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

grumbler

Are you trying to defend EE or it's just me?

ZhugeEX wrote: »

No more masts are going to be decommissioned. ... This means that no one should notice more degradation on EE's network or additional black spots

What a relief!

If anything people should start seeing an increase in coverage thanks to the 4G roll out and the Orange sites being refreshed, upgraded

What about the reported decrease in 2g coverage as a result of this? I guess it's exactly what pioneer31 experienced who resurrected this thread today. There are still plenty of 2g handsets around, even new ones.

In fact EE accounts for 45% of all 4G subscribers in the UK and are also the largest 4G network in Europe with a 12% share. Over 80% of EE's customers are choosing a 4G package when signing up and with the huge amount of legacy customers on T-Mobile and Orange it is clear that EE's 4G subscriber base will continue to grow at the same or even faster rate in 2015.

Unless it was irony, I can't believe that you copied&pasted this from some official drivel addressed to their stakeholders/investors.

Why are they forcing their customers to switch to 4G if it's that popular?
Why does this 'largest' network have now the worst CS, overtaking even notorious Vodafone?
Who on this board gives a !!!! that apparently their "subscriber base will continue to grow" and at what rate?!

ZhugeEX

grumbler wrote: »

I can't believe that you copied&pasted this from some official drivel addressed to their stakeholders/investors

Nothing is copy and pasted. In fact you won't find that information on EE's website or anywhere. It's not public information.

I do this for all my posts. If you want I can link you to some posts on another forum where I sum up Three and Vodafones recent deals and changes and do the same ending summary with them.

The purpose of my posts here, and on other forums is to inform and pass on my knowledge.

I'm not defending EE. I'm just stating the facts. I do it on all my posts like I said above. I don't work for EE either in case you want to bring that up.

What about the reported decrease in 2g coverage as a result of this? I guess it's exactly what pioneer31 experienced who resurrected this thread today. There are still plenty of 2g handsets around, even new ones.

My guess is a mast was decommissioned in the past? 2G coverage isn't being actively reduced.

Why are they forcing their customers to switch to 4G if it's that popular?

It's one of those situations where it's popular because customers are being "forced" onto EE from T-Mo/Orange. EE have over 24m customers and in the past two years all of them will have been out of contract which gives EE a perfect opportunity to upsell onto one of their 4G tariffs. Whilst there are obviously new customers signing up to 4G, It's easily the vast majority of existing T-Mo/Orange customers who are being upgraded onto an EE plan at the end of their contract that contributes to that number.

O2 is a tad under 4 million customers thanks to their free 4G upgrade. Three is over 3.1 million customers which is 35% of their total base. Vodafone are on track to hit 2 million customers but still a long way behind the others and that's because they have sold 4G as a premium product rather than at no extra cost like Three/O2.

Why does this 'largest' network have now the worst CS, overtaking even notorious Vodafone?

Because of the merger, because of the network optimisation scheme, because they haven't done enough work. Staff are being trained in the contact centres but there are still loads of issues with both CS, IT and the network that cause customer service ratings to be low. EE need to keep working in this area to improve customer service before they can have the audacity to introduce a 50p charge for it. Not sure why they did that.

Who on this board gives a !!!! that apparently their "subscriber base will continue to grow" and at what rate?!

I do.....

Merry Christmas Grumbler.

pioneer31

ConsumerGuy0016 wrote: »

If you're having serious and unresolved problems with your signal then you could take your operator to court to get your contract cancelled and get some money back as I have done.

Give me a PM if you want specific information or have a look at the thread I started a couple weeks back.

Thanks, but I'm on PAYG so it is much quicker just to use up my credit (whenever I get a signal) and switch networks

pioneer31

One thing that doesn't add up...

If you reduce the number of masts, overall coverage will reduce, either in the form of blackspots or lowered signal strength, unless you just happen to have a load of Orange and T Mobile masts on exactly the same sites (not in my town they didn't)

EE may tell you that they are removing duplication but clearly this is not the full story, or so many people would not be experiencing rubbish signals or blackspots.

Also, how does "upgrading" existing ones help?

They would have to increase the signal strength of 2G (and if they did, how would that help my phone in pushing out a signal?)

If you want me to put my cynical hat on for a moment, I would guess that they are not too bothered about 2G customers as they generate little profit nowdays. All the rich pickings are in 3G and especially 4G.

Not everyone is savvy enough (or has the time) to dig around and find out why their 2G phone is performing poorly. They will just ring CS, get told some guff (your phone is too old) and be recommended an upgrade. Bingo! One less 2G customer!

d123

grumbler wrote: »

Why are they forcing their customers to switch to 4G if it's that popular?

No one is being forced to switch to 4G.

ZhugeEX

pioneer31 wrote: »

One thing that doesn't add up...

