Poor network coverage?

[B4ruch]

We're in the WA15 Hale Barns area. When I'm walking the dog in this area, the signal is dreadful. The network fluctuates between less than one bar for 4G and 3G. Lots of dropped calls. So I complained to EE over several months and getting no where. They said that there is a mast not a million miles from us, which is on limited service. They have known about this faulty mast for months. Apparently they did some work on this mast in October. Still useless. I've now been told that I'll just have to live with it! Calls at home are through the WiFi so they're no problem but once you're away from the WiFi, absolutely useless. Anyway I made a discovery today. Go 1-2 miles down the road towards Altrincham and not only do you get a good strong signal but you get 5G as well. I appreciate that you're probably logged onto another mast, but I'm paying the same as the people in that area but getting a substandard service. Short of leaving EE, has anyone got any suggestions?

[bristolian]

Hi @B4ruch 

You can register for updates on all known network issues on the status checker here . The nature of network faults is such that if an issue on a network site takes a protracted length of time to be resolved, it is often because there is a third party or external issue involved, and that can be beyond EE's direct control.

[B4ruch]

The signal checker says there are no known issues in my post code area. Well there clearly are network/mast issues which EE knows about and seemingly is unwilling to rectify. Back in July, when I first raised the issue, EE said they were aware of the problem with this mast and had contracted out to Huawei engineers to deal with. Obviously not a priority to EE or these engineers. What sticks in my throat is that we're in a major residential area not in the Outer Hebrides! It's completely unacceptable that I'm paying for a service which is clearly substandard and basically being fobbed off with you'll just have to live with it. Given the plethora of EE advertising and media touting a first class service, is IMHO misleading. A questionable service in the farthest outreaches of mainland UK is understandable, but here in South Manchester, not acceptable. FYI O2 and Vodafone operate in the area and have good strong signals. I really don't want to leave EE, having been with the original company since 1981. But I'm just wondering if I have any options.

[peterkinxl5]

You're doing pretty good if you've been with the original company since 1981.

There was no commerical mobile phone companies in the UK until 1986 of any sort. The companies that eventually formed EE were Orange aka Hutchison Telecom in 1994 and Mercury one2one in 1993.

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This probably won't help either but the chances are if theres Huawei equipment  then EE are waiting to gain access to rip it out and replace it with either Nokia or Ericsson equipment.

The whole thing is a colossal undertaking due to the ban on Huawei for infrastructure. And it means theres no point in EE servicing Huawei sites which will have to be ripped out and replaced in any case.

As you can imagine, Nokia and Ericsson are having to work flat out in order to cope with the surge in demand for their infrastructure equipment.And whilst EE are looking at NEC and Samsung there isn't going to be an easing of the situation anytime soon.

[B4ruch]

Thanks for that. I didn't realise EE were changing equipment. As you say, still doesn't help me. But hey ho that's life 

FYI I got my first mobile phone - for want of a better description - in 1981/2 from. Securicor which was taken over by Orange which in turn morphed into EE. I think I was the first in Manchester, certainly one of the first, to have a mobile phone in those days. Anyway, that's a different story.

[bristolian]

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@peterkinxl5 wrote:

The whole thing is a colossal undertaking due to the ban on Huawei for infrastructure. And it means theres no point in EE servicing Huawei sites which will have to be ripped out and replaced in any case.

I'm not sure where you've heard this, but it's not entirely correct. In the same way as the existing 2G & 3G networks continue to be maintained, and 2G & 4G are still being rolled out, all existing network equipment is being serviced & maintained.

To an extent, the whole mobile network rollout is an ongoing equipment swapout programme. Currently the majority of EE radio equipment is a mixture of Huawei & Nokia, but with the Huawei situation being as it is, there are numerous permutations as to what may happen next year and beyond.

Network rollout will certainly continue in the meantime, but strategy will certainly change over the coming months. As regards poor service in remote areas being acceptable, I'm sure the residents of those areas would have a different opinion 😉

What with the ESN project and now the Shared Rural Network, rollout of network coverage into remote areas is as much a priority for EE, as capacity enhancements in the cities.

[B4ruch]

All very interesting stuff but where exactly does this leave the customer?

It seems to me that no service provider is perfect. There are some that are more perfect than others. 😉

[bristolian]

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@B4ruch wrote:

It seems to me that no service provider is perfect. There are some that are more perfect than others. 😉

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That is a far more accurate description of the UK mobile industry than you probably realise!

As far as information on local outages goes, your best course of action is to call EE C/S on 150 and try to speak to a second-line technical agent who has additional training and systems access to enable more detailed investigations.

Whether they will be able to advise on detailed specifics or give timelines, will be another matter - some details may be sensitive/internal-only or just not of any value. The vast majority of customers also don't really care for "how" the network is run, they just want their phones to work. C/S is, largely, geared towards that mindset.

Out of interest, where (roughly - this is a public forum!) are you?

[peterkinxl5]

Securicor had a PMR (Private Mobile Radio ) network in 1981 for their armoured vans but again their was no Cellular network available for the public until 1986. It was available for Gov't officials, MOD staff and the like .

They joined with British Telecom to form Telecom Securuicor Radio Ltd and traded under the name Cellnet. This then morphed into BT Cellnet then its prersent incarnation as O2.

Orange was formed out of the Hutchison pager service and a peculiar hybrid  mobile/ fixed line system aka Rabbit. They were originally Hutchison Microtel who had acquired the second PCS aka GSM 1800 licence in the UK made up of Hutchson Whampoa, British Aerospace and Matra SA of France and launched in April 1994 as Orange Personal Communications Ltd. Through a complex series of mergers and  takeovers Orange was eventually bought out by France Telecom SA and the whole network was eventually sold off to merge with T-Mobile to form Everything Everywhere now known as EE. In a peculiar twist BT who had sold their BT Cellnet network to the Spanish Telefonica bought up EE in Jan 2016 marking a return to mobile telephony for them for the first time since 2002 

Securicor 

[B4ruch]

I spoke to one of their second line tech people a few weeks ago. He asked me to make a list of problem calls and he would call me back, which he did yesterday. The bottom line is that he confirmed what I already know which is that the mast closest to me is on limited service and I should expect a limited service. Very helpful! He was the one who said I will just have to live with it.

So, within a major conurbation area you can have two EE masts blasting out services at opposite ends of the spectrum.

We're not a million miles from the M56 and Altrincham.