Coverage in Clapham

[racho_]

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?

[racho_]

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

[Gisele33]

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

[racho_]

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

[Rach_H]

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

[racho_]

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

[Peter_W]

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

[racho_]

Hi Peter,

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

[Katie_B]

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

[racho_]

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.

[Katie_B]

Hi @racho_. 

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

Katie