Help: Zero signal. What do I do?

[Adrewetx]

I'm in Bedford.  It's not exactly rural. 170,000 people live here, and yet a massive part of Bedford has near-zero signal strength.  When I check EE Mapping it says we'll get 5 bars, but I'm getting zero to 1 bar.  We have 5 EE phones (extended family) within the same area and all of us get near-zero.  We've tried everything including EE support, replacement SIM, different phones, and it's all the same.   EE refuse to do anything unless I can prove that I've lost at least 3 telephone calls in the past month.  What do we do?   There is clearly a MASSIVE difference between what EE say they can provide ,and what real people are experiencing?

[bristolian]

How long have you had this problem - is it recent?

[Adrewetx]

It's been circa 4 months, but I thought it was my SIM, so changed that, and then I thought it was my phone, and changed that... and only recently speaking to everyone else, realised that everyone has the same issue, in a 4G area that EE claims is 5 bar

[Schockwave]

@Adrewetx , have you checked here and reported it you can also get updates:

https://coverage.ee.co.uk/coverage/ee

[bristolian]

Have you used the "report a problem" link on the status page that @Schockwave has linked to?

Something of that timescale is likely to either be a long-standing fault that the status checker should report, or possibly a change made to the network - which would be best reported by any & every EE user affected, using the same tool.

When you say a "massive" part of Bedford is affected, can you quantify that?

[Adrewetx]

Thanks for all the responses.  

I hadn't seen the report button, and have now done that and await a response.

When I say "massive" part of Bedford ,my average bar strength across the whole of Bedford is always 0-2 bar.  I can't recall (other than the high street) hitting 3+ bar.   But as before, I've removed cases, swapped SIMS, tried different phones and so much more.  I work in IT  I understand tech   So this has been hugely frustrating.

[bristolian]

I wouldn't worry about the number of bars at all - they're only a rough guide, many radio parameters factor into them, and the measurements often differ between phones & software builds. The multiple EE phones in my home often show different amounts of bars, but as long as they are in coverage it doesn't cause any issues.

If you have no coverage where others have it, that's a different story.