

Yes providers could do that, to what advantage at what cost, and what return on that investment would they actually get.
They're primarily a mobile business after all - what mobile content realistically needs more than say 10Mbps per user?
 
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There's also the fact that some masts have 20mhz bandwidth, some 15mhz and maybe some less than that, for both EE and Three networks. So, that means that the max possible speed is actually 112.5mbps in a lot of areas. I had a quick look here by entering a mast identifier, for a 15mhz mast on the Three network here:
https://tools.pedroc.co.uk/4g-speed/
 
There's also the fact that some masts have 20mhz bandwidth, some 15mhz and maybe some less than that. So, that means that the max possible speed is actually 112.5mbps in a lot of areas. I had a quick look here by entering a mast identifier, for a 15mhz mast on the Three network here:
https://tools.pedroc.co.uk/4g-speed/
Its not the mast having those amounts of spectrum bandwidths - those are the slices that the providers have chosen to bid on/won in the Ofcom spectrum auctions (or bought-out other providers to gain access to).

Three own: 15Mhz in 1800mhz, 15Mhz in 2100mhz, 5Mhz in 800mhz, 20Mhz in 1400mhz and 100Mhz in 3500mhz bands.

The 2100mhz band is/was their primary 3G band, in pre-refarm areas they have all 15mhz dedicated to 3G, but after refarm they allocate 10Mhz of that to 4G instead (5Mhz left for 3G, mainly calls for handsets that don't support VoLTE).
The full 100Mhz in 3500mhz band is destined for 5G only (though sometimes not all of this is deployed).
 
Tried Pedro's tool on the mast I'm connected too.

2x2 Mimo, 64QAM downlink.

Band 1:
Band: 2100MHz, Uplink: 1920-1980MHz, Downlink: 2110-2170MHz
150Mbps ↓ & 50Mbps ↑

Band 3:
Band: 1800MHz, Uplink: 1710-1785MHz, Downlink: 1805-1880MHz
150Mbps ↓ & 50Mbps ↑

If only the back haul supported such speeds!
 
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I'm still confused though :D

I think we are still years away from a 4G+ type of network with 90% UK coverage (including most the features I think this will likely entail).

I'm betting at least 2023 for mast upgrades in most areas of the country, with some / all the geatures of 4G+.
 
Tried Pedro's tool on the mast I'm connected too.

2x2 Mimo, 64QAM downlink.

Band 1:
Band: 2100MHz, Uplink: 1920-1980MHz, Downlink: 2110-2170MHz
150Mbps ↓ & 50Mbps ↑

Band 3:
Band: 1800MHz, Uplink: 1710-1785MHz, Downlink: 1805-1880MHz
150Mbps ↓ & 50Mbps ↑

If only the back haul supported such speeds!
You also need to select the appropriate 'Bandwidth' value for the amount of spectrum owned in those bands.
B1 = 10mhz = 75/25mbps
B3 = 15mhz = 112.5/37.5mbps
 
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