Vodafone 4G launching Monday

long_b

http://www.vodafone.ie/aboutus/media/press/show/BAU021243.shtml

*4G locations at launch:
Cities: Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford and Kilkenny.

Other locations in the South East and South West of the country:
Carlow, Tralee, Wexford, Midleton, Ballincollig, Mallow, Cobh, Killarney, Enniscorthy, Dungarvan, New Ross, Carrigtohill, Macroom, Mitchelstown, Bantry, Blarney, Kanturk, Bagnelstown, Thomastown, Kenmare, Bunclody, Newmarket, Dunmanway, Lismore and Rosslare Harbour.

siblers

I wonder how close to a town will you have to be to avail of a 4g, will be just like fibre where unless you're in the town or suburbs you wont be able to avail of it?

funnyname

Any idea which masts or how can we find out which ones are going to be transmitting 4g?

long_b wrote: »

http://www.vodafone.ie/aboutus/media/press/show/BAU021243.shtml

*4G locations at launch:
Cities: Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford and Kilkenny.

Other locations in the South East and South West of the country:
Carlow, Tralee, Wexford, Midleton, Ballincollig, Mallow, Cobh, Killarney, Enniscorthy, Dungarvan, New Ross, Carrigtohill, Macroom, Mitchelstown, Bantry, Blarney, Kanturk, Bagnelstown, Thomastown, Kenmare, Bunclody, Newmarket, Dunmanway, Lismore and Rosslare Harbour.

long_b

funnyname wrote: »

Any idea which masts or how can we find out which ones are going to be transmitting 4g?

I'm afraid it will just be a case of "wait and see".

There is a site with all the masts on (www.site viewer.ie) but it's not updated well and it doesn't show 4G specific details.

Have a look at meteor's 4G coverage map to see how 4G compares with 3G in the places they have rolled out already.

Mustard1972

Onw thing is for certain with Vodafone.
Their offering will be more expensive and have lower caps than any of the other companies offering it.
And given that Meteors 4G offering is a joke on the price and the cap, Vodafone will be launching a terrible deal.
Where are 3? They are the only hope of getting useful caps on 4G. Without a cap in the hundreds of gigs 4G is just a fast path to busting your cap and getting a bill for thousands.

long_b

Launching .... maybe tomorrow ?
Anyone know what happened ?
Press office getting ahead of themselves again ?

lotas

i got my 4G Modem on Saturday, the Vodafone R212, made by ZTE. Couple of things i found over the last few days...

First, the modem is a lot bigger than the standard Vodafone 3G Mifi device. Its heavier, has 2 ports for external antennas (primary and secondary, not sure how that works yet) and the usual slots for the SIM and MicroSD Card.

The screen on the front shows the usual (overall data transferred, signal strength, what kind of connection, how long you have been connected, battery, etc) but in usual fashion, the data transferred does not automatically reset, so you are guessing how much you used this connection...

I have only managed to get my hands on the 4G signal in the office in Dublin City, as my house in Tallaght just shows up as H. but here are some tests:

When the device is sitting on my desk, directly beside my laptop, near the window, but not at the window:



After moving the device closer to the window and retrying the test, i got the following result:



Funny enough, thats FASTER than the connection we have though DSL in the office... Well, funny or painful, not sure which... So far, so good! Anyone have any questions?

lotas

Ohhh, follow up: The 4G launch is broadband only currently... the person in the store who sold me the device told me that phones are coming in the middle of November. also, broadband customers need a new SIM, but mobile customers do not...

Mustard1972

lotas wrote: »

i got my 4G Modem on Saturday, the Vodafone R212, made by ZTE. Couple of things i found over the last few days...

First, the modem is a lot bigger than the standard Vodafone 3G Mifi device. Its heavier, has 2 ports for external antennas (primary and secondary, not sure how that works yet) and the usual slots for the SIM and MicroSD Card.

The screen on the front shows the usual (overall data transferred, signal strength, what kind of connection, how long you have been connected, battery, etc) but in usual fashion, the data transferred does not automatically reset, so you are guessing how much you used this connection...

