Signal Frustrations

[Tommo1906]

Our EE 4G and 5G service has been effectively unusable since at least April 2026, and possibly much longer. This is no longer a temporary fault or minor inconvenience. It has become a serious and unacceptable failure to provide a service that customers are paying for every month.

We regularly have to drive out of the village simply to make or receive phone calls. Think about that for a moment. In 2026, customers paying premium mobile contract prices are having to leave their homes and drive elsewhere just to use their phones.

My daughter is currently studying for her A-levels and has been forced to travel to libraries and other locations because mobile connectivity in the village is so poor. This is causing unnecessary disruption and frustration at a critical time in her education.

What concerns me most is the potential safety risk. If someone in our household needed to make an emergency call and our broadband or Wi-Fi was unavailable, what exactly are we supposed to do? Drive out of the village and hope for a signal? That cannot be an acceptable position for residents to be in.

I have been an EE customer for over 33 years, dating back to the One2One and T-Mobile days. You would think that level of loyalty would count for something. Apparently not. The response so far has amounted to little more than excuses and suggestions that customers should rely on their home broadband instead.

Let me be clear: we do not pay EE every month to use our Wi-Fi. We pay EE to provide a functioning mobile network.

The most frustrating aspect is the apparent lack of urgency. If a customer fails to honour their contract, EE acts quickly. Yet when EE fails to provide the service customers are contracted to receive, we are expected to continue paying regardless. How is that fair?

At what point does a prolonged failure to provide a service become a breach of contract?

I am now seriously considering taking this matter further and exploring whether customers affected by this ongoing outage should be entitled to terminate their contracts without penalty. It is difficult to see why customers should remain tied into agreements when the service they are paying for has effectively disappeared for months.

After 33 years of loyalty, I never thought I would say this, but unless something changes soon, I will be leaving EE at the earliest opportunity. This situation is a complete disgrace and demonstrates a shocking lack of accountability to loyal customers.

If you live in Datchworth and are experiencing the same issues, please comment below. The more evidence we can gather, the harder it will be for EE to ignore the problem.

[XRaySpeX]

You can make a formal complaint to EE & if you don't get satisfaction after 6 weeks or come to a deadlock you can take it to EE's ADR provider. See Complaints code of practice and here is the Complaints Form .

[Northerner]

Hi @Tommo1906 

EE do not guarantee service everywhere and as you live rural then this is even more problematic. 

You mention fixed line broadband can you use EE WiFi calling service.

Thanks 

[Christopher_G · Accepted solution]

Hi @Tommo1906 

Firstly, I recommend checking our network status checker to see if there are any maintenance works in your area. You can register for updates on there too, so that you can be kept updated with what's happening.

You mentioned that you have WiFi at your address. Another suggestion would be to make sure that any eligible devices you have are enabled with WiFi calling. This will help you keep connected through calls and messages.

Just to try and ease your concern around emergency calls. In the UK , emergency calls are designed to go through on any available network in your area, not just your service provider.

I can see that you've already been given some advice around making a complaint through our help pages. If you want to do that, a dedicated team will look into it and contact you directly to discuss it.

Please keep us updated with what happens.

Chris

[ee_user14]

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@Tommo1906 wrote:

We regularly have to drive out of the village simply to make or receive phone calls. Think about that for a moment. In 2026, customers paying premium mobile contract prices are having to leave their homes and drive elsewhere just to use their phones.

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There's villages up & down the country with the same problem, some due to lack of coverage for whatever reason, others due to local outages - be they short term or long-term. It would be wonderful if indoor & outdoor coverage were 100%, but until then, there's numerous mitigations available.

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@Tommo1906 wrote:

My daughter is currently studying for her A-levels and has been forced to travel to libraries and other locations because mobile connectivity in the village is so poor. 

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Sounds like your daughter is doing the right thing, in the apparent absence of a fixed-line broadband connection - I suspect that would be the best solution here, not just for your daughter's studies. You mention further on "use our Wi-Fi", which implies you have home broadband?

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@Tommo1906 wrote:

Let me be clear: we do not pay EE every month to use our Wi-Fi. We pay EE to provide a functioning mobile network.

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Yes and no. I presume you're talking about WiFi-calling, which all networks offer as an indoor coverage mitigation. Indoor coverage is never guaranteed and no-one has it everywhere. If WiFi-calling allows a phone that would otherwise be off-service, to be in-service, that seems like a no-brainer to me. But if an individual customer would rather not use the service and thus be off-service, that's absolutely their choice.

I hope your issues are resolved soon.