Another bold step from 3

3 UK has always fascinated me as a company. Since they launched the first 3G network in the UK, on the symbolic date of 3/3/2003, they have been a bit of a disruptive force in the market. They sold mobiles with embedded skype clients (before "apps" existed), they made mobile broadband mainstream with USB dongles and PAYG packages, they offered "all you can eat" data packages when every other operator capped theirs, campaigned to reduce mobile termination rates and many more.

Now it seems they have taken another bold step, by relying 100% on their 3G network to handle their traffic (at least in some areas). This might sound like no big deal, but in many ways it is. You see since launch, 3 had to have agreements with other operators (first O2 and then Orange) to offer national roaming on their 2G network when 3's coverage was not available. Coming into the market so late and having to use the 2.1GHz band for UTMS, meant that having enough base stations to cover the majority of the population was no easy task. Now it seems they are confident enough they can do it, as illustrated in the log extract below.

As can be seen, when setting up a voice call the UE is only instructed to measure intra-frequency neighbours which means that compressed mode and subsequent handover to 2G will never occur. Attempting to reselect in IDLE mode to Orange's 2G network is also not possible as the UE is sent a Location Area Update Reject when it attempts to do so.

It would be interesting to see what effect this move has had on their dropped call rate and customer experience..