EE Coverage at Glastonbury 2023

[doogie1970]

I'm lucky enough to be going to Glastonbury this year, and I was wondering how good the mobile signal will be.

Up to and including last year, EE was the festival's official mobile partner, and the signal was excellent if you had an EE phone but poor if you were on another network.

This year Vodafone is the festival's new official mobile partner, so can I expect the EE signal to be significantly worse than last year?

[Northerner]

Hi @doogie1970 

In a word yes. I'm sure EE will have some additional capacity.

Thanks 

[doogie1970]

Thanks, but that doesn't really answer the question of whether or not coverage will be significantly worse than previous years.

We can speculate, but ideally it would be good to get an answer from someone with specific knowledge of this year's mast setup.

[James_B · Accepted solution]

Hi @doogie1970,

While our official partnership has come to an end, we will continue to work hard for our customers to ensure the EE network remains the best network both onsite at Glastonbury Festival, as well as throughout the rest of the UK.

James

[therealmav]

Sorry to resurrect the thread. EE succeeded in providing good coverage, I.e there were always many bars.  However they failed dismally to provide adequate bandwidth and so actually trying to use any data or make calls/txts was an exercise in futility once people had got up in the morning. This is a big change from previous years so I guess proves that whilst they cared a lot about their performance for corporate customers when they had the Glastonbury contract, ordinary users aren’t so much of a priority.

in contrast friends with voda services had none of these problems.

[bristolian]

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@therealmav wrote:

I guess proves that whilst they cared a lot about their performance for corporate customers when they had the Glastonbury contract, ordinary users aren’t so much of a priority.

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The same number of sites were installed as in previous years, with a broadly similar config. Glastonbury is a major event for all operators, the second part of your statement is grossly untrue.

[therealmav]

I stand corrected and acknowledge that EE care very much about the service they provide to their ordinary users at Glastonbury, just as they did when they had the main contract.

Yet, somehow they didn't perform.  Signal was great, bandwidth, i.e. the ability to actually use data, make a call (unless you turned off mobile data first), send a WhatsApp etc etc was all but nonexistent for large parts of the day in large parts of the site.  Back when EE had the corporate contract that didn't happen, not ever and is the main reason why I moved contracts to EE.  If I wanted to have that experience again, I could have stayed with O2 and saved a bunch of cash.

Which is the main reason why I'm griping, EE charge a premium.  It's only worth paying if they deliver a premium service.  That isn't what EE subscribers got at Glastonbury 2023.

[mark1ee]

So, you based your main reason for leaving 02 on the fact that EE provided excellent (temporary) coverage at one of the most well known music festivals in the world which, transforms a few fields into a City the size of Shepton Mallet? 

I'm sure EE don't base their 'premium' pricing on providing a very temporary network solution once a year in a field! 

[therealmav]

Main as in the point at which network change inertia was overcome.

Not sure why the rest is relevant unless you're a PR for EE.  EE sell their contracts on the basis of reliability of service, speed, universal connectedness.  Not, "great service - except when you're at Glastonbury when it'll be rubbish".  Providing mobile networks at large temporary events is an understood problem that EE (in particular at Glastonbury) have a lot of experience in.  Spare me the excuses for why a £12 bn+ company can't do a good job.