4G Virtual Interview- 03/10/13

[Anonymous]

Hey Guys.

We know how excited you are by 4G, so we want to give you all the chance to ask our experts questions in the form of our Virtual Interview!

We've got Sarah Craig and Alistair Baird from our 4G delivery team who'll be here on the 3^rd  of October answering your questions, say hello to them! They’re really looking forward to getting you the latest and greatest information on O2 4G

As you know we’re bringing 13 cities 4G by the end of the year so we really want to know what questions you have, this will help us make sure we're doing all we can to get it right.

If you’re new to the community and want to get involved in this Virtual Interview check out our guide on what to do to ask a question, remember you need to be logged in to ask us. The guide on how to register/login to the community can be found here

To get your question answered by the team, simply reply to this thread below.

The Virtual interview will be at 12:30pm till 1:30pm on the 3rd of October, to take part just ask your question on this thread, if we don’t answer you in the hour we’ll make sure your question gets answered!

Ask away guys, look forward to seeing all of your questions!

Thanks

Brad

[Anonymous]

Hi,

Do we have any further clarification apart from the end of 2013, when 4G will be avalable for o2 Pay as You Go Customers along with Payg Tariff information / Data allowances. 

Now the iPhone 5s and 5c are starting to be used by o2 Customers they are going to be wanting news on the update to allow them to be used on the 4G Service.

[davethorp]

Having seen the piece on Watchdog this week about EE 4G I think some people may be wanting reassurance that O2 will not suffer from similar issues once the 4G network starts properly rolling out

[MI5]

O2 did not have to farm out any of their 3G bandwidth to gain 4G so the EE issues won't be apparent. I'm not suggesting there won't be issues though, just not the same ones

[aldaweb]

As someone who drives around London I've noticed that 4G coverage is not consistent and in places drops back to Edge or GPRS or even GSM only. Is this due to lack of converted towers, insufficient back end or congestion bearing in mind this is before the iPhone 5c/s release?

How long before VoLTE is rolled out?

Sent from my Z10

[PhoneChanger]

Could we have an update on the planned rollout dates to other cities?

[Anonymous]

Hi Brad,

Thanks for providing us with the chance to speak to the 4G people themselves.

Now, the link you gave to the guide just takes us to the main O2 Community FAQ/guidance notes. Nothing specific about this interview. I assume we start posting in here and those guys will come on that day and answer questions that we've posted?

Furthermore, my questions would be:

a) Precisely what form of 4G is O2 using? Is it one where the entire network is 4G and all calls also go through the data connection? Or is it a variant where calls still go through circuit-switched GSM/3G?

b) Is handover going to work as seamlessly as 3G, i.e. will we get seamless service (for example streaming music) while travelling and going between 4G and 3G coverage areas?

[Toby]

Hi DonDino,

Thanks for flagging that, I've edited it to make it a little clearer. You've done the right thing; responding to this thread.

[aldaweb]

@dondino I can answer point a) for you. O2 is using LTE band 20 (800Mhz) which is data only at least until VoLTE (voice over LTE) is available. Voice calls with simultaneous data drop back to HSPA+ or lower. 

In my (limited) experience handover between 4G and 3G seems fairly seamless (playing podcasts and streaming radio) though there are still areas with no 3G coverage which is expected to improve along with the 4G rollout.

Sent from my Z10 

[Anonymous]

Thanks aldaweb.

So, if I'm on 4G and, say, streaming or whatever, and a voice call comes in, will the data connection also drop to HSPA+/3G for as long as I'm in the call? Or is 4G data still working alongside the voice call?

Having found one 4G cell here in Manchester (presumably testing), I've noticed that if I start streaming radio when I'm within the 4G area, it cuts off as soon as I go outside it and drop to 3G...