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

[MarkTadley]

Living in a rural location, I currently get either 1bar or no serivce almost all the time on 3G.

I am wondering when you will be looking at effectively making sure all areas will be covered both in 4G and obviously 3G?

Swapping out the O2 sim with a VF sim card, I have 3 or 4bar all the time and no dropped calls so I would like to know the reasons behind such poor reception from O2, zero updates to towers working/maintainance etc at present and how O2 intend to improve it, not only generally but 4G as well to all rural locations with very poor reception.

[Anonymous]

1. Has O2 passed Apple's 4G tests and when will Apple allow O2 4G on its handsets (as in weeks is highly vague answer)?

2. How does O2 plan to support multiple users on its 4G network in coming years (as 4G subscribers increase YoY ) in densely populated areas (eg. Central London) as it does not hold any 2.6 GHz frequency?

[aldaweb]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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...

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As I understand it, and I did a quick trial earlier to verify, when a voice call comes in it will interrupt any streaming audio, as I would expect anyway whether on 3G or 4G. 4G and 3G cannot be used concurrently so whenever a voice call is active you would drop to HSPA+ or slower. Streaming radio did not automatically restart on hanging up the call, but this may vary between handsets.

Also did a test on 4G to 3G (H+) handover whilst streaming and whilst there was a slight hiccup streaming continued after switching over.

[Anonymous]

I'm on an original iPhone Simplicity sim (using the iPhone 5S) with unlimited data.  I'd like to stay with O2 and have 4G but why can't O2 do the same deals as 3 - ie decent minutes and texts with unlimited data for the same price as O2 but with no premium for 4G?  Since I'm out of contract give me some good reasons why I shouldn't just leave?

[MI5]

You won't get the same deals as Three due to different business models, number of users and infrastructure. If you want Threes deals you should move to Three.

[Anonymous]

That's like a corporate non-answer.  I'm not expecting something for nothing just trying to establish why data is so constrained on O2.  If 3 can do it why not O2?

[MI5]

I'm far from corporate and just stating the facts.
Three have something like 11 million customers which is around half of what O2 have. The infrastructure O2 uses just simply cannot support the potential for that amount of data.

They used to offer unlimited data before everyone jumped onto the smartphone bandwagon but made the decision to stop it to allow all users a fair slice.

They did some research and concluded that the average persons usage is less than 500mb a month...

[Anonymous]

I would love to know this also.. but I don't receive any 3g.. 2g extremely poor and only 2km away from a mast..

O2 exec team wont answer my specific questions, just preferred that I left instead of sorting it out.

[Anonymous]

I live in Nottingham which has just had 4g turned on but where i live (which is close to a o2 mast) is only showing as 1 bar on the o2 4g network coverage. I am very disappointed that after all the hype i cannot get a 4g signal unless i move closer into the city centre 3g is fine though, occasionally drops to GPRS when inside making calls. 4g hasn't lived upto my expectations at the moment so i don't think it warrants paying extra for a service you cannot use?!. Not a very happy o2 customer at the moment!.

[Anonymous]

Will the 4G service use image compression? I would like to see O2 remove it entirely similar to Three, EE and other networks.