Network Problems EE are useless

[hughmoz]

Now we have Storm Darren and no information at all from EE and there has been no signal for 2 days in my area. Major issues and  hardly any staff on duty so, waiting times are off the scale. EE could text everyone so, that anyone who has wifi calling knows what is happening and can alert their local Facebook Community group. The problem with any totally profit focussed company is that they do not really give a damn as long as that money keeps rolling in and we  do not count for anything other than money. We do not get what we pay for and they are not bothered. All the other service providers are all running and have been all weekend, which really says it all.

[Liamski1]

These guys can deny this all they want but you are correct. Even a premium service company like EE is clearly prioritising profit over service. Reducing infrastructure to a minimum to provide the minimum standard. You see it all over this forum. Antennas getting removed without a contingency in place before that happens. "Oh now we will start the process of replacing that antenna" without actually admitting that it will take months because someone will spend lots of time negotiating the cheapest possible price before a brick is even put into the ground or a cable laid. When what you should be doing is saying "We know we have 18 months to replace this antenna let get something in place now so that our quality of service is not affected" 

Shall we ask the good people of Wednesbury about that? Or where I am which is actually  only 5 minutes from up the M6 from Wednesbury and we have no internet once all the numbers arrive to work because there is over subscription. Shambles.

Meanwhile we are paying £30 + a month for a service we could get for £10 from Lebara and Smarty. 

[bristolian]

---

@hughmoz wrote:

The other providers masts work. EE are not good... hence poor quality  signal and feeble masts

---

Just out of interest, is there anything specific about the design of EE's sites that you consider "feeble" and would like to see improved?

A significant factor in rural coverage is often the lack of overlap from adjacent sites - local authority planning issues, specifically vocal local opposition to new site builds, is frequently a problem here.

Loss of service after storms often results from an incoming loss of power as anything else, which makes outages a lottery over which operators have little to no control. Planning restrictions & site-specific design issues are often a factor in BBU deployment.

There is always room for improvement in geographical coverage, but EE have led rural coverage for many years under both ESN & SRN projects.

[danbryan89]

Hi,

Mine has been on & off for a good 10 days now. Service really is terrible and im damned if i am spending hours on hold to 150. I am in Sheffield by the way, i have a lot of family & friends whos seem to be working fine then others have the same problem as me, so god knows what the issue is.

[hughmoz]

Some fair points although, I feel that the problem is that EE are very much  like the politicians, where they talk a good talk, but do not get on with things in a timely manner. Because of modern business ideas, where money is seen as  be all and end all, everything is sub-contracted out, which means that it takes longer to get anything done. It's disingenuous, however, that's how a lot of businesses conduct themselves nowadays.

There is far less community and far more individual branding/ego building, rather than actually getting on with things and catching up with all the spin. It's all about profit and monetising the platform, and a lot of customers are left floundering, because EE are content to leave them that way instead of sorting things out promptly. The games is based on the same basis as network marketing, whereby a lot of people giving you some money is better than a few people giving you a lot of money.

So, the illusion is that EE are doing really well and making good profits, however, quite a lot of customers are not getting the service that they are paying for and  the excuses are honed to perfection.

[superbat]

I have little or no signal and it has been like this since about ten days before the storm, so they can't blame that.  It won't even give me a response to the query online, I shall be in the shop tomorrow and if I can't get a reasonable answer.......well there are at least three other mobile phone providers within a hundred yards of the EE shop.

[hughmoz]

Got mine back on this afternoon  in Hay-On-Wye area, which is on the Welsh borders and went down overnight on Friday night as a part had blown off the mast and they were apparently having trouble sourcing a part, which probably means sub-contracting and not enough staff, but who knows. As far as I am aware EE are not exactly straightforward in most events as, they are profit focussed ahead of anything else.

[philip42h]

Mine came back after about 48 hours - so, "well done" to the engineering teams - I've no complaints there.

And then about six hours after I'd noticed that we had service again, I received an email update to tell me that they were still working on the problem and it would take another 15 hours to resolve! A day later I got an email to say that it was now working ...

For a communication company, it's the communication [with their customers] that really isn't good enough.

[Leanne_T]

Hi there @superbat 

I am sorry you are experiencing signal issues for over ten days. 

Have you reported the signal problems on the Service Status Checker? Once reported the network team will get the area looked into and keep you updated when they have more information. 

Leanne.

[superbat]

I went into the shop yesterday and just sat there till I was given the
information I was looking for. It was easily available to your staff in
the call centre and I see no reason why on earth you couldn't have it on
the website, it would save a lot of time and bad feeling.

[hughmoz]

No surprise there unfortunately as, EE are a well honed excuse machine. They seem to have no idea about what works and what doesn't and for a communication company are a good example of not being able to communicate. As ever, with modern businesses, we the customers are unpaid labour who do a lot of the running around to inform EE what they should clearly already know themselves. Welcome to the world of AI and companies that do not really care about customers and are happy to talk themselves up instead of running their business properly and serve the people that pay for them to exist. The lack of awareness and humility is astounding!