topic Re: Re: Network Problems EE are useless in Mobile Network discussions

Re: Network Problems EE are useless

hughmoz — Sun, 08 Dec 2024 17:09:11 GMT

Now we have Storm Darren and no information at all from EE and there has been no signal for 2 days in my area. Major issues and hardly any staff on duty so, waiting times are off the scale. EE could text everyone so, that anyone who has wifi calling knows what is happening and can alert their local Facebook Community group. The problem with any totally profit focussed company is that they do not really give a damn as long as that money keeps rolling in and we do not count for anything other than money. We do not get what we pay for and they are not bothered. All the other service providers are all running and have been all weekend, which really says it all.

Re: Re: Network Problems EE are useless

bristolian — Sun, 08 Dec 2024 20:25:54 GMT

There are numerous issues with having local coverage outages communicated on an opt-out basis, but you can register upto 5 UK postcodes for proactive updates - by using the "my places" feature on the coverage webtool.

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

Given that networks have their radio sites in different locations, it's completely normal for one to be affected in a given area and others to be operating normally. Even on shared sites where multiple operators share the same location, the active equipment will be different - and generally only a power outage will affect all simultaneously.

Re: Re: Network Problems EE are useless

hughmoz — Sun, 08 Dec 2024 20:37:25 GMT

EE need to up their game and stoop making excuses. Their website should have all the relevant information. The public are not free labour for rich companies and all this opt in or opt out is just rubbish. Any company that has a forum tells you all you need to know as, these forums only exist because companies cannot be bothered to to do their jobs properly when they are being paid to run a service.

Re: Re: Network Problems EE are useless

bristolian — Sun, 08 Dec 2024 20:50:49 GMT

@hughmoz wrote:

Any company that has a forum tells you all you need to know

All 4 UK mobile operators have support fora, as do BT & Virgin Media in the fixed line arena.

No-one is forced to use any community forum - users are quite welcome to rely exclusively on support from paid staff if you'd prefer.

Re: Re: Network Problems EE are useless

hughmoz — Sun, 08 Dec 2024 20:55:07 GMT

As I said, forums exist because the companies do not do their jobs and repairs well in a timely manner. It's a deliberate way of diffusing issues to give companies room to move while they do not get on with things. This applies to all companies like Apple, eBay et al that never run things properly and are primarily profit focussed over doing something well with integrity and honesty.

Re: Re: Network Problems EE are useless

Chris_B — Sun, 08 Dec 2024 22:46:49 GMT

@hughmoz First they have to get to the site and that might require permission from a land owner as after all no company is above any laws on trespass. If only texting people in certain areas was that simple.

And this forum isn’t about EE not doing their job properly or in a timely manner it’s for customers to get advice about issues they might have and getting advice about how to resolve that issue. EE will be aware of that issue in your area and will be working on it. It just not going to be in your time scale. I mean after all if it’s storm damage exactly what damage has been done to the mast ? What exactly needs to be repaired. How many other sites might also need to be repaired because of storm damage it’s not like there one team of engineers per mast.

Re: Re: Network Problems EE are useless

ee_user14 — Sun, 08 Dec 2024 23:07:22 GMT

A company's first responsibility is to their shareholders. I'm not aware of any charitable or non-profit making tech companies!!

Re: Re: Network Problems EE are useless

hughmoz — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 01:34:29 GMT

The other providers masts work. EE are not good responding in the countryside. As our useless government’s never put in the infrastructure ( exactly the same as car charging places will be a mess with electric vehicles) as there is not much money to be made in the countryside, hence poor quality signal and feeble masts. You can make as many excuses as you like, however, it’s all just semantics. EE are a big company and need to do better with phone signal issues.

Re: Re: Network Problems EE are useless

hughmoz — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 01:38:39 GMT

It’s not the point. If you do something well with integrity and honesty profits come your way. Excuses are a poor currency when you do not know what is going on and where and fail to inform your customers. It’s basic common sense.

Re: Re: Network Problems EE are useless

philip42h — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 07:20:40 GMT

After the recent storm, some damage and service interruption is probably inevitable and 'acceptable'. And, yes, this is a community forum rather than an EE support service so this post is mainly as a cathartic rant but I've had no service for the past 24 hours or so and ...

The coverage checker - https://ee.co.uk/help/mobile-coverage-checker - tells me that I have good coverage on both 4G and 5G. If I had any service at all that would be optimistic.
The service status checker - https://ee.co.uk/help/service-status - admits that there are network problems in my area and if I go on the "See what I can do" tells me that they are working on it and that the issue would be resolve in 16 hours. That would be great if it were true - every time I check it tells me that It will be another 16 hours ...
When I try the add a postcode to use "my places" it fails, telling me that it can't do that right now.