I have only managed to get my hands on the 4G signal in the office in Dublin City, as my house in Tallaght just shows up as H. but here are some tests:

When the device is sitting on my desk, directly beside my laptop, near the window, but not at the window:



After moving the device closer to the window and retrying the test, i got the following result:



Funny enough, thats FASTER than the connection we have though DSL in the office... Well, funny or painful, not sure which... So far, so good! Anyone have any questions?

Is there any protection for going over your cap. I could see that costing you thousands if you went over the cap for only a few minutes.
Whats the cap anyway?

lotas

Mustard1972 wrote: »

Is there any protection for going over your cap. I could see that costing you thousands if you went over the cap for only a few minutes.
Whats the cap anyway?

the cap is 20Gb on Performance 4G, and i cant see anything in there to limit your data usage... I know on the old plan you used to get a text when you were getting close to your limit... I am on the old 10Gb plan till midnight tonight, then i go on to the 20Gb plan... i got 4Gb left this month, so its going to be an interesting day today! I dont think the overage will cost Thousands, like you suggest... at 24mbits/s, thats 3MBytes per second... if you where downloading at full throttle for an extra 2 min, thats 180MB you have gone over by... I cant find a price per MB at the moment, but at even 10C per meg, thats "only" 18EUR... you would need to go over by 20GB for it to cost you EUR2k in overage fees, and that would take a little under 2 hours... and you would want to be a right plonker to miss that!!! :P

Scruff

those ping look a lot better than 3G!! looks like you could use it for gaming no bother. mind you there probably isnt a lot of people using 4g yet.

Turtle_Tommy

As Scruff said, the ping does look brilliant. Is there any chance you could open the CMD in Windows and ping boards.ie or google.ie a few times lotas?

lotas

Turtle_Tommy wrote: »

As Scruff said, the ping does look brilliant. Is there any chance you could open the CMD in Windows and ping boards.ie or google.ie a few times lotas?

Google and Boards.ie ping times:

Turtle_Tommy

Those pings are very impressive. I just hope they stay that low when the network gets a bit more congested.

Mustard1972

lotas wrote: »

the cap is 20Gb on Performance 4G, and i cant see anything in there to limit your data usage... I know on the old plan you used to get a text when you were getting close to your limit... I am on the old 10Gb plan till midnight tonight, then i go on to the 20Gb plan... i got 4Gb left this month, so its going to be an interesting day today! I dont think the overage will cost Thousands, like you suggest... at 24mbits/s, thats 3MBytes per second... if you where downloading at full throttle for an extra 2 min, thats 180MB you have gone over by... I cant find a price per MB at the moment, but at even 10C per meg, thats "only" 18EUR... you would need to go over by 20GB for it to cost you EUR2k in overage fees, and that would take a little under 2 hours... and you would want to be a right plonker to miss that!!! :P

I think, very soon, we are going to see and hear about what kind of bills people start getting for forgetting that they are downloading a lot of data very fast.
Imagine someone is watching a HD Movie or something rather large and they dont get the text to say they are over their limit. 2 hours is a very short amount of time to be able to build up a €2000 bill wouldnt you say (or 1 hour for a €1000 bill, or half an hour for €500). You couldnt even do that snorting cocaine.
Ive often not got texts when close to my limit. Id say about 80% of the time I did. And even then sometimes I didnt even notice the text.
And Vodafine arent saying how much per megabyte you will be charged. Their website only says "You will be charged per megabyte if you go over your limit"

bealtine

lotas wrote: »

i got my 4G Modem on Saturday, the Vodafone R212, made by ZTE. Couple of things i found over the last few days...


Funny enough, thats FASTER than the connection we have though DSL in the office... Well, funny or painful, not sure which... So far, so good! Anyone have any questions?

Don't tell your neighbours or your co-workers about your speeds...

lotas

bealtine wrote: »

Don't tell your neighbours or your co-workers about your speeds...

Good point!

faiyaz9786

Can someone who has a 4g modem share their APN settings please??

lotas

faiyaz9786 wrote: »

Can someone who has a 4g modem share their APN settings please??

