mobile spectrum

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › mobile spectrum

hamish225

1418 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#72589 29-Nov-2010 21:53

how come Telecom didn't build a 3G network on the same frequency as Vodafone?

because if they did it would make it easier for people on a budget to move from Vodafone because they would already have phones that worked on their network...

i really like some of Vodafone phones, but sadly they wont work everywhere because Telecom only has minimal 2100mhz coverage...

*Insert big spe*dtest result here*

1 | 2 | 3

30853 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#410908 29-Nov-2010 22:01

Telecom have built out a 850Mhz network and Vodafone have built out a nationwide 900Mhz 3G network because this is the spectrum they have licences for.

Vodafone have deployed 2100MHz in all Cities and some towns because this was the only spectrum available for 3G services when they launched their network. They will eventually roll out 900MHz to overlap with the 2100MHz coverage as the lower frequencies offer far better in building penetration than the higher frequencies.

Telecom deployed 2100MHz in major Cities solely to provide additional network capacity.

johnr

19282 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#410914 29-Nov-2010 22:06

As above where Telecom NZ have deployed 2100mhz 3G its not for coverage

850mhz & 2100mhz is the spectrum they purchased

Zeon

3916 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#410915 29-Nov-2010 22:07

Its about the licenses for spectrum that the carriers have. Telecom had 850mhz while Vodafone 900mhz. Both have 2100mhz.

Vodafone are lucky as they already had a GSM network when they launched 3g so they could slowly deploy 900mhz 3g. Telecom had to do it all in one hit.

Speedtest 2019-10-14

matisyahu

1623 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#410957 30-Nov-2010 00:47

Zeon: Its about the licenses for spectrum that the carriers have. Telecom had 850mhz while Vodafone 900mhz. Both have 2100mhz.

Vodafone are lucky as they already had a GSM network when they launched 3g so they could slowly deploy 900mhz 3g. Telecom had to do it all in one hit.

Which is one of the reasons why I haven't gone with Vodafone; I'm stuck here around Silverstream and with Vodafone travelling into Wellington it constantly drops back to 2G whilst on the train where as with Telecom's XT Network I'm 3G all the way into Wellington without any problems.

I understand the frustration of missing out on some of the cool phones but I'd sooner have a pure 3G network than the horrible setup that Vodafone has.

"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick'"

sbiddle

30853 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#410973 30-Nov-2010 06:19

kawaii:
Zeon: Its about the licenses for spectrum that the carriers have. Telecom had 850mhz while Vodafone 900mhz. Both have 2100mhz.

Vodafone are lucky as they already had a GSM network when they launched 3g so they could slowly deploy 900mhz 3g. Telecom had to do it all in one hit.

Which is one of the reasons why I haven't gone with Vodafone; I'm stuck here around Silverstream and with Vodafone travelling into Wellington it constantly drops back to 2G whilst on the train where as with Telecom's XT Network I'm 3G all the way into Wellington without any problems.

I understand the frustration of missing out on some of the cool phones but I'd sooner have a pure 3G network than the horrible setup that Vodafone has.

You need to understand why this happens because it's more of a planned thing rather than a "fault".

A phone will always lock onto the strongest signal it can find. 2100MHz 3G signals won't penetrate things such as as metal trains as well as a 900Mhz signal.

Networks can and do purposely configure things so that devices will hand down from 3G onto GSM for thing such as voice calling so that 3G capacity is reserved for data. If you initiate a PDP context on Vodafone your device will not drop to GSM unless the signal gets really, really bad - and even then it will immediately move back to 3G as soon as it can.

matisyahu

1623 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#411697 1-Dec-2010 18:09

sbiddle:
kawaii:
Zeon: Its about the licenses for spectrum that the carriers have. Telecom had 850mhz while Vodafone 900mhz. Both have 2100mhz.

Vodafone are lucky as they already had a GSM network when they launched 3g so they could slowly deploy 900mhz 3g. Telecom had to do it all in one hit.

