NEWS: Channel Tunnel to get mobile phone coverage

NFH

gjchester wrote: »

Given Vodafone have just objected to Oranges 4G rollout you can see how company politics get in the way.

That's not company politics but competition concerns, and a completely different matter altogether. http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/networking/2012/03/13/everything-everywhere-wins-ofcom-backing-for-4g-plans-40095252/

gjchester

NFH wrote: »

That's not company politics but competition concerns, and a completely different matter altogether. http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/networking/2012/03/13/everything-everywhere-wins-ofcom-backing-for-4g-plans-40095252/

Company politics is certainly adding to the mix, Vodafone and o2 have some 1800Mhz allocations can they not simply do the same as EE?

Anyway I was told the long and short of the delays came down to the networks all not wanting to co-operate with each other.

NFH

gjchester wrote: »

Company politics is certainly adding to the mix, Vodafone and o2 have some 1800Mhz allocations can they not simply do the same as EE?

No. Everything Everywhere has duplicate coverage in many areas, often with two transmitters on the same site. They can therefore switch some of this 1800MHz capacity from 2G to 4G without impacting 2G coverage. If Vodafone and O2 did this, they would leave 2G users with no 1800MHz coverage in some areas.

Buzby

There will be no issues of broadcasting a foreign signal in the tunnel - it'll be a leaky feeder, just like their own comms system which runs in the 3 tunnels - so there will be no issues of nationalism on private property!

NFH

Sorry I'm a bit late with this but Eurotunnel published a press release on 25th July about this. I'm planning to go to Calais in the next few days, so it will be interesting to see whether any French signal spills out of the UK end of the tunnel into the Folkestone terminal, particularly into the boarding area. Unfortunately, when the British networks eventually get their act together, the same won't happen in the Calais terminal because it is 1½ miles from the tunnel entrance.

Richard_T_

If the French signal leaks out a bit, and If you end up on it without knowing then surely your main operator should waive any aditional roaming fees

NFH

Richard_T_ wrote: »

If the French signal leaks out a bit, and If you end up on it without knowing then surely your main operator should waive any aditional roaming fees

Why? Would you apply the same logic if you were in Northern Ireland and logged on to a network over the border? There are borders all over Europe where signals spill over, and it's up to the customer to choose the correct network. However there is a potential limitation of network selection that I mentioned in post 3 above.

NFH

I went through the Channel Tunnel yesterday in both directions. In the loading area at Folkestone, I picked up a weak signal from Orange France and Bouygues Telecom, but I couldn't log on to them, so I think the signal was from across the Channel (which has occurred in the past) rather than from the tunnel. As expected, there was no coverage yet in the southbound (UK to France) tunnel. In the northbound (France to UK) tunnel, there was a strong signal from Orange France, SFR and Bouygues Telecom. Using a Vodafone UK prepaid SIM on their £2/25MB/day deal, I used SFR and made Skype calls with limited success. The Speedtest.net iPhone app showed 4301kbps downstream and 1678kbps upstream. At least half a minute before reaching the UK end of the tunnel, the signal disappeared on all three French networks, meaning there's a coverage black spot with no coverage from UK or French networks.

NFH

I went through the Channel Tunnel again yesterday. Responsibility for providing coverage lies with networks of the country you are leaving. Although UK networks are supposed to provide coverage in the southbound tunnel towards France, there is still a massive coverage blackspot throughout this whole tunnel. This is a disgraceful effort from the UK networks. The French networks are almost a year ahead.

Buzby

The alternative was to do what happens of the ferries - provide a totally new network, and make all users ROAM on it.

The profits would be substantial as few would remember to turn off roaming and be hit with non-domestic mobile charges irrespective of the direction travelled.