topic Re: End of contracts things to consider! in Contracts & Billing

End of contracts things to consider!

kcurrie65 — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 07:43:53 GMT

So My broadband and my mobile sim only contract are \ were up for renewal. I came to EE 2 years ago from BT. Rural location miles from a city so very limited investment in the fibre or mobile departments here. That said I do like to check my options at these times (end of contracts) I have had good service with my broadband but then I would have had from most providers I think as our exchange is so small, my mobile dosent get a signal at home (no coverage and worse since they did recent upgrades but I can do wifi calls at home) but I made the calls yesterday to see what the deals were. after a bit of time ( it always takes time and you get passed about and put on hold) deals were struck and I came off the phone fairly happy! I say fairly happ because I am nearly 60! and the EE on hold music is absolutely not my cup of tea in fact I mentioned it to the agents and they agreed its was not their cup of tea, yet they hear it all day long, banging tunes that made me cringe. Those tunes could have been the deal breaker for me with EE. If EE cares and liustens please oh please do something about that music. Thank you

Re: End of contracts things to consider!

Northerner — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 08:48:59 GMT

Hi @kcurrie65

What about the people who do like the hold music. There are threads from people asking for the playlist.

Thanks

Re: End of contracts things to consider!

kcurrie65 — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 09:15:15 GMT

Ha ha I guess there will be right enough. That's me being an old fogie then 🤣 they should have days for different eras of music so I can go on old with classical music 😁

Re: End of contracts things to consider!

Northerner — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 09:54:42 GMT

Hi @kcurrie65

Tbh there should be an option to turn it off, that said you shouldn't be on hold that long in an ideal world!

Thanks

Re: End of contracts things to consider!

bristolian — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 10:43:34 GMT

@kcurrie65 wrote:

Rural location miles from a city so very limited investment in the fibre or mobile departments here.

If anything, the opposite is the case. EE are leading the industry in expanding rural mobile coverage. There is always room for improvement, but installing new network sites is not as quick a process as end-users would like.

Re: End of contracts things to consider!

kcurrie65 — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 10:49:44 GMT

Trouble is a 4g mast could cover roughly 7km radius. 5g does about 5km so the coverage is less unless they put a new mast up in the missing bits. In an ideal world they would share masts. O2 put a mast in the village a few years back and Vodafone were going to share it but didn't in the end so EE should seize that opportunity to share the mast. The village over the valley from us has 3 operators on the same mast. Common sense over there. Overall I still find EE has the best coverage when I am traveling it's just in my home vicinity they have degraded the service with recent updates

Re: End of contracts things to consider!

bristolian — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 11:12:02 GMT

@kcurrie65 wrote:

Trouble is a 4g mast could cover roughly 7km radius. 5g does about 5km so the coverage is less unless they put a new mast up in the missing bits. In an ideal world they would share masts.

You are confusing technologies with frequencies. Coverage propagation is dictated largely by the frequency in use, not the technology. 4G & 5G are deployed on high-bands & low-bands - a 4G800 layer will provide significantly greater coverage than a 5G3500 layer, all else being equal.

Good network planning requires a combination of high & low-band deployment, in the right locations. Site-sharing is a hugely complex area, and in rural locations planning consent can be a major obstacle. The site designs being used for S4GI & SRN rollout specifically allow for multi-operator deployment.

Re: End of contracts things to consider!

kcurrie65 — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 11:06:25 GMT

I am in Scotland. Your answer makes sense very technical and a lot over my head 😁 I just know where I had signal before I don't get any now

Re: End of contracts things to consider!

bristolian — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 11:11:50 GMT

4G & 5G are radio access technologies (RAT for short).

Coverage propagation - or "range" in your analogy - is largely dictated by the frequency, not by the RAT. EE deploy 4G on 800Mhz, 1800Mhz, 2100Mhz & 2600Mhz. 5G on 700Mhz, 1800Mhz, 2100Mhz & 3500Mhz.

Lower bands provide greater coverage but don't provide depth of capacity, higher-bands do the opposite - hence a combination is required. 5G on 3500Mhz will provide plenty of capacity but limited coverage, 4G on 800Mhz will do the exact opposite. All in - a statement of "5G travels better than 4G" is false.

Out of interest, where in Scotland are you? Feel free to be as exact or vague as you're comfortable, but I am interested in reviewing some specifics of your locality. Can you explain more about the loss of coverage, and the timescales?

Re: End of contracts things to consider!

kcurrie65 — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 11:35:07 GMT

So I am in the Scottish Borders between Jedburgh and Hawick . The two masts that cover my area are 1 in Hawick and one on Blacklaw hill outside of Jedburgh. The road from where I live to Hawick is the A698. I used to be able to hold a call along that stretch of road ( 5miles) now I can't make or receive calls till on the outskirts of Hawick. Even I Hawick town centre reception is now patchy where before it was much better. When I reported it they claim there are 5 masts covering this area one they mentioned is as the crow flies about 12 miles from my home not sure where the other 2 are though

Re: End of contracts things to consider!

bristolian — Sun, 10 Mar 2024 00:10:31 GMT

I've had a brief check, before looking in more detail or drawing any conclusions it would be useful to know whether you're using a VoLTE-compatible phone.

Re: End of contracts things to consider!

kcurrie65 — Sun, 10 Mar 2024 06:49:47 GMT

I use s23 5g and I use an s22 5g one personal use one for work.

Re: End of contracts things to consider!

bristolian — Sun, 10 Mar 2024 19:47:22 GMT

I can see Hawick has 2 main serving sites around the town with a further 3 within ~5 miles outside. Jedburgh 1 around the town with a further 2 within a short distance outside. Another is approx 5 miles outside of Jedburgh and I suspect provides some service to the connecting roads.

All but one of these sites has at least B3-1800Mhz & B20-800Mhz service, and I suspect the 800Mhz layer provides resilience on parts of the route between the towns. If you're reporting failed handovers on the drive between them, my initial suspicions would be towards an issue here. There should certainly be concern if you have patchy coverage in the town itself, I wouldn't rule out a device issue if so. B3-1800Mhz provides 2G & 4G service, but B20-800Mhz requires a VoLTE-compatible phone.

My interest would next be in how long you've had these issues for, and whether your phone shows VoLTE-indicators when on calls.

Re: End of contracts things to consider!

kcurrie65 — Mon, 11 Mar 2024 02:22:35 GMT

It's been off and on now for a few months. The EE web site says everything is fine (but it always does ) unless there is planned works and to be fair EE do text when they know they will be working on a local mast. In hindsight many of the problems have started since go fibre have started working in Hawick at one point no mobiles were working in the town for days and go fibre were blamed this may still be causing issues as they are still very much in the area