topic Poor Signal issues in Mobile Network discussions

Poor Signal issues

styoda — Sat, 15 Mar 2025 22:39:56 GMT

I know this is an oldish post, but I agree, Basingstoke signal has got really poor.

Yes, the bars don't really show the correct signal strength, but you can check the signal strength on the phone.

I have 3 phones in the house on EE, and all show around -100dB, which is very poor. If I go to Basingstoke Garden Center on the A30, signal improves significantly, around -80dB.

Also getting Jitter on EE signal, which is not good caused by poor signal, intern causing delays in streaming and voice calls.

I've been with EE before it was EE, before it was T-Mobile, when it was One2One, and this is the worst I've come across for signal.

They need to do something or I'm off.

Re: Poor Signal issues

bristolian — Sat, 15 Mar 2025 22:24:42 GMT

Rather than adding to an old post, just start a new one! I've moved yours to a new thread.

The on-screen bars are a rough indication of signal strength, -100dbM is not "very poor". It's on the lower end for sure, but perfectly usable on most phones. "Very poor" would be below -110dBM or so, in radio engineering terms.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by jitter & delay on voice calls?

Re: Poor Signal issues

styoda — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 16:48:34 GMT

Hi bristolian,

Thanks for starting a new post.

Apologies, it was a typo, the signal is averaging around -110dBM, and this is outside in my garden and around the Brighton Hill area.

Odd thing is, if I'm at home and I go upstairs the signal increases to around -100dBM, but this is no good when I'm outside, I'm not 20ft tall..lol

I have an O2 sim for my laptop, so took this out and tested it in 2 of my phones and the signal is at least -80dB.

Voice calls cut out quite often, streaming is painful, buffering a lot of the time.

Jitter, quick explanation, it's a bit like ping, the larger the number the worse it is.

I've already raised this with EE, but got a response back stating there is no problems in my area.

Re: Poor Signal issues

bristolian — Sun, 16 Mar 2025 18:32:19 GMT

-110dBM is not of itself critical, it's just on the lower-end and approaching cell-edge.. more an "amber" than "red", depending on RSRQ & SNR values.

When you mention voice calls cutting out, this could mean one of two things. Either calls dropping, or the in-call audio momentarily dropping.

Calls should reliably hold down to around -115dBM but beyond that can depend on the individual device, and would certainly be prone to poor audio. In-call audio momentarily cutting out is often a symptom of in-call handover between VoLTE & VoWiFi. If your issues are predominantly indoors, VoWiFi would be the way to go.

Data being slow would certainly not be helped by poor RF, but this should not be critical - I'm only getting around -115dBM currently and can reliably stream.. it depends on the underlying spectrum as well, not just the RF quality.