issue with Vodafone Network in Wellington CBD

Forums › One NZ (including Farmside) › issue with Vodafone Network in Wellington CBD

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mckenndk

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#306748 12-Mar-2010 20:07

And is it the case that 2g does not chew up battery life?

nzbsgfan:
richms: The dropping to 2g when making a call has been a long ongoing problem on vodafone if you dont have a handset that can be set to UMTS only. Hardly anything new.

It may not be not "a problem" as such.
Perhaps instead, think of it as a way to manage voice traffic in a way that doesnt impact on the end user - but provides more effective headroom for those who might need it. i.e. Data users on 3G.

Just a thought...

freitasm

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#306754 12-Mar-2010 21:04

I am not sure 2G uses less battery than 3G. What it happens is that the device tends to use 3G and keep searching for 2G in case it drops.

I have an AT&T device here and locked it on 3G since Telecom can only offer that. A couple of friends in my group received the same device from AT&T in the U.S. - they commented the device was rebooting every few minutes or so. I remember they lived in Texas and asked if they had it locked to 3G - they said "We don't have 3G here"... And after a week working with AT&T they found out the devices were resetting when trying to connect to a very weak 3G signal from somewhere else.

The moral of the story? Their battery life was really poor, compared to mine...

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sbiddle

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#306763 12-Mar-2010 21:32

richms: The dropping to 2g when making a call has been a long ongoing problem on vodafone if you dont have a handset that can be set to UMTS only. Hardly anything new.

Lets make this very clear. It's also not a "problem" - it is logical traffic management.

It's pretty much common practice on all providers anywhere in the world who have GSM and 3G networks. Why waste 3G bandwidth carrying voice traffic when GSM bandwidth is percectly suitable for the purpose?

richms

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#306766 12-Mar-2010 21:40

sbiddle:

Lets make this very clear. It's also not a "problem" - it is logical traffic management.

It's pretty much common practice on all providers anywhere in the world who have GSM and 3G networks. Why waste 3G bandwidth carrying voice traffic when GSM bandwidth is percectly suitable for the purpose?

Because you cant fire up safari when on the call? Because your IM and email client gets disconnected?

Richard rich.ms

nzbsgfan

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#306768 12-Mar-2010 21:45

sbiddle:
richms: The dropping to 2g when making a call has been a long ongoing problem on vodafone if you dont have a handset that can be set to UMTS only. Hardly anything new.

Lets make this very clear. It's also not a "problem" - it is logical traffic management.

It's pretty much common practice on all providers anywhere in the world who have GSM and 3G networks. Why waste 3G bandwidth carrying voice traffic when GSM bandwidth is percectly suitable for the purpose?

Agreed - although there are clear guidelines for preferential handovers to 2G (increasing 3G mobile uplink power for one) , mobile operators can also shape traffic profiles by shifting 3G voice traffic to 2G via parameter sets in the RNC.

sbiddle

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#306772 12-Mar-2010 21:51

richms:
sbiddle:

Lets make this very clear. It's also not a "problem" - it is logical traffic management.

It's pretty much common practice on all providers anywhere in the world who have GSM and 3G networks. Why waste 3G bandwidth carrying voice traffic when GSM bandwidth is percectly suitable for the purpose?

Because you cant fire up safari when on the call? Because your IM and email client gets disconnected?

If you have an active 3G PS data connection you will not be handed down to GSM if you make a voice call.

Likewise if you establish a PS data connection while in GSM mode and 3G is available you will be automatically handed back to 3G.

There appear to be a couple of exceptions to these rules on a limited number of sites but this is certainly the case across probably 99% of the network.

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wtf

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#308696 18-Mar-2010 11:56

Actually you would not hand a voice user down from 3G to 2G to save bandwidth, since one of the major reasons for developing 3G was that it is more economical on bandwidth. The actual channels are wider, but you can cram more traffic onto a channel. That is the whole point of wideband CDMA, and UMTS and HSDPA are both wide band CDMA systems. So you would only hand someone down to 2G if the 3G coverage at that particular location was not good enough, which is one of those things thta is likely to happen at the odd location even if you put 3G into all your 2G sites.

sbiddle

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#308724 18-Mar-2010 13:05

wtf: Actually you would not hand a voice user down from 3G to 2G to save bandwidth, since one of the major reasons for developing 3G was that it is more economical on bandwidth. The actual channels are wider, but you can cram more traffic onto a channel. That is the whole point of wideband CDMA, and UMTS and HSDPA are both wide band CDMA systems. So you would only hand someone down to 2G if the 3G coverage at that particular location was not good enough, which is one of those things thta is likely to happen at the odd location even if you put 3G into all your 2G sites.

Forcing voice traffic onto GSM is a common practice around the world and is certainly something that does happen on purpose and is not simply a coverage issue.

While 3G has the capability to handle more calls the spectrum resourse is still not infinite. Forcing voice traffic onto GSM in busy areas where GSM capacity is available to save the 3G spectrum for data makes a lot of sence and is the reason many networks enable such policies on their RNCs.

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