Japan begining of the end for 2G reception and phones

m419 · 14-01-2009, 20:34

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/03..._2012_january/

Popularity for 2G phones and reception is at its lowest in Japan as everyone appears to be buying 3G phones.

Thats a whole different picture over in the UK! 3G phones are not as popular and people who do have 3G or 3G plus phones hardly ever use features such as Mobile TV and Video calling.

Maybe its because the reception is crap and is the pricing is too high!

nutellajunkie · 04-02-2009, 14:45

Quote:

Maybe its because the reception is crap and is the pricing is too high!

Elaborate?

Reception is very good, (bar a few islands and valleys), prices are coming down or are very good in my opinion.

Quote:

crap

what lovely grammar you have!

m419 · 04-02-2009, 20:10

It can hardly be good if in Central London you can't get even one bar of 3G reception!

Pay as you go customers on Orange Dolphin and Canary plans as well as Vodafone simply, users pay 20p per minute at all times for calls to mobiles and landlines, 20p per minute to call a landline! 10 minute call: Ã‚Â£2

Make the same call from a BT payphone at anytime and they give you 20 minutes for 40p! Make the same call to a landline using BT Together option 1 as well as Virgin's Talk Weekends plan during the day and it will cost you just over 3p per minute.

There is no reason for mobile phone companies to charge such high rates except for an easy way to profiting.

Hutchison Whampoa Group, the owners of 3 and the former owners of Orange have proven to have invested well in both companies over the years.

Hutchison launched 'Orange' in the UK in 1994 and spread throughout Europe,everyone was sure it was going to be a flop, but in fact it wasn't, Orange became the most developed network in the UK, it was 100% Digital and its network coverage reached far beyond Mercury One2One's network.

Hutchison however, could not afford to buy 3G licences and roll out 3G by 2002 on the Orange network, so they sold it off to Mannesman which was part of Vodafone, European goverments would not let this happen because of competition reasons therefore, France Telecom acquired the Orange Brand and network, Hutchison remains the owners of the Orange network in Israel,Austrailia,India and a few other countries but leases the the brand from France Telecom, it has begun a programme of rebranding using the '3' brand and the 'Hutch' brand.

Hutchison then began to build 3 with the money the made through the sale of Orange, Hutchison spent billions on making sure that it launched by end of 2002 which it did but had a few complications, by 2009 its 3G coverage covers 92% of the UK population, the 2G reception is provided by Orange.

Orange 3G coverage currently covers around 80% of the UK poplulation
T-Mobile and Vodafone currently cover around 70% of the UK population
O2 covers only just over 55% which is bad!

O2 and Vodafone's 2G coverage currently covers 99% of the UK population whilst T-Mobile and Orange cover around 97%.

So the best 2G networks are O2 and Vodafone whilst the best 3G networks are 3,Orange and T-Mobile.

It has been announced that France Telecom has sold Orange Netherlands (Holland) to T-Mobile, it has also been announced that France Telecom is in a financial mess and has been advised to sell Orange,but nothings changed yet!

**Chris** · 04-02-2009, 20:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by nutellajunkie

Elaborate?

Reception is very good, (bar a few islands and valleys), prices are coming down or are very good in my opinion.

what lovely grammar you have!

3G reception reaches about 80% of the population, depending on your operator, which is not at all bad, but in geographical terms it's hardly accurate to say the only place it doesn't get to is 'a few islands and valleys'. There are massive swathes of this country that get no 3G signal. The operators have concentrated on the major population centres and the principal transport routes, much the same as they did when 2G was rolled out. It will be years before 3G gets anywhere near the coverage levels that 2G has in the UK.

cookie_365 · 04-02-2009, 20:25

I thought that 2G in Japan was completely different to 2G over here - basically equivalent to the old analogue networks? Which is why no one uses it any more.

m419 · 08-02-2009, 19:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris

3G reception reaches about 80% of the population, depending on your operator, which is not at all bad, but in geographical terms it's hardly accurate to say the only place it doesn't get to is 'a few islands and valleys'. There are massive swathes of this country that get no 3G signal. The operators have concentrated on the major population centres and the principal transport routes, much the same as they did when 2G was rolled out. It will be years before 3G gets anywhere near the coverage levels that 2G has in the UK.

The thing is, mobile network operators cannot afford it! Some are already in a finacial mess and if they spend to much they will find themselves facing bankruptcy.

These mobile networks are focusing on the wrong things like homephone and home broadband which also needs a lot of costly upgrade work! They should stick to mobile technology and let BT,Virgin,Cable and Wireless,Verizon and COLT look after ADSL,Cable Broadband,Voip and Telephone services!

Hutchison 3G tried the whole '3G only' policy when it first started but nobody could get a signal indoors and about 2 or 3 bars outdoors and out in the sticks virtually no signal. They then partnered up with O2 to provide a 2G backup, they switched to the Orange network in 2006, by 2013, 3 should be able to provide 100% 3G coverage equivalent to the 2G network.

With regards to Japan, japan is much more advanced than the UK, Analogue mobiles went in the mid 90's whilst Vodafone and Cellnet was still providing Analogue reception up until early 2000.

Mercury One2One now T-Mobile UK was the worlds first Digital mobile network,however, its frequency and reception has problems with indoor usage and they have developed quite slowly over the past 15 years. Orange over took them with there network coverage which is why they have always had a larger customer base.

O2 has the worst 3G coverage in the countries it operates in compared to its rivals, It rolled out 3G much later than its competitors due to the demerger from BT, it then had to sell off its Dutch operations to fund the 3G rollout. The Netherlands has a much smaller user base of mobiles than the UK, Orange sold its customer base to T-Mobile in Holland and has since merged its network to provide better network coverage, that brings up T-Mobile's customer base in holland to about 5 or 6 million.

jamieclarko · 26-02-2009, 16:50

3g goes about half as far as gsm also uses twice as much battery power on a standard voice call than a standard gsm handset! I have a sony ericsson k810i and have had 3g switched off since i bought it! haha video calling is crap and laggy and theres not much difference in browsing speed if you use opera mini!

m419 · 01-03-2009, 15:24

Then you might as well just buy a nokia 3210, dunno why people get fancy phones with all those features and you just use basic calling and texting!

haydnwalker · 01-03-2009, 19:08

Once batteries and coverage catch up with us - mobiles that can make good use of 3G (things like the G1 and iPhone) for web browsing because, lets face it, who uses their phone for video calling? Nearly all my friends have 3G phones but not one have ever used video calling. But ALL of them have used the 3G coverage for Mobile Web Browsing.

Video Calling isn't the future, but things like Mobile IM will take over SMS texting soon I think.