So, EE really could do a bit better in terms of keeping customers informed when things go wrong ... 😉

Re: Re: Network Problems EE are useless

Liamski1 — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 07:24:35 GMT

These guys can deny this all they want but you are correct. Even a premium service company like EE is clearly prioritising profit over service. Reducing infrastructure to a minimum to provide the minimum standard. You see it all over this forum. Antennas getting removed without a contingency in place before that happens. "Oh now we will start the process of replacing that antenna" without actually admitting that it will take months because someone will spend lots of time negotiating the cheapest possible price before a brick is even put into the ground or a cable laid. When what you should be doing is saying "We know we have 18 months to replace this antenna let get something in place now so that our quality of service is not affected"

Shall we ask the good people of Wednesbury about that? Or where I am which is actually only 5 minutes from up the M6 from Wednesbury and we have no internet once all the numbers arrive to work because there is over subscription. Shambles.

Meanwhile we are paying £30 + a month for a service we could get for £10 from Lebara and Smarty.

Re: Re: Network Problems EE are useless

bristolian — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 09:11:21 GMT

@hughmoz wrote:

The other providers masts work. EE are not good... hence poor quality signal and feeble masts

Just out of interest, is there anything specific about the design of EE's sites that you consider "feeble" and would like to see improved?

A significant factor in rural coverage is often the lack of overlap from adjacent sites - local authority planning issues, specifically vocal local opposition to new site builds, is frequently a problem here.

Loss of service after storms often results from an incoming loss of power as anything else, which makes outages a lottery over which operators have little to no control. Planning restrictions & site-specific design issues are often a factor in BBU deployment.

There is always room for improvement in geographical coverage, but EE have led rural coverage for many years under both ESN & SRN projects.

Re: Re: Network Problems EE are useless

danbryan89 — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 19:11:48 GMT

Hi,

Mine has been on & off for a good 10 days now. Service really is terrible and im damned if i am spending hours on hold to 150. I am in Sheffield by the way, i have a lot of family & friends whos seem to be working fine then others have the same problem as me, so god knows what the issue is.

Re: Re: Network Problems EE are useless

hughmoz — Mon, 09 Dec 2024 19:44:34 GMT

Some fair points although, I feel that the problem is that EE are very much like the politicians, where they talk a good talk, but do not get on with things in a timely manner. Because of modern business ideas, where money is seen as be all and end all, everything is sub-contracted out, which means that it takes longer to get anything done. It's disingenuous, however, that's how a lot of businesses conduct themselves nowadays.

There is far less community and far more individual branding/ego building, rather than actually getting on with things and catching up with all the spin. It's all about profit and monetising the platform, and a lot of customers are left floundering, because EE are content to leave them that way instead of sorting things out promptly. The games is based on the same basis as network marketing, whereby a lot of people giving you some money is better than a few people giving you a lot of money.

So, the illusion is that EE are doing really well and making good profits, however, quite a lot of customers are not getting the service that they are paying for and the excuses are honed to perfection.

Re: Re: Network Problems EE are useless

superbat — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 17:40:46 GMT

I have little or no signal and it has been like this since about ten days before the storm, so they can't blame that. It won't even give me a response to the query online, I shall be in the shop tomorrow and if I can't get a reasonable answer.......well there are at least three other mobile phone providers within a hundred yards of the EE shop.

Re: Re: Network Problems EE are useless

hughmoz — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 17:47:37 GMT

Got mine back on this afternoon in Hay-On-Wye area, which is on the Welsh borders and went down overnight on Friday night as a part had blown off the mast and they were apparently having trouble sourcing a part, which probably means sub-contracting and not enough staff, but who knows. As far as I am aware EE are not exactly straightforward in most events as, they are profit focussed ahead of anything else.

Re: Re: Network Problems EE are useless

philip42h — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 17:55:44 GMT

Mine came back after about 48 hours - so, "well done" to the engineering teams - I've no complaints there.

And then about six hours after I'd noticed that we had service again, I received an email update to tell me that they were still working on the problem and it would take another 15 hours to resolve! A day later I got an email to say that it was now working ...

For a communication company, it's the communication [with their customers] that really isn't good enough.

Re: Re: Network Problems EE are useless

Leanne_T — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 11:09:20 GMT

Hi there @superbat

I am sorry you are experiencing signal issues for over ten days.

Have you reported the signal problems on the Service Status Checker? Once reported the network team will get the area looked into and keep you updated when they have more information.

Leanne.

Re: Re: Network Problems EE are useless

superbat — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 19:25:32 GMT

I went into the shop yesterday and just sat there till I was given the
information I was looking for. It was easily available to your staff in
the call centre and I see no reason why on earth you couldn't have it on
the website, it would save a lot of time and bad feeling.

Re: Re: Network Problems EE are useless

hughmoz — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 20:15:37 GMT

No surprise there unfortunately as, EE are a well honed excuse machine. They seem to have no idea about what works and what doesn't and for a communication company are a good example of not being able to communicate. As ever, with modern businesses, we the customers are unpaid labour who do a lot of the running around to inform EE what they should clearly already know themselves. Welcome to the world of AI and companies that do not really care about customers and are happy to talk themselves up instead of running their business properly and serve the people that pay for them to exist. The lack of awareness and humility is astounding!