Have Vodafone been adding more capacity to their network?

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andrewcnz

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#18110 28-Dec-2007 08:50

Have Vodafone been adding more capacity to their network? I have noticed on the ministry of economic development site, that many Vodafone cell sites now have an extra frequency recently added on the GSM 900 band. Anybody know more information regarding this.

johnr

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#101997 28-Dec-2007 09:03

Capacity is always been increased on all parts of the network not just 900mhz band

If anything there is less capacity on 900mhz as a chunk was sold to NZC

sbiddle

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#102000 28-Dec-2007 09:26

It's probably just network reconfiguration due to their sale of some of their 900MHz spectrum to NZ Communications.

DjShadow

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#102338 30-Dec-2007 21:41

When vodafone looks more at WCDMA900, will it use the same frequency as their GSM transmitters or will they need their own freq?

sbiddle

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#102339 30-Dec-2007 21:47

DjShadow: When vodafone looks more at WCDMA900, will it use the same frequency as their GSM transmitters or will they need their own freq?

It will be a different frequency. Both networks can't use the same frequency.

WCDMA (and CDMA) only uses a single frequency however uses a minimum of 5MHz of bandwidth.

GSM on the other hand is a TDMA based system and uses various frequencies on the same site, typically a GSM network requires approximately 25MHz of bandwidth to operate divided into channels spaced 200 kHz apart.

Vodafone have plenty of 900MHz spectrum to run both networks side by side, something they are very lucky to have.

bender

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#102413 31-Dec-2007 17:15

I've been out of the country for 2 months and prior to leaving I had 3G disabled as it was sapping battery life and the signal strength at home and at work (home being Remuera, Auckland and work being Symonds Street, Auckland CBD) was sporadic in that the number of bars showing on my phone would fluctuate heavily.

Since arriving back I seem to have 5/6 to 6/6 bars of 3G coverage pretty much everywhere I go so I don't know if a heap of new sites came on in the last two months or something else changed but it's a marked improvement. In addition, owing to the increased signal strength I can make it through the day without loosing more than a bar of battery with moderate talk time.

Has anyone else noticed a change in 3G performance?