[3GScottishUser]

Interesting development as Vodafone have never to my knowledge implemented EDGE in the UK.

My Samsung Omnia was showing 'E' (which I looked up when I returned home) at the weekend in Glasgow clity centre. It has never done that before!

I can only assume that integration of Vodafone and 02's networks is now taking place as 02 have used EDGE quite a lot across the UK.

Can someone confirm?

[Ben]

I heard a while ago that Vodafone do have some limited EDGE rollout. I suppose they're doing it to enhance data performance in certain areas. I don't know if it's related to anything happening with Telefonica.

[getti]

Part of beefing up the Vodafone network for data heavy phones like the iPhone was adding EDGE onto the sites where 3G was getting used a lot to help share some of the pressure.

I locked a HTC Hero to 2G when going around Paddington and Regent Street and often found I was getting EDGE on Vodafone.

I think its great of them to do that, not everyone wants/gets 3G so having something a bit faster than GPRS to fall back on is good news I think

[Hands0n]

Yes, that EDGE is Vodafone's and not O2.

There was an article on The Register not so long ago.

[3GScottishUser]

Interesting and it explains why I have only seen this in Glasgow city centre recently. I suppose EDGE gives them some extended use of GSM for data and that makes sense in areas where they probably now have high use of mobile broadband. The particular area i was in is one known for lots of student and immigrant accommodation.

The Edge performance was not too bad on a handset for browsing and the speed difference between it and 3G was not that noticable.

[Ben]

The Edge performance was not too bad on a handset for browsing and the speed difference between it and 3G was not that noticable.
Agreed, EDGE is very acceptable for mobile browsing.

[The Mullet of G]

As long as they are mostly papping off students and immigrants then its all good. I reckon it should be law that students and migrants should be severely capped so that the rest of us can have better service, they should also have to pay more so that its cheaper for us. :)

[hecatae]

EDGE rollout for mobile broadband hotspots

[The Mullet of G]

Its great that they are doing something, but it brings it into focus when other countries are rolling out 84 Mbps HSPA and we're having to patch the holes in our networks with Edge coverage. :(

[Hands0n]

My understanding is that EDGE is a simple software update to the transmitters rather than anything sexy or sophisticated in terms of hardware. Such a simple update makes complete sense, particularly as a tactical measure. I think we can be certain that Vodafone will be doing something with LTE when the time is right, but it would seem that now is not it :) Apart from anything else the handset tech is not yet even reasonably available. And I would be unlikely to trade my Nexus One for an LTE device that was substandard to it.

[The Mullet of G]

My understanding is that EDGE is a simple software update to the transmitters rather than anything sexy or sophisticated in terms of hardware. Such a simple update makes complete sense, particularly as a tactical measure. I think we can be certain that Vodafone will be doing something with LTE when the time is right, but it would seem that now is not it :) Apart from anything else the handset tech is not yet even reasonably available. And I would be unlikely to trade my Nexus One for an LTE device that was substandard to it.

Yeah it absolutely makes sense from a business standpoint, and I'm sure it'll improve overall service. But why must we be so far behind the curve? Its typical for the UK, just keep charging people money but never invest any of it in infrastructure, or if they do its only to patch holes. Our ISP's are just as bad, I'm on 50mb which is pretty fast, but the majority of the UK is still crawling along at mediocre speeds, well bellow countries we would consider to be less developed than us. :(

[Hands0n]

Thats the thing with being as "advanced" as we are. Look at the Americans. They brought out DSL and we looked on enviously. Now we have a far better ADSL delivery than they do, and with FTTC the opportunity to extend the use of copper that bit further exists. Eventually we will have to see FTTH - but one of the biggest problems with that is the terminal equipment at the moment. Meanwhile, the lesser developed countries take advantage of the latest technologies that leapfrog our own. Its all a bit cyclical.

[gorilla]

Just to say that I'm seeing edge on vodafone in some places around Belfast now.

[Ben]

I got it in Canterbury the other day. If they're going to roll it out I wish they'd get a move-on and make it uniform across the entire GSM network - it's a very welcome performance boost and we understand that, on current frequencies, 3G cannot go everywhere.

[DBMandrake]

Apparently for anything other than VERY old hardware, going from GPRS to EDGE is just a firmware update on the equipment at the cell site. It puzzles me why more sites aren't upgraded, as it really is a good stopgap between GPRS and 3G, and as you say until 3G is on 800/900Mhz 2G is still going to be needed in a lot of places.

Even Orange, who have the most EDGE sites in the UK don't have a lot - it seems like well under half their 2G sites are EDGE, with O2 and Vodafone a long way behind that. (And T-Mobile lacking any)

On todays modern Smartphones GPRS really is just a joke - a throwback to the days of WAP, where a "webpage" might have been 1KB in size, and it's totally unusable for anything but the plainest text only website, whereas EDGE can be slow but still remarkably usable on moderate complexity websites, and perfectly usable for email.

Come on networks, pull finger and update your remaining GPRS sites to EDGE :)