Atrocious Call Quality

[Profile closed]

Just wondering if anyone else is currently experiencing the most atrocious call quality when either making or receiving phone calls to another mobile also on EE? But atrocious call quality I mean phone calls going horrendously garbled, digitising and sounding like it's 1998 on one2one when you had hardly any signal! 😉

This is currently happening to myself in London/South East, my mother who's in Somerset, and other family members who are in Cornwall and Leeds/West Yorkshire. It's happening on both iPhones (12 mini, 14 and SE 2020) and android phones (not sure of the models). It happens on 4G calling and WiFi Calling mostly, but also appears to happen when phone are connected to 2G (3G seems strangely unaffected!). 

Just to repeat, this is ONLY for phone calls between EE mobiles. If any of us calls a landline, or another network like Vodafone or giffgaff (O2) or Smarty (Three) then the call quality is fine. So before anyone suggests we try sims in a different phone or get a replacement sim (already done that!) once again, I point to the fact it's only between EE mobiles, so CANNOT be a hardware issue. 

Is this something known to EE but they're just keeping quiet? Is it part of the 3G switch off preparation? Or is it symptomatic of BT Group cutting corners and not really caring anymore if call quality is an issue? 

It's such a shame, as the data on EE and the signal coverage is genuinely excellent, but if this doesn't improve by the time my contract is up (Jan 2024) then I'll be voting with my feet sadly! In 2023, the absolute base line for a communications company is to be able to make phone calls! 

[Katie_B]

Good morning @Profile closed. 

Welcome back to the community. 

I am unaware of any known problem with EE to EE calls. 

Of course this not what calls should be like. Have you been able to check the areas in which the phones are for any known problems or planned maintenance?

Speak soon, 

Katie

[Profile closed]

Hi @Katie_B , 

Thanks for your reply. I’ve checked some postcodes of the areas listed (it happens everywhere we all frequent!) and the status checker doesn’t show anything amiss. 

I don’t think it’s a coverage issue though, as it happens on WiFi Calling also (900Mbps BT FTTP!) and as mentioned above it doesn’t happen with landlines or other networks. It’s all very frustrating and puzzling, but makes me think it’s an internal issue somewhere with how EE routes calls? 

[Katie_B]

Thanks for checking @Profile closed. 

I would recommend giving us a call and reporting this to our technical care team. 

The team will be able to raise a ticket for this so this can be looked into further. 

Katie

[Profile closed]

Thanks @Katie_B , I’ll ring them when I have a bit of spare time to go through it all. 

Is there a particular tech team I should request to speak to so I don’t get lost in a customer service centre? 

[Katie_B]

Hi @Profile closed. 

Just our technical care team not customer care. 

Please keep us updated here on the community. 

Katie 🙂

[Profile closed]

Okay - so contacted the tech team (heads up - contact them through the EE app if you need to, if you try and dial 150 you get utterly LOST in this ghastly phone tree that sends you a text and then makes you use a web page to tell you nothing's wrong!), and after about 25 mins of discussing it, they've notified an engineer to look into it as they can see from the call records that my phone calls for EE to EE are indeed "garbled". 

Call handler was very helpful and polite, but somewhat mystified by it! Good to know I wasn't going insane with it all - let's hope that the engineers get to the bottom of it, otherwise it's back to Vodafone I go when my contract is up! I'd rather not, but want to be able to actually use my phone for calls! 

[Leanne_T]

Thanks for coming back and letting us know @Profile closed 

I hope this is sorted soon for you. 

Leanne 🙂

[rbhalla]

Did you figure this out? I also just switched from Vodafone and noticed significantly worse call quality, a little frustrating.

[Profile closed]

Sadly not! I persevered, but because the calls didn’t drop altogether and could technically “still use my phone” (a tenuous excuse at best!) EE deemed it case closed and refused to release me early from my contract. 

I paid a £150 early termination charge, and switched to VOXI (Vodafone) and it was like night and day! Exact same phone, but call quality is light years ahead of EE. If you’re within your cancellation time, I’d cancel ASAP - not worth the agro with EE.