I have had a look, and i cant see what the APN on the device is... I checked the web interface, but it just says "Vodafone Ireland" or gives a custom option, which is not filled in...

I also tried checking my bill, but i have nothing in my bill to show whats going on... I got this on Saturday last, and since then, i have not see any updates on usage... I will be giving vodafone a shout later, just to check on things... their MyVodafone app is telling me i have 10Gb this month... it should be 20... very confused...

Vodafone 20 GB for 30 PM ? major rip off.

Three have stated they're not charging extra for 4g, so who's going to make a lot more money ? 3 have a all you can eat plan (15gb) but I hear they do not charge extra even after 40 gb ?

You'd want to be insane to go with 02 or Vodafone.

I'd imagine that it will take 10 years for 4g to become mainstream for normal users. I bet 4g will mainly be a business service.

The mobile networks are loosing huge sums of money because of free apps that allow free calls and texts and they spend huge sums of money to upgrade to 4g so it's not going to be cheap or offer decent download limits for several years.

I had high expectations for 4g not to mention that the technology promised over 100 mbs. But it looks like it will be a seriously waste of money.

3g was fine if they only upgraded the service to allow much more bandwidth, for instance i can get 10-15 mbs on 3 mobile in the early am, and 2-4 at peak times or lower. So why didn't they just invest in much more bandwidth ?

wireless in Ireland has huge potential, I can't get more than 6mb for the last nearly 8 years and Eircom have told me that it's unlikely the exchange will see more than that for years.

Wireless operators could make a lot of money if they offered a decent reliable service with unlimited usage.

I would pay 50 a month for a 100 mb unlimited connection, but I'd never use a mobile service capped at 20gb no matter how fast it is because imo it's not a practical service. For 32 a month I get unlimited usage on Vodafone dsl, granted it's slow so I just download over night.

You can't replace an unlimited slow dsl with fast 4g capped at 20gb or less.

lotas

Deleted User wrote: »

Vodafone 20 GB for 30 PM ? major rip off.

Given their last plan was 25 for the performance plus (21Mb/s HSDPA) and that got you 10Gb, i think 20 for 30 is not bad...

Deleted User wrote: »

Three have stated they're not charging extra for 4g, so who's going to make a lot more money ? 3 have a all you can eat plan (15gb) but I hear they do not charge extra even after 40 gb ?

Do you really believe that? If its in their contract that 15Gb is the limit, and you wont be charged for going over, then thats grand... but if its not, i dont believe it...

Deleted User wrote: »

You'd want to be insane to go with 02 or Vodafone.

Ok... stay away from one of the networks with the most coverage... Mind you, O2 are being Three soon...

Deleted User wrote: »

I'd imagine that it will take 10 years for 4g to become mainstream for normal users. I bet 4g will mainly be a business service.

The mobile networks are loosing huge sums of money because of free apps that allow free calls and texts and they spend huge sums of money to upgrade to 4g so it's not going to be cheap or offer decent download limits for several years.

I can agree there...

Deleted User wrote: »

I had high expectations for 4g not to mention that the technology promised over 100 mbs. But it looks like it will be a seriously waste of money.

4G has a theoriatical max of 100Mb/s, just like your Wifi connection in house has a theoriaticle max of, say, 54Mb/s... The more people or devices using either, the less speed you get...

Deleted User wrote: »

3g was fine if they only upgraded the service to allow much more bandwidth, for instance i can get 10-15 mbs on 3 mobile in the early am, and 2-4 at peak times or lower. So why didn't they just invest in much more bandwidth ?

case in point to above. Its not just the bandwidth to the base station, its the number of connections to said base station... Look at most colleges... very fast connections, but only 4 or 5 wifi base stations in large rooms... 60+ students and your connection will suck... add more, it sucks more...

Deleted User wrote: »

wireless in Ireland has huge potential, I can't get more than 6mb for the last nearly 8 years and Eircom have told me that it's unlikely the exchange will see more than that for years.