Which is one of the reasons why I haven't gone with Vodafone; I'm stuck here around Silverstream and with Vodafone travelling into Wellington it constantly drops back to 2G whilst on the train where as with Telecom's XT Network I'm 3G all the way into Wellington without any problems.

I understand the frustration of missing out on some of the cool phones but I'd sooner have a pure 3G network than the horrible setup that Vodafone has.

You need to understand why this happens because it's more of a planned thing rather than a "fault".

A phone will always lock onto the strongest signal it can find. 2100MHz 3G signals won't penetrate things such as as metal trains as well as a 900Mhz signal.

Networks can and do purposely configure things so that devices will hand down from 3G onto GSM for thing such as voice calling so that 3G capacity is reserved for data. If you initiate a PDP context on Vodafone your device will not drop to GSM unless the signal gets really, really bad - and even then it will immediately move back to 3G as soon as it can.

I'm in Silverstream and the 900Mhz 3G Broadband is barely registering on the coverage map of Vodafone - in all due respects Vodafone coverage is horrible:

Yet when I'm using the XT Network I get great 3G coverage whether using 850 or 2100Mhz - and it keeps holding a HSDPA connection even when I'm stuck travelling from Silverstream to Wellington in a metal tube on wheels (train). In all due respects it is a cop out by Vodafone and their under investment - I'm not stuck in the 'sticks' or some rural backwater, I'm 30km from Wellington, and I'm stuck half way between Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt so there absolutely no reason why Vodafone cannot deliver service parity to Telecom (the company people love to hate).

"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick'"

raytaylor

4014 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#411707 1-Dec-2010 18:59

That radio prediction model is highly flawed and probably created using the specifications of one of their best cellphones on the market at the time.

I know of heaps of areas around Hawkes Bay that have issues.

One other problem with the Hutt Valley is that it is a very unique area with the hills on either side, and hills creeping into the valley itself, it makes it very hard to design a good network from a radio engineers perspective. What makes it worse is all the protected land around the area and that limits where they can put cellphone towers.

When I lived in Kingsley Heights, our nearest TV transmitter was Mt Climbe, but we had to run a cable up the hill at the back of our property to get above the tree line and point our antenna down the valley to get a bounced signal from a tv transmitter closer to wellington because of the surrounding hills. Its a nightmare for anyone in radio down there. And thats UHF prime at 700mhz - 900mhz is slightly harder, but not as hard as the 2100mhz which almost requires line of sight to go more than 2 km from the cell tower.

Ray Taylor

There is no place like localhost

Spreadsheet for Comparing Electricity Plans Here

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

sbiddle

30853 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#411710 1-Dec-2010 19:10

kawaii: I'm in Silverstream and the 900Mhz 3G Broadband is barely registering on the coverage map of Vodafone - in all due respects Vodafone coverage is horrible:

Vodafone haven't deployed 900Mhz 3G in metropolitan areas yet so you shouldn't be expecting 900MHz 3G coverage. The closest site to you is Pakuratahi north of Upper Hutt.

Yet when I'm using the XT Network I get great 3G coverage whether using 850 or 2100Mhz - and it keeps holding a HSDPA connection even when I'm stuck travelling from Silverstream to Wellington in a metal tube on wheels (train). In all due respects it is a cop out by Vodafone and their under investment - I'm not stuck in the 'sticks' or some rural backwater, I'm 30km from Wellington, and I'm stuck half way between Upper Hutt and Lower Hutt so there absolutely no reason why Vodafone cannot deliver service parity to Telecom (the company people love to hate).

The key difference is that 2100MHz doesn't go well through a metal tube. Odds are you'll never actually be using the 2100MHz XT sites anywhere along your journey because there are only a couple and you will never hand up from 850Mhz to 2100MHz (which I think is still broken anyway), only from 2100Mhz down to 850Mhz.

