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.

[bristolian]

There are numerous issues with having local coverage outages communicated on an opt-out basis, but you can register upto 5 UK postcodes for proactive updates - by using the "my places" feature on the coverage webtool.

https://ee.co.uk/help/mobile-coverage-checker 

Given that networks have their radio sites in different locations, it's completely normal for one to be affected in a given area and others to be operating normally. Even on shared sites where multiple operators share the same location, the active equipment will be different - and generally only a power outage will affect all simultaneously.

[hughmoz]

EE need to up their game and stoop making excuses. Their website should have all the relevant information. The public are not free labour for rich companies and all this opt in or opt out is just rubbish. Any company that has a forum tells you all you need to know as, these forums only exist because companies cannot be bothered to to do their jobs properly when they are being paid to run a service. 

[bristolian]

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@hughmoz wrote:

Any company that has a forum tells you all you need to know

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All 4 UK mobile operators have support fora, as do BT & Virgin Media in the fixed line arena.

No-one is forced to use any community forum - users are quite welcome to rely exclusively on support from paid staff if you'd prefer.

[hughmoz]

As I said,  forums exist because the companies do not do their jobs and repairs well in a timely manner. It's a deliberate way of diffusing issues to give companies room to move while they do not get on with things. This applies to all companies like Apple, eBay et al that never run things properly and are primarily profit focussed over doing something well with integrity and honesty.

[Chris_B]

@hughmoz  First they have to get to the site and that might require permission from a land owner as after all no company is above any laws on trespass.     If only texting people in certain areas was that simple.  

And this forum isn’t about EE not doing their job properly or in a timely manner it’s for customers to get advice about issues they might have and getting advice about how to resolve that issue.   EE will be aware of that issue in your area and will be working on it.  It just not going to be in your time scale.   I mean after all if it’s storm damage exactly what damage has been done to the mast ?  What exactly needs to be repaired.  How many other sites might also need to be repaired because of storm damage it’s not like there one team of engineers per mast. 

[ee_user14]

A company's first responsibility is to their shareholders. I'm not aware of any charitable or non-profit making tech companies!!

[hughmoz]

The other providers masts work. EE are not good responding in the countryside. As our useless government’s never put in the infrastructure ( exactly the same as car charging places will be a mess with electric vehicles) as there is not much money to be made in the countryside, hence poor quality  signal and feeble masts. You can make as many excuses as you like, however, it’s all just semantics. EE are a big company and need to do better with phone signal issues. 

[hughmoz]

It’s not the point. If you do something well with integrity and honesty profits come your way. Excuses are a poor currency when you do not know what is going on and where and fail to inform your customers. It’s basic common sense.

[philip42h]

After the recent storm, some damage and service interruption is probably inevitable and 'acceptable'. And, yes, this is a community forum rather than an EE support service so this post is mainly as a cathartic rant but I've had no service for the past 24 hours or so and ...

• The coverage checker - https://ee.co.uk/help/mobile-coverage-checker  - tells me that I have good coverage on both 4G and 5G. If I had any service at all that would be optimistic.
• The service status checker - https://ee.co.uk/help/service-status - admits that there are network problems in my area and if I go on the "See what I can do" tells me that they are working on it and that the issue would be resolve in 16 hours. That would be great if it were true - every time I check it tells me that It will be another 16 hours ...
• When I try the add a postcode to use "my places" it fails, telling me that it can't do that right now.

So, EE really could do a bit better in terms of keeping customers informed when things go wrong ... 😉