Are EE PAYG phones now given a poorer service ?

[minorman]

Back in the mists of time when the world was Orange (remember them ?)  and phones were analogue before 2G started I got an Orange SIM card and all was well.  I do PAYG as quite honestly if I make 2 calls a month, receive 6 and send 10 texts I am doing well so a contract is ridiculous in spite of the best efforts of so called salesmen.  When 2G started I went over to this and then I found the service was (and always was) patchy outdoors and almost impossible indoors. We roll forward through 2G, 3G and now I am on 4G on a Samsung smart phone. I don't want data so don't pay for it.  I live on the edge of Braintree and can see 1 mobile phone mast out of my windows and am only 1.5 miles away from another but the signal service is c**p.  Especially indoors.  I am forever getting "EMERGENCY CALLS ONLY" messages on the screen and the 4G indicator and the 4G signal bars are up and down or non existent,  I presume I default to a virtually impossibly poor 2G system for calls in this circumstance but even then a couple of calls I have been waiting for today could not get through.  So, as per the title, Are EE PAYG phones now given a poorer service ?

[James_B]

Hi @minorman,

Welcome to the EE Community. 🙂

What does the coverage checker report for your location?

Are any problems reported if you select the check status option?

Do you have WiFi at home? If you do, is WiFi Calling activated in your phone's settings?

James

[bristolian]

Older phones certainly get a poorer service compared with current models, yes.

A 4G-calling/VoLTE enabled device unlocks access to low-band "extended range" 800Mhz service which, where available, provides coverage improvements over the high-band layers which 2G operates on. Your reference to the 4G service noticeably varying leads me to suspect this may be available in your locality.

VoLTE also provides seamless handover with the VoWiFi layer allowing for continuity of calls between "indoor no coverage" & outdoor mobile network calling.

The codecs employed on the VoLTE & VoWiFi layers are also more advanced, meaning much better audio quality.