Recurring seasonal signal loss, Fleet GU51 (Tavistock Road/Calthorpe Park area)

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Every year, once the weather turns hot, EE signal disappears completely along a fixed stretch near Calthorpe Park in Fleet, Hampshire (GU51), roughly from Merryvale Road to Reading Road North. It comes back as soon as I get closer to the town centre. This has happened every summer for several years and clears again by autumn.

EE's own coverage checker rates this postcode "Excellent" for both 4G and 5G, outdoors and indoors, which does not match what I experience on the ground.

Has anyone else in this area noticed the same pattern? I would also be grateful for any insight into why this happens every year in this specific spot.

I would prefer to sort this out over email or in writing rather than by phone, if any EE staff reading this are able to help that way.

[bristolian]

There's a couple of things that can sometimes cause seasonal issues such as this. I can only speculate as to what may be at play in your specific area.

Telecoms equipment is as susceptible to overheating as any other kit, sites have in-built cooling but if this fails then a shutdown will soon result. This would create a temporary outage on that site, but not to the degree you mention.

The summer months can cause trees and other vegetation to grow : If a radio site uses microwave to backhaul to the core network, and trees grow above the height of the microwave link, that comms will get broken and cause an outage on all the equipment reliant on that link.

I would recommend reporting your loss of service using the status tool initially. It sounds like you've used the "check coverage" option, follow "check service status" instead.

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Thanks bristolian, that's really helpful. The microwave backhaul point makes a lot of sense: it would explain a complete loss on the whole site rather than just weaker signal, and why it clears once the leaves drop. I'll bear the overheating angle in mind too.

One snag: I tried the "check service status" tool as you suggested, but it just returns "This service isn't working right now" every time, whether I'm logged in or not, so I couldn't report it that way. Is there another route you'd recommend?

And out of interest, do you know if the mast serving the Calthorpe Park side of Fleet is likely to be on microwave backhaul rather than fibre? If so, seasonal tree growth on that link would fit the pattern exactly.