Advise on bad O2 signal

Silk

Interesting thread so count me in too :rotfl:

Ok background history first ...
I've been using mobile phones for more years than I care to remember as it was important for me to be able to be contcted wherever I was...from having a motorola car phone fitted in the early 80''s and buying my first Oki brick phone in the late 80's (£600 up front and 45p a minute those were the days)

I'm on O2 for work and personal and have been for many years due to the fact after a lot of trial and error I found they perform best all round
I do however have a spare 3rd phone on the Virgin network which I carry if going away and also carry spare sims for Vodafone and T-mobile.

I have no problems at home although I know for a fact that Orange is dire and will not work in the house.

The family home which is semi rural outskirts of a village is borderline for a blackspot eg. the front of the house has very poor signal and is very much hit and miss but the rear of the house back rooms and back bedrooms no problem but if you walk through the house to a front bedroom or front room the signal drops.
It's the same outside if you stand in the back outside it's ok but if you walk around as soon as you get to the front garden the signal starts breaking up although outside it's rare to get cut off.

I also spend a lot of time in the Lakes and as most people will tell you the coverage due to the landscape is poor for most networks although I've found that O2 and Voda work best for me.

Any way the point I was going to make was that I've found over the years that it does make a difference as to the handset you use.
A few years ago I used to use an XDA2 which had great reception even in the family home. I then upgraded to the XDA2i (same phone but with wifi) and was lucky if I got a signal when I went there untill I went outside to the back of the house or one of the rear bedrooms.
Swapping the sim card back to the XDA2 no probs.
Of the more recent phones that have performed best for reception has been the Nokia 5800 which managed to get a signal on vodafone in an area the Lakes where I've never had a signal before and the same with the family home it manages to get a signal all over the house even better than the current Blackberry I use

There is no doubt that on rare occasions there are only some networks that will work in certain area's where others don't hence the reason for carrying spare sims.
An example of this is when I was in Glasgow recently and the only one that would work inside the hotel was Virgin ???? Outside in the car park O2 and Vodafone had full strength but inside the hotel not even a glimmer :rotfl:

Guys_Dad

Liam - we all draw on our own experiences. In the UK, there may very well be 100% black spots - total black spots if you like. Silk says parts of the lake district, for example.

However, in my experience, different networks have different signal strengths in different places. So when you wrote "Presumably if you have bad signal with O2, you will no doubt have bad signal with any other mobile phone company. They are all quite similar to be fair." that is not my experience.

If you were referring to genuine, 100% black spots, then fair enough, but when you compare the number of places in otherwise good reception areas where it is only one or two networks that have problems due to either walls, trees or distance from mast etc, then my experience is that aif he has a bad signal with O2, it doesn't mean that Orange, for example, will be similarly affected.

liam8282

Guys_Dad wrote: »

but when you compare the number of places in otherwise good reception areas where it is only one or two networks that have problems due to either walls, trees or distance from mast etc, then my experience is that aif he has a bad signal with O2, it doesn't mean that Orange, for example, will be similarly affected.

O2, T Mobile, Orange etc. all transmit radio waves, the radio waves all operate on the same principle.

If there is a big building between the masts and your house, the radio waves are going to struggle to get to you, it does not matter what network you are on.

Similarly if you live in a valley, the radio waves cannot travel down into your valley and back up out of the otherside, they will more likely go straight over you.

This is what I meant by him living in a bad area.

The only way the people in the valley are going to get signal, is if an operator puts a mast at the bottom of the valley, or they get an aerial big enough so that it gets out of the valley!


I totally understand what everyone else is saying about the masts etc.

But I was talking about the area the person lived in rather than an issue with masts, probably as you say because of our own experiences and that is what it is like where I live.

But this has just been dismissed as being wrong and stupid, with no real reasoning as to why.

The OP is the only one who can really answer this.

The links I posted about coverage etc. were just something that the OP could have looked at as a starting point, I didn't anticipate them being perceived as the sole solution to their problems.

There could be many reasons they get poor signal, it could be as I have said being the area, it could be as others have said the masts.

To be fair I have never said otherwise, only offered one idea of what the problem could be.

Buzby

Ah - now I see where your generalisation comes from. No, all the operators do not all share the 'same masts'. GSM 900 and GSM 1800 networks were build differently - you need more 1800 masts to cover the same area of a 900. When 3G/UMTS arrives, so did sharing and in-filling, but this is strictly on an rea-by-area basis. Add to this, if there IS site sharing, the mast owner will be in pole position and the sharer further down, so if all things are equal, the lower down one will generally have less coverage.

I have no coverage from Orange or T-Mobile (GSM 1800) but have no problems with GSM 900 and UMTS/3G from 3UK, who have BTS's within 1Km of me. Following your logic, with O & T-M being carp, all the others would be also, yet they aren't!

Finally, you are also over-genralising about radio waves, there are 3 frequency blocks being used, 2 GSM and 1 3G. All exhibit differnet characteristics and have different propogation values. Someone on O2 may get OK GSM coverage but nil 3G & BB from the SAME network, using the same mast.

lozzaman

The OP wasn't complaining about lack of signal, but instead that the network has a fault or is busy causing calls and texts to fail. Another network covering the area may not have the same capacity issues.
From the same sites round here I note that 900MHz seems to be about 4dBm stronger than 1800MHz which is a couple of dBm stronger than 2100MHz. I'm not sure how much site sharing is going on as with T-Mobile on 1800MHz GSM I can see about 3 sites according to net monitor, yet can see about 9 Orange sites. O and T give almost identical strength here and as I know my closest cell location is a co-location with all operators except Vodafone.

