Vodafone

Just recently I have noticed a drop off in Vodafone coverage. I live in Bedfordshire and there seems to be a lot more blank spots that there was a year ago. Is this due to maintenance or it there another reason.

I note that both Vodafone and Three are advertising the benefits of the merged network. When can we expect this benefit to come to Lebara customers?
I understand they will want to prioritise their own direct users but presumably at some stage it'll just be one network for piggyback networks like Lebara?