Extremely poor coverage - North Norfolk

[ijb59]

Totally sick to the teeth of EE's coverage in North Norfolk.  I have a holiday home in the area and unfortunately only have limited WiFi so tend to rely on mobile coverage for the most part. The problem is, I only intermittently get a 4G signal, alternating either EDGE. I can actually see the mast, located just down the lane which makes it even more frustrating.  I've complained to EE on numerous occasions and all they say is "no problems in your area". I once got to speak to an engineer who admitted that there was a bit of a "blindspot" here and that it didn't help that I was surrounded by trees! Yet here I am, still paying my bill, with little or no mobile Internet. Surely in 2023, there must be a phone provider that can offer something that actually works??

[Katie_B]

Hello @ijb59. 

Thanks for coming here. 

I am sorry to hear the issues with signal that you are having at your holiday home.

When you search your holiday home location using the Network Status Checker what should you be receiving for indoor and outdoor coverage?

Katie

[ijb59]

It says, for 4G, I should get "extremely good coverage indoors and out". Occasionally I do, but more often than not, the signal on my phone just shows EDGE.

[Katie_B]

Thanks for checking @ijb59. 

How have you reported this? was it using the Network Checker or by calling technical care?

Was anymore information provided from the engineer?

Katie

[bristolian]

The online coverage checker has a certain level of granularity and it sounds like you might just be in a small pocket of poor coverage - these happen, and short of building a new network site or using an external antenna at height, there's limited options to resolve.

You mention having EDGE coverage, what RX levels are you seeing, in dBM? Network design is such that the 4G1800 layer relies on 2G1800 for CSFB and therefore 2G footprint will exceed that of 4G1800 by sufficient to ensure cell-edge call reliability,

If the site in question has 4G800 service, this should improve cell edge coverage albeit data speeds would be more limited.

[ijb59]

Thank you for your detailed reply. Im sorry, but you have kind of lost me with the technical jargon there, I'm no expert in mobile phone networks. As you say, I may just be in a "pocket" of bad signal reception. This evening, while I was using my phone, (during a good reception minute), I literally watched the signal on my phone slowly drop from 4 bars to 1, then to nothing, and there it stayed. A few neighbours are with O2 and all have a perfect, steady 4G signal. If O2 can do it, I can't see why EE, with their "best in UK Network" can't. I feel as if I'm paying for a service that I'm only receiving for half the time!

[ijb59]

Thank you for your reply. I have reported this every time I have no signal through the network checker system. The one time I actually had a call from an engineer, which was probably a year or so ago, he just said that it was my location, being surrounded by trees. He said that there were no plans to improve anything in this area and to use WiFi calling. I don't have WiFi here which is why I need a reliable 4G signal and why should I have to use WiFi calling when I'm paying EE for that service.

[bristolian]

Regardless of marketing claims, which are based on national benchmarking, no single network is perfect everywhere.

For this one location where O2 performs better, there will be many others where the opposite is the case.

Out of interest, is this a recent problem?

[ijb59]

Absolutely understand. I've been you'd that 3 performs well in this area, but unfortunately at my home location 3 doesn't perform at all. 

It has been like this for a couple of years to be honest. I originally switched from O2 to EE because I stupidly thought that, with EE having the best network coverage, would be the best option for usage between the two locations. Probably time to go back to O2.