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Three's 3G Switch-Off

Kilwinning is still hanging in there Gavin, but dated the 18th of October. 🤷‍♂️
Supposedly some things are still active here, especially from this PoW installed just around 2 years ago.

Doesn't make sense why they wouldn't have turned 3G off from it when they installed it, there must have been a reason why it still seems to broadcast 3G.
 
Dunstable still has 3G along with Houghton Regis and some parts of Luton.

So either that map isn't correct or Three's own Map isn't correct considering it's been over a month since they were meant to shut down 3G in Dunstable.

Now Three doesn't show a date for 3G being closed in Dunstable so guess they still have 3G only masts there?
 
Not sure what you're saying is "incorrect"

Taking the centre of Dunstable (West Street/Church Street/High Street crossroads) as an example - that was originally "planned" with a sunset date of 19th Sept, and that came and went and the latest coverage map now represents that shutdown - the "main serving" 3G site has (according to their map coverage) been shut down however some "outdoor" coverage is now/still available from a site to the South-East - that wouldn't have been the "main serving" site for the cross-roads over month ago, but now is.

1729674431510.webp


As for the latest sunset date map - that's the data that is available currently but as before anything without a sunset date could be any one of: 3G is already gone, it was never there to begin with or just doesn't currently have a planned date.
For the Dunstable cross-roads, as we see there is no date, but there is some outdoor coverage - presumably at this time they have "no plans" for shutting that down.

I agree with you that is likely to be a Three 3G only site, from the remaining coverage almost certainly this one at EE's eNB 13024, North-East of Kensworth Quarry, so 4G for EE and 3G only for Three on the 2 sector site (sectors 0 deg/120deg)


1729674461016.webp
 
I don't know, but it would depend what hardware was present - if there was already B1 capable 4G hardware in-place then you'd expect it to be being used already. But if not then I'd expect they'll just be turning off and expecting low band to cover from a distance (or planning later in-fill/hoping for the VF merger to go through)
 
They switched off a 3G only monopole here with no 4G upgrade/new site, although the other 3G monopoles around here are still broadcasting so Three probably didnt think this site was important enough. Still lost a good bit of indoor coverage though, no signal at all in the ASDA nearby.

Funnily enough they installed a pagona cabinet for their B3 4G back in 2016ish, but I guess they never got round to doing a pole swap lol.

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That road is bizarre. Ex T Mobile and ex Three site that were seemingly never integrated. EE kept the site in the North and abandoned the South.
 
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That road is bizarre. Ex T Mobile and ex Three site that were seemingly never integrated. EE kept the site in the North and abandoned the South.
Indeed. My understanding was that the north site is ex Orange PCS and south is ex Tmobile? Could be wrong though. EE 3G was broadcasting from south site until shutdown. Maybe theres a good reason they went with this setup but I am yet to think of one.
 
Indeed. My understanding was that the north site is ex Orange PCS and south is ex Tmobile? Could be wrong though. EE 3G was broadcasting from south site until shutdown. Maybe theres a good reason they went with this setup but I am yet to think of one.
Your understanding does sound more plausible. Sadly 2G cabs rather predate my involvement with networks, so I what I thought was a TMO Ericsson 2G cab may have been Orange. The southern site was definitely MBNL era 3G only infill, with the famous Fredo cab.
 
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I'm trying to find the cause of my relatively poor reception with iD on Three in my area lately. I'm in the middle between two cell towers. One offers Band 28 and the other doesn't. As you can imagine, the indoor reception on Band 28 (700Mhz) is much better than on the other bands and other tower (only offers 1800 and 2100 Mhz bands).

Since a few weeks (it might've been caused by an update of One UI) - I noticed that my phones loves to connect to higher frequency bands (1800 Mhz and up). Which resulted in my phone showing me zero bars and a signal strength of around -120db all the time (also resulting in worse battery life).

I also noticed that my S23 Ultra keeps switching bands and towers very frequently recently.

Any idea if this could be caused by the 3G switch-off (and an increase in frequency capacity in that spectrum)?

Or might it just be a Samsung software bug?
 
I'd say it was more likely a network reconfiguration Three have done (though its been months now, not weeks...) to widen the 'coverage' of all their 4G bands by lowering the thresholds at which you can connect to them. In your case it sounds like they've effectively 'moved' you from where you were receiving OK B28 to poor B3. Similarly the flapping between masts is likely caused by the same thing - both are now pushing their B3/B1 'further' than they used to due to the lowered thresholds.

Edit: TLDR, I doubt there is anything you can do about it
 
I'd say it was more likely a network reconfiguration Three have done (though its been months now, not weeks...) to widen the 'coverage' of all their 4G bands by lowering the thresholds at which you can connect to them. In your case it sounds like they've effectively 'moved' you from where you were receiving OK B28 to poor B3. Similarly the flapping between masts is likely caused by the same thing - both are now pushing their B3/B1 'further' than they used to due to the lowered thresholds.

Edit: TLDR, I doubt there is anything you can do about it
Thanks mate. That's what I thought. It's a shame because 4G/5G coverage in my area by Three is generally great. Perhaps it's time to switch to an EE based provider, though. EE doesn't appear to face the same issues (yet) in my area.
 
If you sit on the phone for a few seconds, that does the trick
If you mean letting it rest and stay in one spot - nope. Sadly, it still continues to switch towers and frequencies quite regularly.
I think this might also explain why I have not so grat battery life these days.
 
Telegraph poles, trees, and occasionally transformers yes. But the lampposts are real. A big shame they didn't become more mainstream

I really like the ones where they’re integrated into a church steeple. There’s one near Wandsworth that you wouldn’t know was there.

Another one I like is where Vodafone paid to replace an old flagpole-type structure and put a site in at the same time.
 
I really like the ones where they’re integrated into a church steeple. There’s one near Wandsworth that you wouldn’t know was there.

Another one I like is where Vodafone paid to replace an old flagpole-type structure and put a site in at the same time.
Its a shame church sites aren't more common, they seem like no-brainers. Churches are tall and usually pretty centralised within towns so make a good place for a mast, local community is happy as they get better coverage, church gets funding from site rent which they can provide back to the community ect. I imagine it probably comes down to costs like it usually does.
 
Its a shame church sites aren't more common, they seem like no-brainers. Churches are tall and usually pretty centralised within towns so make a good place for a mast, local community is happy as they get better coverage, church gets funding from site rent which they can provide back to the community ect. I imagine it probably comes down to costs like it usually does.

Vodafone (and by extension O2 in many cases), has a significant programme to use C of E assets
 
The 3G coverage map has recently updated again.

Now reflecting the upgrade of Churn Hill (eNB 53721) as an example.
 
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