If you reduce the number of masts, overall coverage will reduce, either in the form of blackspots or lowered signal strength, unless you just happen to have a load of Orange and T Mobile masts on exactly the same sites (not in my town they didn't)

EE may tell you that they are removing duplication but clearly this is not the full story, or so many people would not be experiencing rubbish signals or blackspots.

Also, how does "upgrading" existing ones help?

Every one does it. Not just EE.

Vodafone and O2 have been decommissioning masts as part of their Cornerstone project. Over 10% of their total cumulative sites will be decommissioned.

Three and T-Mobile decommissioned over 5,000 sites before 2010 as part of the MBNL godiva project.

In the majority of cases a site is decommissioned because it provides duplicate coverage or is simply not needed any more. Also it allows the network to save costs, fund further investment, increase capacity at 1 site and it leads to less environmental impact etc...

But as you have discovered, the reality is not exactly what PR will say. In my home town alone I've had an EE site and O2 site switched off as part of the consolidation and O2 and EE have been allowing customers to exit their contracts in the past. O2 because it took so long for them to integrate the Vodafone mast. And EE because there were no plans to improve coverage in one small area that had low/no signal.

Upgrading a site can lead to an improved 2G coverage footprint and likely you'll get 4G and 3G at that site in the future. In fact EE's plan is to have every site (bar around 20-30 due to legit reasons) to have 3G and 4G.

There is also now Government involvement in place where each network will need to have 90%+ geographical coverage by the end of 2017. Just to make it clear, this is geographical coverage. Not population coverage, O2, Voda and EE already have 98%+ population coverage on 2G but all have less than 80% geographical coverage. So if this goes through then the UK will benefit as a whole with the increased geographical coverage on top.

diamonds

ZhugeEX wrote: »

There is also now Government involvement in place where each network will need to have 90%+ geographical coverage by the end of 2017. Just to make it clear, this is geographical coverage. Not population coverage, O2, Voda and EE already have 98%+ population coverage on 2G but all have less than 80% geographical coverage. So if this goes through then the UK will benefit as a whole with the increased geographical coverage on top.

The big 4 have agreed a £5 billion investment with Ofcom to stop Ofcom forcing national roaming on each others networks.


In Jan Voda only then got 3G to 90% population coverage.


The big 4 are also to get access free to government buildings to install their equipment.




o2 has a 98% population coverage commitment on 4G (Telefonica is vastly debt ridden and can't be protected ), all networks fees payable to Ofcom for licences will be reduced.

d123

diamonds wrote: »

o2 has a 98% population coverage commitment on 4G

It actually doesn't, and a misconception commonly made by those who get their information by reading on the internet.

From the obligation:

(a) The Licensee shall by no later than 31 December 2017 provide, and thereafter maintain, an electronic communications network that is capable of providing, with 90% confidence, a mobile telecommunications service with a sustained downlink speed of not less than 2 Mbps when that network is lightly loaded, to users

users:
(i) in an area within which at least:
a. 98% of the population of the United Kingdom lives, and
b. 95% of the population of each of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland lives; and
(ii) at indoor locations that meet the condition specified in paragraph 6(b)(ii) of this Schedule, which are within any residential premises within the area specified in paragraph 6(a)(i).

1.4 Below we summarise our approach to monitor and verify compliance with this obligation based on a service provided using current LTE technology, noting that the obligation holder may use any of its portfolio of licensed mobile spectrum in order to meet the obligation. However, it will also be open to the obligation holder to meet the obligation with alternative mobile broadband technologies if they wish to.

O2 just has to supply a 2 Mbps download speed 90% of the time, on a lightly loaded network, using any technology it wishes.

3G can easily fulfil the obligation, so don't hold your breath waiting for a world beating 4G network from O2.

The obligation is pretty much just PR.

You can read the full OFCOM award statement to broaden your knowledge on the auction, if you wish:

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/consultations/award-800mhz/statement/4GCov-verification.pdf

ZhugeEX

diamonds wrote: »

The big 4 have agreed a £5 billion investment with Ofcom to stop Ofcom forcing national roaming on each others networks.

It is worth noting though that the 90% geographical coverage will apply to calls/texts coverage. So this deal isn't specific to one type of technology. With just 2G you can have 90% geographical coverage which means operators may choose to invest in increasing 2G rather than 4G or vice versa. Either way it's just reliant on having calls/texts signal and not data and it doesn't mention anything about existing population coverage where signal may be weak.

So if this does go through before 2017 it'll be interesting to see where the networks are. So far we have:



*Three was at 35% outdoor population coverage on 4G by June 31st 2014
*Three is at 48% outdoor population coverage on 4G as of December 2014.

Collabora

Personally i think all masts should be operated by a single company and mobile operators pay to use these mast services.

The same as network rails runs the railway infrastructure and train operators just pay to use the rails