Wireless is probably the best option, but unless you want to pay big money for a proper wireless link (Microwave link, like they use from Cell tower to Cell Tower) your stuck with residential connections...

Deleted User wrote: »

Wireless operators could make a lot of money if they offered a decent reliable service with unlimited usage. /

Cite your source. Do you not think that will cost them more to set up first?

Deleted User wrote: »

I would pay 50 a month for a 100 mb unlimited connection, but I'd never use a mobile service capped at 20gb no matter how fast it is because imo it's not a practical service. For 32 a month I get unlimited usage on Vodafone dsl, granted it's slow so I just download over night.

50 quid for 100Mb is grand over DSL or cable, but not going to happen over Wireless or 4g. the microwave link for that kind of speed would cost a lot more...

Deleted User wrote: »

You can't replace an unlimited slow dsl with fast 4g capped at 20gb or less.

Cant argue there. And i dont think that Vodafone or any other provider will either...

Bohser

lotas wrote: »

you would need to go over by 20GB for it to cost you EUR2k in overage fees, and that would take a little under 2 hours... and you would want to be a right plonker to miss that!!! :P

Whoa; that's easy to happen if you download any kind of content. A lot of people are gona be burnt by this. I'm staying well away from 4G until they get rid of limits.

BeerWolf

feistyfawn wrote: »

Whoa; that's easy to happen if you download any kind of content. A lot of people are gona be burnt by this. I'm staying well away from 4G until they get rid of limits.

Example here of my last, and first, bill: LINK

Bohser

BeerWolf wrote: »

Example here of my last, and first, bill: LINK

Is this a wind up? The rates must be wrong. Fk me, I heard about o2 before but that's just plain stealing. 12K for going over by 10Gb? I thought Lotas example sounded dangerous as it was.

What were u doing at 3.30am on Friday do you mind me asking?

Baked.noodle

Is this service fast and consistent enough to FPS game over? Just curious.

lotas

Im calling shenanigans here... Vodafone's site (http://shop.vodafone.ie/shop/internet-and-broadband/mobile-broadband/device-details/vodafone-k4305-white) says you are charged 2c per meg over your allotted 10Gb. if you assume 34.57Gb = 35399.68 MB (X 1024) and take the original 10Gb away (leaving you with 25159.68) multiplied by 0.02, you get 503.1936. Still a crazy price, mind you, but nowhere near the cost of a second hand ford focus... So, unless you are on a VERY different plan, something is wrong with your maths...

Also, on Monday 21 October, you would have blown past your 10Gb cap, but did not start getting charged till wed... and why did the 715mb on Wednesday morning cost less then the 715 on Wednesday evening?

by my calculations, your being charged 48C per meg over your limit, not 2...

lots of shenanigans going on here...

BeerWolf

Baked.noodle wrote: »

Is this service fast and consistent enough to FPS game over? Just curious.

I've been using it for the past month - aside from the morbidly low usage cap, a pathetic 20g, the quality of the connection, currently, is top notch.

Consistently low pings in the 35-40+ms range that only spikes once in a blue moon.

Capable of playing games absolutely perfectly.

20gb is nothing, not worth signing up to.

three offer unlimited on their all you can eat, a real unlimited no catch. So when their 4g launches and if I can get it I could consider getting rid of the land line.

Their dongle service is not unlimited strangely,

BeerWolf

Unlimited ? All I see, at most, is their 60GB offerings, with Three - but I've tried Three, and it was horrible, compared to what I got with Vodafone... with regards to gaming.

Three isn't bad here, between 3-10 mb. 60 ms ping.

Their usb dongle service is capped but the mobile all you can eat has no cap.

galait

Three's Network suffers greatly from Contention/Conjestion , Meteor 3G/4G much more reliable during peak hours , I have both 3 and Meteor 3G !

Well it's not that slow here to be honest, but it's unlimited, what's the use of 4g if you got between 5 and 20 gb limit ? 40 odd mb will chew that in no time.

If the purchase of 02 by 3 means they get a decent unlimited 4g service, it will be bye bye land line.