Is the OP having problems 24/7 or just at 'busier' times?

liam8282

Buzby wrote: »

Ah - now I see where your generalisation comes from.

Not quite though...

Buzby wrote: »

No, all the operators do not all share the 'same masts'.

I never said they did.

Buzby wrote: »

GSM 900 and GSM 1800 networks were build differently - you need more 1800 masts to cover the same area of a 900. When 3G/UMTS arrives, so did sharing and in-filling, but this is strictly on an rea-by-area basis. Add to this, if there IS site sharing, the mast owner will be in pole position and the sharer further down, so if all things are equal, the lower down one will generally have less coverage.

I have no coverage from Orange or T-Mobile (GSM 1800) but have no problems with GSM 900 and UMTS/3G from 3UK, who have BTS's within 1Km of me. Following your logic, with O & T-M being carp, all the others would be also, yet they aren't!

Just to add to this, Orange & T Mobile have an agreement in place, they share networks, masts everything.

https://kareena.orange.co.uk/signal/

Even so, if you happen to be on tmobile, you still can be in an area where you won't get a tmobile signal, but will be able to use the orange network as tmobile, or vice versa.

Buzby wrote: »

Finally, you are also over-genralising about radio waves, there are 3 frequency blocks being used, 2 GSM and 1 3G. All exhibit differnet characteristics and have different propogation values. Someone on O2 may get OK GSM coverage but nil 3G & BB from the SAME network, using the same mast.

I am not over genralising, radio waves are radio waves, they cannot physically get to certain places, whatever way you look at it.

The signals being sent out by O2, Vodafone, TMobile all basically have the same properties and travel through the air the same. If they meet a significant obstruction the signal will be blocked, or reduced and will struggle to get through.

If it is an issue with the OP living in a blackspot or bad signal area, they will struggle to get a signal from any provider. Which is my view on this.

If it is an issue with the placement of masts, then it will vary network by network. Which I have never disagreed with.

As I have already said, only the OP can answer this, we can only presume.

liam8282

lozzaman wrote: »

The OP wasn't complaining about lack of signal, but instead that the network has a fault or is busy causing calls and texts to fail. Another network covering the area may not have the same capacity issues.
From the same sites round here I note that 900MHz seems to be about 4dBm stronger than 1800MHz which is a couple of dBm stronger than 2100MHz. I'm not sure how much site sharing is going on as with T-Mobile on 1800MHz GSM I can see about 3 sites according to net monitor, yet can see about 9 Orange sites. O and T give almost identical strength here and as I know my closest cell location is a co-location with all operators except Vodafone.

Is the OP having problems 24/7 or just at 'busier' times?

I think the title was a bit of a giveaway "Advise on bad O2 signal".

All of the issues mention also tally with bad signal issues.

lozzaman

Oh really? You might want to read post 3

liam8282

dodgeuk wrote: »

To be honest i've put up with their excuses for 11 months. It came to a head when I had the phone sat next to me, full signal, when the house phone went. A mate was saying they've been trying to get in touch urgently, when i left the house and went up to the main road suddenly 5 texts and two voicemails appeared in one go....

If that is what you meant it perfectly describes having no signal in his house, but signal up on the main road.

It does not describe network faults or capacity issues as you describe what so ever!!!!!

Not uncommon at all for phones to show signal when they have none, and also show they have no signal until you attempt to make a call and they suddenly have full signal. Depends on type of phone, when it refreshes etc.

The OP was complaining about bad O2 signal, hence the title of the thread!

I guess you know better than the OP and what they actually wrote in black & white though eh?!

This thread is beyond pointless now, until the OP actually replies.

lozzaman

Let's break this down a bit...

liam8282 wrote: »

If that is what you meant it perfectly describes having no signal in his house, but signal up on the main road.

It does not describe network faults or capacity issues as you describe what so ever!!!!!

So, sitting there with the phone next to the OP, showing all the bars yet the phone has no signal? Hmm.
It sounds like the control channel is busy, hence calls can't get through (calls can't be set up) and SMS can't either (since they use the control channel and not a dedicated channel)
When the OP walked up the road, the network handed him off onto another BTS which cannot be reached from his house.
But since you don't agree you might as well tell me what a busy network looks like.

liam8282 wrote: »

Not uncommon at all for phones to show signal when they have none, and also show they have no signal until you attempt to make a call and they suddenly have full signal. Depends on type of phone, when it refreshes etc.

So if it is showing full signal with o2-uk as the network logo but has no signal what is it measuring?
The increase of signal is usually caused by a handover.

liam8282 wrote: »

The OP was complaining about bad O2 signal, hence the title of the thread!

I guess you know better than the OP and what they actually wrote in black & white though eh?!

No one would call it a good signal even if their phone is showing all the bars would they? The fact is they can't make any calls or send any texts so it doesn't really make much difference even if the signal is screaming through at -60dBm.

liam8282 wrote: »

This thread is beyond pointless now, until the OP actually replies.

I agree with that point, and that point only.