2G coverage in HG5 (Knaresborough) off for several days

[YorkshireMidge]

I have an old Nokia 2G phone for emergencies and it is with 1pMobile who use the EE network. There has been no service on it for several days that I know of, but as the phone is a spare, it could have been much longer.  Took the phone with me when I drove north of the town into the countryside the other day and picked up service again so I assume this is one tower affected. 

As I only take broadband/digital voice from EE, I can't see the status of the EE mobile network to find out what on earth is going on, and 1pMobile can only tell me there is a fault with the EE network and no idea when it wil be fixed.  

Can anyone from EE explain? 

Thanks! 

[bristolian]

If your service is provided by 1p-mobile, you should contact them for all enquiries.

EE certainly do provide 1p's radio coverage, but you are a customer of 1p not EE. If they're not resolving a query to your satisfaction, you should take it up with them.

[YorkshireMidge]

Contractually, you are of course correct.  Morally, it is clear that EE are at fault in three areas:

• The failure itself
• The long delay in fixing it
• Not keeping their MVNO(s) adequately informed so they can manage expectations with their customers

So having gone through the correct channel initially, I make no apology for raising the issue on here because it is likely EE's own mobile consumers in this area are similarly affected and might want to know what is going on too.  You also need to bear in mind that a percentage of 2G users are elderly, blind, disabled etc. who have Doro and other simple to use phones, so it isn't defendable to be treating 2G with low priority (if that is what EE are doing) just because it will be switching off in a few more years, so my question is being raised on their behalf too. 

[bristolian]

If there is any question of the relationship between EE& 1p, it is for 1p to take up with EE directly, not you on their behalf.

EE are of course responsible to their customers for their network service, but you are an MVNO customer and therefore your relationship is with 1p, not EE. Perhaps you should query 1p on these points.

If you were an EE-direct customer, you would be quite entitled to query with EE-CS on any network issue, but you've chosen to use a budget MVNO and that comes with certain implications which you need to accept.

2G equipment is still being installed & actively maintained, but carries a minority of network traffic compared with much newer technologies.

Edited to add that 2G & 4G technologies use the same radio equipment on 1800Mhz

[YorkshireMidge]

Thanks for your response  - but I'm not aware that one of the implications of choosing a budget MVNO means that EE can leave a service off for umpteen days and not apparently communicate the position to the MVNO.  I'm also struggling with why EE's network status is such a closely guarded secret that I'm not permitted to see it, even though I am an EE customer for other services. 

The phone I normally use is on O2 via Tesco MVNO, and anyone can go to the O2 status checker and see if there are any faults in their area without even logging on to anything. It's in the public domain and that is just good business practice and communication. 

[ee_user14]

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@YorkshireMidge wrote:

Thanks for your response  - but I'm not aware that one of the implications of choosing a budget MVNO means that EE can leave a service off for umpteen days and not apparently communicate the position to the MVNO.

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Where did @bristolian say this? I read their post as reinforcing the point that your enquiry point of contact is 1p-mobile, and if their CS is not much good (as wouldn't surprise) then that's one of the reasons they're so cheap... and you need to accept that.

If you're not happy with the level of service you're getting from penny-mobile, then you should absolutely follow their complaints process - https://www.1pmobile.com/contact-us . Your other option is to get an EE PAYG SIM, and if you're able to replicate the lack of coverage in that location, complain accordingly.

[bristolian]

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@YorkshireMidge wrote:

The phone I normally use is on O2 via Tesco MVNO, and anyone can go to the O2 status checker and see if there are any faults in their area without even logging on to anything.

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Many of the EE MVNOs have a link to the EE "check coverage" tool on their site, but it's been several years since EE chose to restrict their status checking & reporting to direct customers only - a commercial decision. There are also some scenarios where localised radio issues can impact MVNO users differently from direct customers.

If this presents a problem to an individual users, then it needs to be factored into decisions on choice of provider.

[YorkshireMidge]

The point doesn't need re-inforcing further thankyou.  I am very well aware of what the commericial/contractual relationship is - but after several DAYS of outage, this has gone past normal process and niceties, and the focus should be on fixing a fault that has been there way too long don't you think?  

As for 1pMobile's Customer Service, the implication in your comment is that I can expect them to be below standard in some way. I was actually pleasantly surprised to find a provider who answered the phone in around 30 seconds without me being stuck in a queue or shunted through layers of IVR, were pleasant and courteous and quickly looked up the issue to confirm the fault and apologised for it.   My only criticism is they were unable when pressed to tell me how long this would be off for - so I have raised a complaint with them now it has been off for another three days. 

If I get to the point of obtaining another SIM, I can promise you it won't be on EE's network. 

[bristolian]

Without having full knowledge of the exact reasons for any fault, and individual site access processes, it's impossible to say how long is reasonable or not. I don't see what incentive EE would have for intentionally delaying any individual fix, though.

I agree with you about multiple levels of IVR - that's a big-company thing to an extent but EE have been worse than most for as long as I can remember.