From Silverstream to Wellington on Vodafone you'll pass through the following Vodafone sites - Silverstream Railway Stn, Silverstream Retreat, Haywards, Taita Railway Stn, possibly the Avalon Studios, Naenae, possibly Boulcott, Waterloo Railway Stn, Woburn, possibly Moera, Ava, Hutt Rd Petone, Cornish St, Hutt Rd SH2, Ngauranga, Kaiwharawara, Railyards and then the Stadium. If you walked the track I'd probably put some beers on the fact you would find that outdoor signal strength that entire journey was probably a maximum of -95 dBm and that the only 'deadspot' is a low signal area south of Ngauranga as you go through the tunnels (that also regularly drops on 2d and XT also) and an occasional handover issue between the Ava and Hutt Rd sites.

On Telecom you'll pass roughly half the number of sites because Telecom don't need the same number of sites to deliver inbuilding coverage with 850MHz. Vodafone haven't underinvested - it's just a fundamental problem that 2100MHz signals struggle to go through tissue paper, let along a metal tube.

And before anybody reading this starts thinking I work for Vodafone I don't. I'm simply giving a technical explation of the issue because it has nothing to do with investment or network quality.

oxnsox

1923 posts

Uber Geek

#411713 1-Dec-2010 19:25

Well said Steve. Its often easier to put down the company providing the services (or products) than it is to do the research into the correct answer

quickymart

13927 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#411729 1-Dec-2010 19:44

So if 2100 is so poor for coverage, why is it used then?

johnr

19282 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#411731 1-Dec-2010 19:46

quickymart: So if 2100 is so poor for coverage, why is it used then?

Capacity also sometimes its handy to have small coverage foot print off a cell

(and below what Steve has posted)

sbiddle

30853 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#411732 1-Dec-2010 19:47

quickymart: So if 2100 is so poor for coverage, why is it used then?

Because when the WCDMA spec was developed in the late 90's it was the only spectrum available across all of the world (except for the USA) that was suitable for a service.

Since then the 800 and 900 bands have approved for use also and we're seeing 900 WCDMA being rolled out in Europe. This hasn't been able to happen until now because spectrum licence restrictions in many countries have been technology specific - ie only GSM could be deployed in the 900MHz band.

quickymart

13927 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

#411744 1-Dec-2010 20:06

Thanks, that's interesting, I didn't know that. Seems it's more of a "legacy" thing. So will 850 or 900 coverage eventually supercede or replace 2100, or will there still be demand for it?

raytaylor

4014 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#411746 1-Dec-2010 20:09

There is a benefit to using the higher frequency and that is because it doesnt go as far.
This means in metropolitian areas where there are many hills and buildings, you can make the coverage areas for each cell tower smaller so that you have less people attached to it, and therefore more bandwidth avaliable to each user.

If you look at this tower here at Mclean Park in Napier, you will see a set of antennas at the top of the tower to serve users further out, and then another set half way up, so the effect is reduced range, to serve less users. This makes each set of channels and transmitters less congested as the cellphones closer to the tower will see the lower antennas and connect to them, reducing congestion on the top set.

Ray Taylor

There is no place like localhost

Spreadsheet for Comparing Electricity Plans Here

sbiddle

30853 posts

Uber Geek

Retired Mod

Trusted

Biddle Corp

Lifetime subscriber

#411748 1-Dec-2010 20:14

quickymart: Right, interesting, it's more of a "legacy" thing. So will 850 or 900 coverage eventually supercede or replace 2100, or will there still be demand for it?

It will always exist. 2100MHz can serve a great purpose as JohnR points out because the range isn't as good. Smaller range sites can actually be a good thing, particularly for increasing network capacity in built up areas which is the exact purpose they serve on XT.

One thing that really annoys me about NZ is that people seem to think we have terrible mobile networks. Travel overseas and you'll really appreciate how fantastic it is to have two nationwide 3G networks that both do deliver good performance. Try visiting the UK where you're stuck with GSM in many areas and even then if you're unlucky you'll be stuck on a site using the HR codec to increase voice capacity.

1 | 2 | 3