EE's degraded service and coverage - time to leave after 15 years?

boliston

I've only ever really used three and ee since using smartphones as o2 & vodafone seem quite mean on data allowances with payg (have always preferred sim free handsets & payg sims instead of contract sims). I normally use about 2 gigs of data per month and currently use ee and pay £15 per month - vodafone only give 1gb for £20 and o2 only give 1gb for £15. Also o2 & vodafone don't allow you to buy another bundle more that once per month, so when you run out of data you have to pay an extortionate "roll-over" rate of £3 per mb or £2 per day! At least three only charge you for what you use at 1p per mb which seems a sensible way of charging for data even though a bit more expensive than ee.

ZhugeEX

It seems EE have been facing a lot of network problems as of late. I'm really not sure what is going on there but I hope it gets sorted soon as it's affecting quite a number of customers.

NFH

ZhugeEX wrote: »

It seems EE have been facing a lot of network problems as of late. I'm really not sure what is going on there but I hope it gets sorted soon as it's affecting quite a number of customers.

By "of late", I assume you mean the last 18 months. The degradation of network quality started this long ago. It was so bad that I jumped ship to Giffgaff despite being a loyal Orange customer of 15 years.

keithsto

ZhugeEX wrote: »

Quick update from myself.

EE have decided to reduce the number of sites they are decommissioning from ~9,000 down to around ~8,200.

So far, as of June 30th 2014 they have decommissioned a total of 7,314 ex Orange masts with another ~800 or so to go before the end of the year. This will mark the end of the network optimisation plan where ~8,200 ex Orange masts are being decommissioned and around ~6,000 ex Orange masts will be integrated into the MBNL network with 3G upgrades and eventually 4G.

EE are also currently trialling 800Mhz 4G which will allow for better signal range and indoor penetration. Also being trialled is EE's Voice over Wi-Fi solution, VoLTE and LTE-Advanced. We should see these being launched by EE in the next year or so.

EE are still leaders for 4G with over 73% population coverage and 4.2m 4G customers.

Great update thanks.

3G seems to have slowed to a snails pace. Do you know if it will be better when upgrades are complete?

Are there many old orange masts to be upgraded still in West Yorkshire?

ZhugeEX

NFH wrote: »

By "of late", I assume you mean the last 18 months. The degradation of network quality started this long ago. It was so bad that I jumped ship to Giffgaff despite being a loyal Orange customer of 15 years.

By as of late I mean that 3G and 4G speeds have fallen off a cliff in the past month. It seems there is an issue that is affecting many areas.

keithsto wrote: »

Great update thanks.

3G seems to have slowed to a snails pace. Do you know if it will be better when upgrades are complete?

Are there many old orange masts to be upgraded still in West Yorkshire?

Thanks,

Yes, once the upgrades are complete then there should be a better standard of service. But of course you have to account for congestion and other issues which means that you may not actually see an improvement in the area you're currently in. If you're in a dead spot now then it's hard to say when or if that gap will be filled. If you're near an Orange mast due to be upgraded you should see an improvement soon enough.

I don't know how many masts there are in West Yorkshire. Sorry about that.

ed_209_2

As part of the EE exodus, (thanks to RandomCurve), I ported my number to 3.

My initial findings are that in London, voice calls are infinitely more reliable and that the signal drops significantly less. EE has far superior 4G coverage, but 3's HSPA+ is very very quick and very stable.

I thought it was just me that noticed a decline in EE... much happier now I've jumped ship

ZhugeEX

I agree. I use Three as my main line and find it much better than all the other networks
Plus the value they provide is excellent for the money I'm paying.

keithsto

How can that be when three is just mbnl, pretty much EE with no 2 or 4g?

ZhugeEX

keithsto wrote: »

How can that be when three is just mbnl, pretty much EE with no 2 or 4g?

Three have 4G as well.

Three's 3G coverage is good enough that I don't need 2G fallback. And in the areas that don't have 3G you usually fall back onto 2G from EE (in limited areas).

The good thing about three is that it holds onto a 3G signal for dear life where as the other networks drop down to 2G way too easily. I've been in plenty of places where I've got a Three 3G signal but the person next to me on EE has dropped down to 2G.

I'd rather have 3G everywhere than drop down to 2G. I'm a heavy data user so Three suits me just perfectly.

NFH

ZhugeEX wrote: »

The good thing about three is that it holds onto a 3G signal for dear life where as the other networks drop down to 2G way too easily. I've been in plenty of places where I've got a Three 3G signal but the person next to me on EE has dropped down to 2G.

This is a problem with modern handsets. Before I had an iPhone, I had 3G handsets that I could set to use 3G only. The iPhone has never allowed this; I don't understand why. I used to do this at home, because I had local Orange 3G-only transmitter (very rare, I know), and if my phone handed over to a weak distant 2G transmitter during the call, I would get cut off because it wouldn't hand back to 3G without first ending the call.