It’s all about frequency
Carriers all have their own bandwidth that they use
to carry signal. A carrier such as EE operates a
high frequency, resulting in stronger signal
outdoors as the wavelengths are bunched closer
together. However, once it passes through
materials such as brick, higher wavelengths get
absorbed by the brick and scattered, making
signal indoors much weaker. The reverse is true
for lower-frequency bandwidths, which struggle
outdoors, so this is something to consider when
choosing a network provider.
Hide-and-seek
Mobile phone masts are not popular with
communities, partly due to health concerns but
also due to the look of the masts. In order to
continue expanding their network coverage,
carriers are getting smarter. Mobile signal
antennae can now be found hiding inside
flagpoles, fake trees and even fake chimney pots.
arrangement with both private and public building
owners to add a mast to the top of their building.
Water is the enemy
Signal arrives at your phone in the form of
wavelengths and nothing disrupts them quite like
moving water. As the wave enters the water it will
get refracted in all different directions. It is
estimated that you’ll get no phone signal at all at a
might be academic anyway, as hearing a ringtone
or a person’s voice relies on vibrations that would
also struggle underwater as they would get
absorbed by the liquid and scattered.
Portable masts
For the majority of the year, farms and rural areas
don’t need a lot of mobile signal. However, during
festival season when thousands of bandwidthhungry
music lovers descend on them, there is a
much greater demand on the masts. To combat
this, carriers will bring temporary masts mounted
on vans to the site. Vodafone, for example, took
four such vans to last year’s Glastonbury to ensure
its users got the best possible signal strength.
Volume is key
Places where thousands of people regularly
gather, such as sports stadiums and theatres,
need to be able to cope with huge numbers of
phones trying to access the network all at the
same time. To cope with this, carriers will install
ceiling – in the building that adds many more
channels to the area. The signal won’t be
particularly strong or quick, but it will make it more
likely that you can actually get on your network.
Ain’t no mountain high enough
Mobile signal radiates outward so you can
comfortably get signal at the top of a mountain as
long as you’re within sight of a mast. Areas that are
built up, or towns where there are lots of hills
struggle to send signal over a wide area because
objects get in the way. However, signal can happily
travel for a good couple of miles in uninhibited
area. Indeed, climbers of Mount Everest can get
4G, 5,200m up at Base Camp.
VoLTE is coming
VoLTE stands for Voice over LTE, where you can
make voice calls using your phone’s LTE signal,
rather than the usual voice channels. This will be
very handy for those times you don’t have any
normal phone signal but can get online through
3G, 4G or Wi-Fi. This could make calling from rural
areas much easier if you have some kind of mobile
Wi-Fi device that you can plug in to create that
essential Wi-Fi signal. EE has been experimenting
with VoLTE since 2014, while Vodafone, Three and
O2 are rolling out VoLTE soon.
4G isn’t always best
Even though 4G is generally considered the holy
grail of mobile signal, in some scenarios 3G can
actually be faster. A weak 4G signal on one carrier,
maybe if a mast is a
long way away or
there are objects
obscuring it, will give
you slower upload
and download
speeds than a good
3G signal. Signal
strength will always
be the most
important factor in
your mobile speeds
so don’t feel you
absolutely have to
get a 4G phone in
order to keep up.
Automatic retuning
If your phone is capable of getting 4G it will try to
use it wherever possibl it has the potential to
be the fastest way of u loading
data. However, mode
phones are capable o
realising if using a 3G
connection might b
faster, due to a stro
signal. If it detects
that is the case, it
will automatically
drop down to us
the 3G signal
instead,
improving the
user experien
without them
having to touch
a single set
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