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]

Thanks for the information. I am living in Birmingham and next week I will by my IPhone 5S at O2 and I hope I will get the same speed.

[Anonymous]

When will 4G be activated on more masts in Birmingham as even high streets are lacking signal and at home I have to receive it from around 3.5km's away on the Lifford Lane mast that has been errected and activated next to your old o2 2&3G mast.

I currently can get full 2G & 3G from my local mast on top of a tower block in Kings Norton, Putting 4G on this would not just give great coverage to me but the very populated area of which many mobile users are on o2 for there improved coverage, Using 900mhz compared to 1800/2100mhz, and would also give copverage to rural coutryside with poor broadband and no plans for that to change....... Yet!

I thought you would have been using your existing masts to broadcast 4G.

I have also been close to this mast recently with my 4G and still got a weak signal.

Though I am impressed with its performance under pressure I'm still not blow away at an extra £15 per month.

[Anonymous]

What part of Birmingham do you live as reception in south Birmingham is very patchy and O2 CS say very few mast are active, I've had it nearly a week and not yet got 3-4 bars for more thans a min or seconds even, and speeds have got to around 21mb down and 11mb up.

Even areas on o2's coverage map showing great coverage are weak so be cautious, I'm not sure what Vodafone's 4G is like yet and couldn't comment on EE either.

[adamtemp64]

A serious question as other networks have already rolled out 3g to my rural location how will o2 try to retain business customers in rural o2 3g not spots? As a business we need a fall back solution and the o2 4g pop up office would work well but as we do not even get 3g will o2 give a bit of priority to the rural roll out as business customers could connect many handsets and other devices to the much touted improved coverage that 800mhz band 20 gives. I appreciate that o2 for commercially sensitive reasons will not inform users in advance yet look at bt openreach fiber rollout they at least give a timeframe for areas etc (subject to change). Now that there is no monopoly for 4g if o2 were open in communicating there committed end of 2015 implementation rather than the 2017 ofcom obligation o2 could potentially gain customers in ares that will go live ahead of other networks. Just like at the moment o2 have the only live status page that I know of on all networks.

I appreciate this may well not be answered in the live session but It will help us decide our business contact choices down the line. (I have had to get a 3 payg dongle to use as an adsl backup as we have overhead cables).

[Anonymous]

Yes, someone else mentioned the same, 4G is to be used for data only and 3G for voice calls. Of course I'd expect streaming radio to stop/pause for voice calls, that's an app thing, as you wouldn't want the music to keep playing while trying to hear your caller talk 😉
However, the connection itself should stay active in 3G mode, so if you are downloading a file, or have an active VPN or SIP connection or whatever, they should stay active and not disconnect on every call (like what happens when you're on 2G).
With regards to handover, in the past few months I've found that O2's 3G service has improved dramatically. Streaming radio does not stop at all when commuting from home to work and back (and I must be passing at least a few different masts on the way). I would hate to lose that when 4G switches on!

[Anonymous]

Good afternoon everyone, I'm Sarah Craig and I head up 4G.

We've seen some great questions and we're looking forward to spending the next hour or so answering as many as we can.

[MI5]

Hi Sarah, looking forward to this - I'm considering a 4G contract right now....

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I'm Alistair Baird and have been running the Operations programme for 4G and am also here to answer your questions

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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.

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Hi Bandofbrothers

No definite dates yet but we'll keep the community posted with any updates (or you can register your interest for 4G to keep up to date with the latest information)

[Anonymous]

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@davethorp wrote:

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

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Hi Davethorp

We're committed to rolling 98% across all tehcnology layers, 2G, 3G and 4G.