MSE News: Orange and T-Mobile owner to launch 4G first amid rebrand rumours

reclusive46

NFH wrote: »

When 3G phones were introduced around 2005, you needed a new 3G SIM card in order to use 3G networks. If you put an existing 2G SIM card into a 3G phone, you could only connect to 2G networks. Since then, almost all 2G SIM cards have been replaced with 3G SIM cards. Will the same problem arise with 4G? Will we need new SIM cards?

Sim cards need to be 4G provisioned but it wouldn't surprise me if some of the newer ones have already been and it is technically possible to provision the sims over the air.

NFH

reclusive46 wrote: »

it is technically possible to provision the sims over the air.

That's good news, because it definitely wasn't possible with 2G/3G a few years ago, at least not with Orange.

jb66

Who cares tmobile throttle data anyway,

prowla

Does anybody know what the outcome of the (confidential) rebrand is?

Pincher

This means idots will be able to watch X-Factor, football, talk AND DRIVE at the same time!

At least buffering lets them watch the road every few seconds.

jayme1

With there being 3 bands for LTE, 800MHz, 1800MHz and 2600MHz, I am hoping as much as I can that there won't be a case of some phones working on some bands and not others.

ie I want to be able to buy one phone and it will work on every network, not you have to buy a phone for the network.

I may be thinking way out of the box but why can't all the networks band together and build a 100% land coverage network which they can all share, it would keep maintenance costs down and they can coordinate coverage in cities where they need more towers. If it was going to be anticompetitive the networks could all make a joint separate company to solely maintain and build the network.

eljmayes

jayme1 wrote: »

With there being 3 bands for LTE, 800MHz, 1800MHz and 2600MHz, I am hoping as much as I can that there won't be a case of some phones working on some bands and not others.

ie I want to be able to buy one phone and it will work on every network, not you have to buy a phone for the network.

I may be thinking way out of the box but why can't all the networks band together and build a 100% land coverage network which they can all share, it would keep maintenance costs down and they can coordinate coverage in cities where they need more towers. If it was going to be anticompetitive the networks could all make a joint separate company to solely maintain and build the network.

I can almost guarantee that if T-Mobile/Orange's sales of the iPhone 5 go through the roof via having exclusivity of 4G O2 and Vodafone will look at ways of stifling them.

jayme1

NFH wrote: »

Does this mean that Orange and T-Mobile customers will have worse 2G coverage, once the 1800MHz spectrum is changed from 2G to 4G?

no it shouldn't disrupt 2G coverage at all but the ultimate goal will be to turn 2G (and 3G) totally off and just have LTE since LTE can handle voice, SMS and data.

reclusive46 wrote: »

Awesome, now we have to wait for phones to support it although it is rumoured that the iPhone 5 will support the 1800mhz LTE because thats what the Korean networks use.

It might, it might not I would not be surprised if Apple only release an LTE iPhone for the US like they did with the iPad, also the same number spectrum doesn't mean it will work, AT&T and Verizon in the US both use the 700MHz band but phones are not cross compatible because they use a different part of the 700MHz spectrum.

buscape

jayme1 wrote: »

why can't all the networks band together and build a 100% land coverage network which they can all share, it would keep maintenance costs down and they can coordinate coverage in cities where they need more towers. If it was going to be anticompetitive the networks could all make a joint separate company to solely maintain and build the network.

That's pretty much what O2/Vodafone and Three/Everything Everywhere are doing although they don't give 100% land coverage.

I don't think there could ever be one network for all the operators to use, it would give the networks the opportunity to fleece consumers even more than they do already.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4133157

lil.smartie

AT&T use gsm technology like most of the world, Verizon use cdma...

Kate