topic Re: Coverage in Clapham in Mobile Network discussions

Coverage in Clapham

racho_ — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 12:26:24 GMT

Wanted to raise a discussion topic for those who live in and around Clapham Common, mainly the West side in the Broomwood and Northcote Road areas.

In such a built-up area, it’s understandable that coverage may be patchy given the lack of space to build phone masts. Both 5G and 4G are satisfactory outdoors around the common perimeter but as soon as you turn a corner into any of the residential streets, your phone will drop to 1-2 bars. As soon as you step indoors coverage is almost non-existent.

I have WiFi calling enabled but if my broadband goes down, it’s a struggle for me to get anything done. It makes me wonder why I’m paying so much for a phone plan if I get such poor reception. Does anyone else in the area have this problem?

Is there any way to put forward a request to EE to add small-cell sites along the Broomwood Road & Northcote Road areas?

Re: Coverage in Clapham

Christopher_G — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 14:33:25 GMT

Hi @racho_

Welcome to the community.

What is the estimated coverage like for your postcode? How long have you had these problems for?

Chris

Re: Coverage in Clapham

racho_ — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 14:46:09 GMT

Hi Chris,

I’ve had these problems since I moved here a few months ago.

Coverage checker says I should have full bars of signal - excellent indoors and outdoors for 4G.

5G says I should get good coverage outdoors.

There’s no 4G or 5G indoors and it’s poor outdoors.

How can we request a small cell site along the road or in the area?

Re: Coverage in Clapham

bristolian — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 14:49:51 GMT

I can see there are microcells at the north end of Northcote Road, and also close to Bennerley Road. The nearest macro-site is also B20-equipped.

Re: Coverage in Clapham

racho_ — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 15:05:17 GMT

Unfortunately, the north end of Northcote Road is near Clapham Junction Station which is completed the other side of the residential area between Wandsworth Common and Clapham Common. It’s such a strange black-spot here.

Wondering if there’s any other steps I can take to get this looked into by engineers?

Re: Coverage in Clapham

racho_ — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 15:14:20 GMT

For reference, I get a useless 0.9 Mbps download on 5G and a very poor 4.2 Mbps download on 4G so this is essentially completely unusable

Re: Coverage in Clapham

bristolian — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 15:35:44 GMT

Those speeds are slightly suggestive (although not conclusively) of your indoor coverage coming from the B20 service.

VoWiFi should kick in when coverage quality drops below a certain criteria, it sounds like you're potentially above that level.

The MyEE app has the option to log poor coverage areas, it's under the permissions settings menu.

Re: Coverage in Clapham

racho_ — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 13:44:18 GMT

Very strange, I have tried to log an issue a few times but nothing comes of it. It's such a strange area for a dead-zone when either side of this neighbourhood seems to have decent coverage.

Unsure how else to flag this to EE and considering leaving the network

Re: Coverage in Clapham

Christopher_G — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 16:03:49 GMT

Hi @racho_

It may be worth getting in contact with our technical support team. They'll be able to look into this in more detail to check the performance of the network in your area.

Chris

Re: Coverage in Clapham

Dwardo92 — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 18:37:08 GMT

I have the same issue; I live in Clapham South and can't use my data at all when I leave the tube. I go to the gym on the high street, and it doesn't work that end either.

Nut's to be in a relatively central part of London, paying close to £70 a month for a phone I can't use.

It also says I have a full signal which is absolute cap.

Re: Coverage in Clapham

racho_ — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 19:05:08 GMT

Yes, I have the same problem as you . I haven’t heard anything back from EE regarding a way forward so my only thought process is moving to Vodafone which supposedly has better indoor coverage within London

Re: Coverage in Clapham

Gisele33 — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 17:21:21 GMT

In the past few weeks absolutely diabolical in Clapham Common - 5G is hardly usable

Re: Coverage in Clapham

racho_ — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 17:26:37 GMT

Yes, I’ve noticed this too by Clapham South station and the entire west side of the common. It seems they might have removed or changed parts of the tech on the phone tower because I’ve tried to do simple tasks on my phone like unlocking a Lime bike to no avail! Turning off 5G in the settings also doesn’t help.

I am wondering how we can escalate this further up

Re: Coverage in Clapham

Rach_H — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 08:10:36 GMT

Hi @Gisele33,

Welcome to the Community!

We know how important it is for you to be able to stay connected, so I'm sorry to hear that you've been having these issues, and I can understand why this is frustrating. Have you used our Service Checker to see if there is any work being carried out, which might be causing this, or report the issues you're having?

Rach

Re: Coverage in Clapham

racho_ — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 08:20:15 GMT

Hi Rach,

Yes, I've had a look at the coverage checker and it's almost completely wrong, especially when looking at 4G. The map shows great coverage indoors and outdoors on 4G but we get absolutely nothing indoors at all (maximum 1.7 Mbps) which I'm afraid is essentially useless. 5G is completely out the question indoors. Whilst indoors can be patchy given that the network is always improving slowly, the coverage outdoors along Broomwood Road and the west side of the common and around Clapham South station is poor outdoors and I frequently have apps failing to load content.

Are we able to escalate this issue higher and request plans to introduce better coverage in the area either with a new phone tower or small cells along the Clapham Common West Side/Broomwood Road/Clapham South Station area? Essentially lots of people are paying for a service they are not receiving.

Kind Regards,
Racho

Re: Coverage in Clapham

Peter_W — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 10:32:10 GMT

Thanks for having a check of that for us @racho_ .

When you were looking at the page @Rach_H shared, did you select the option to view the current status of the network to see if there are any reported outages?

When it gives a description of the coverage as 'Good indoors' etc, this is with the assumption that everything is operating as it should be.

Peter

Re: Coverage in Clapham

racho_ — Sun, 27 Oct 2024 23:19:29 GMT

Hi Peter,

Yes I’ve checked for service status too. No issues

Re: Coverage in Clapham

Katie_B — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 08:51:13 GMT

Thanks for checking @racho_.

If this continues I'd recommend getting back in touch with technical care so they can look into this further.

Katie

Re: Coverage in Clapham

racho_ — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 10:45:05 GMT

Hi Katie,

Please could you confirm how we get in touch? This has been an ongoing issue for months.

The coverage around Clapham South station and the entire south and west sides of the common is almost non-existent indoors and patchy outdoors. I can barely use my phone in these areas.

Re: Coverage in Clapham

Katie_B — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 11:01:03 GMT

Hi @racho_.

You can report a problem on the Status Checker or to speak with someone please call technical care by dialling 150.

Katie