topic Re: Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading in Mobile Network discussions

Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading

raykau — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 10:49:14 GMT

I have been based in the Spencers Wood area since 2016 and the general coverage in the areas extending unto Shinfield, Riseley is very poor, getting 5G impossible, even making calls is hard all the time. Inside the home we have to resort to WiFi calling to make calls. Outside the home there is no chance of any connection for an extremely wide area.

Since this is in Reading and quite a populous area, I wanted to understand if there is any plans for EE to have a look at how to improve connectivity around the area? I do know moving mobile service providers would be an easy option but wanted to give this a final try before doing that.

Re: Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading

Schockwave — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 11:19:06 GMT

@raykau , have you checked here where you can register, report and receive updates:

https://ee.co.uk/help/mobile-coverage-checker

Re: Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading

raykau — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 11:42:48 GMT

@Schockwave thanks for your reply, yes I have checked it and it says great coverage for 4G and good coverage for 5G; whereas I get max 1 bar of 4G around most of the area; and this is same for a lot of my friends in the neighbourhood with a variety of devices including iPhones, Google Pixel and Samsung

Re: Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading

Leanne_T — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 13:50:20 GMT

Hi @raykau

Thanks for coming here.

Have you selected 'check status' on the coverage checker?

This will show any reported problems for the area, if nothing is showing you can report the problem and this will be looked into by our network team.

Leanne.

Re: Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading

raykau — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 13:54:14 GMT

@Leanne_T thanks for your response. Yes I have used the coverage checker and the it does not accurately show the status. I have reported the problem, as I have done previously as well; but have not been able to get this fixed. I have had a lot of friends move to other providers and I was giving it a last try before going the same way. This is a existing problem in the area as far as Riseley / Swallowfield and have received the same feedback from a lot of other people. I am willing to work with someone to provide the required evidence if only I can reach out to someone to whom I can demonstrate.

Re: Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading

Leanne_T — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 14:09:47 GMT

Hi @raykau

If you give us a call on 150, our technical support team can look into the area and report this to the relevant team if needed.

Leanne.

Re: Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading

raykau — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 14:15:06 GMT

@Leanne_T yes, I was in a call with 150 earlier this morning and they said there was no problem with the masts which i agree there are none, as it more of a capacity / coverage planning issue; I was pointed to this community following that conversation; is there an email address where I can outline the details to have this looked at?

Re: Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading

Leanne_T — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 14:23:09 GMT

Hi @raykau

Reporting this on the coverage checker or with our technical support team is the correct way for the network team to get this looked into, please continue to report the problem you are having and this will be investigated.

Leanne.

Re: Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading

raykau — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 14:24:58 GMT

@Leanne_T ok thanks will try that again then, but feel would not be able to go further as it will come back as no issues reported.

Re: Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading

bristolian — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 14:26:10 GMT

Lack of 5G itself shouldn't be a major concern, 4G is the base layer currently. Calls failing outdoors in areas of good coverage would be worrying, but network planners tend to have a pretty good idea of where problem areas are.

If you have the EE app, there is an option in there for logging & reporting coverage issues. That's the best method, it feeds directly into the internal planning tools.

Re: Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading

raykau — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 14:32:09 GMT

@bristolian thanks for your thoughts which I agree with.. and I do know that this is not a user specific issue or a random issue.. I will try that app reporting - thanks for that pointer.

Re: Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading

raykau — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 14:15:16 GMT

@bristolian @Leanne_T @Schockwave

This is the response I just received and keep getting feedback when reporting this problem,

"Network update: We could not find a problem in RG7XXX. This may have been a one off and we therefore recommend you restart your device. If you are still having problems, please call us on 150. Your Report ID is xxxxxx."

I feel there are not too many options left.

Re: Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading

bristolian — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 14:50:54 GMT

@raykau wrote:

"Network update: We could not find a problem in RG7XXX

This is entirely standard when no fault has been identified. Logging of poor coverage in the EE app is via Home menu > Settings > Settings & Permissions > Settings & Permissions > App settings > Share device locations

Re: Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading

raykau — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 14:50:44 GMT

@bristolian agree absolutely because there is no fault in their system. The problem is in the coverage around the area and I should not be getting 1 or 2 bars on my 4G connection around the whole area; how do I highlight that? A simple check of the diagnostics of the performance of the masts would not highlight coverage issues?

Re: Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading

bristolian — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 14:57:15 GMT

There's no need to tag me in replies, I get notified as a matter of course!

Planning tools will show predicted coverage to a finer granularity than is shown on the public website, is the prediction on that broadly correct? There's also nothing inherently wrong with "only" 1 or 2 bars (it's the underlying radio parameters that matter) - although it does provide a lot less allowance for indoor degradation.

Site performance metrics wouldn't show the coverage levels at a specified location, they can be used to show the broad distance from antenna, that traffic is being taken - along with call-setup & handover success rates. That can in-turn feed into handover & adjacency parameters.

Re: Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading

raykau — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 16:38:57 GMT

Ok thanks for your thoughts and apologies for tagging you in..

It must be something I am doing wrong then.

Re: Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading

bristolian — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 16:44:55 GMT

No drama. As I mentioned previously, if you're getting call failures when coverage & VoLTE is showing, that's not a coverage issue of itself. Something's wrong, but it's not raw coverage. Are you getting calls fail when usable coverage is shown?

Are you using Apple or Android? If Android - and you're minded, there's a few apps you can use to pull the radio parameters and do some basic checks.

Of course, stronger outdoor coverage gives better indoor penetration but there's a lot of user perception that "only one bar" is a problem, when it's one factor among many.

Re: Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading

raykau — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 16:56:33 GMT

These are some of the feedback from other people in the estate - there are multiple people in the area who has been having problems with EE connectivity around here. A few of them have moved to other providers so it is always an option for me to but I wanted to see if I could get something working around here..

"BT & EE are the same company. Neither work in this area."

"Utility Warehouse are EE in disguise, so I wouldn’t bother with them."

"Hello, I am looking to change mobile phone provider. With 3 at the moment and it is hopeless, basically no signal. I believe the same problem with EE. What provider gives best signal around here?"

"I complained to them for the majority of my 2 year contract and they kept saying the same thing, just moved to vodafone and no complaints so far"

"They said the same thing to me for 2 months and now I had to change my network at last as nothing changed. You can ask them to reduce your monthly tariff if by chance they didn’t offered you."

Re: Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading

bristolian — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 17:18:32 GMT

That's just a social media description of a poor coverage area, which all networks have. I could name estates in my area where both Voda & O2 have zero outdoor coverage, 3UK is very marginal and EE is the only functioning operator - to illustrate the variable nature.

I've had a quick look at some drive-test data for your rough area, and I can see areas where poor indoor coverage could be the case (VoWiFi covers those), but nowhere that zero outdoor coverage should be the case. Which returns back to the previous question - are you reporting calls failing when coverage is displayed? That shouldn't be happening.

Re: Very poor coverage around Shinfield, Spencers Wood area in Reading

raykau — Wed, 24 Apr 2024 18:13:01 GMT

Agree again, it is not specific to any MNO; just that our area has limited coverage with EE. I completely understand that there are other areas where EE are best.

So, the underlying problems I have are

1) Calls are choppy and intermittent when I am walking around the area; and this happens everyday; and very slow data connection.

2) I have BT internet and Halo connection (which uses EE failover) and since indoor coverage is virtually non-existent I am requesting them to get me off the Halo package as it gives no advantage to me. I had an outage for BT and had to depend on EE connection failover which was of no use.