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

inkiboo

To add, I've been with Orange since 1998 and moved across to EE last year. I have no complaints with their technical service but the customer service has been utterly dreadful, so much so that I have now left for Vodafone.


Shame but I'm stunned how EE destroyed in less than a year a level of customer service that had been excellent for 14 years previously.

NFH

patman99 wrote: »

One of the main issues with EE's 4G upgrading is that they are cutting-back on the number of 3G masts to accommodate 4G.

There have been suggestions in France that the networks are deliberately degrading 3G coverage in order to sell 4G. A report in today's Le Parisien says that Orange France (one of EE's two parent companies) are far from pleased by these allegations. It wouldn't surprise me if this practice is widespread in many countries, and with EE in the UK it is more than evident.

ZhugeEX

Despite all the complaints it seems that EE are coming off as the best network in the UK at the moment according to root metrics...

http://www.rootmetrics.com/uk/compare-operators/united-kingdom/edinburgh/edinburgh-october-2013/
http://www.rootmetrics.com/uk/compare-operators/united-kingdom/sheffield/sheffield-october-2013/

Did i mention that EE pay root metrics for the results.



:D:D:D:D

In other news, EE are increasing the number of sites with DC-HSPA+ capability, and along with Three they are aiming for 90% DC-HSPA+ population coverage by January 2014.

Network optimisation is still going on with a lot less than 3,000 sites left to be decommissioned.

NFH

ZhugeEX wrote: »

Despite all the complaints it seems that EE are coming off as the best network in the UK at the moment according to root metrics...

http://www.rootmetrics.com/uk/compare-operators/united-kingdom/edinburgh/edinburgh-october-2013/
http://www.rootmetrics.com/uk/compare-operators/united-kingdom/sheffield/sheffield-october-2013/

Maybe they come out well in Edinburgh and Sheffield, but their number of newly created coverage blackspots in London is a shambles.

diamonds

The majority of Orange base stations are being closed down, the remainder are being merged into MBNL the company T-Mobile and 3 set up in a 50/50 venture now owned by3/EE.


Old T-Mobile 2G transmitters that were falling to bits (cracky and dropped calls) are being semi replaced with the decommissioned Orange 2G hardware on the old Orange base station sites to the ex T-Mobile sites, its all meant to be complete for mid 2014.

ZhugeEX

diamonds wrote: »

Old T-Mobile 2G transmitters that were falling to bits (cracky and dropped calls) are being semi replaced with the decommissioned Orange 2G hardware on the old Orange base station sites to the ex T-Mobile sites, its all meant to be complete for mid 2014.

Being replaced with orange hardware? Orange used Erricson for the majority of their 2G equipment.

The 2G refresh is being done by Huawei and using their all new equipment. All legacy equipment is being taken out. Basically all sites that are planned to be refreshed will be done by Huawei and have 2G/3G/4G capabilities as well.

Orange still have around 3,000 masts to decommission and this will be done by the end of 2014 at the latest. The remaining 6,000 masts will be integrated fully into the MBNL network.

This will give MBNL 19,000 total masts with 99.2% 3G coverage. EE/Three's first phase involves 15,000 masts being upgraded to support 4G with the rest being upgraded later.

Zebrdee

Just curious where all this info is coming from, employees of the networks or from the net? if so I'm interested as I used to work in telecoms. (Plus any job leads would be appreciated )

ZhugeEX

nfh wrote:

patman99 wrote:

One of the main issues with EE's 4G upgrading is that they are cutting-back on the number of 3G masts to accommodate 4G.

There have been suggestions in France that the networks are deliberately degrading 3G coverage in order to sell 4G. A report in today's Le Parisien says that Orange France (one of EE's two parent companies) are far from pleased by these allegations. It wouldn't surprise me if this practice is widespread in many countries, and with EE in the UK it is more than evident.

No... this is absolute rubbish. Especially the part about cutting back on 3G. If anything 4G is accommodating existing 3G coverage...

Zebrdee wrote: »

Just curious where all this info is coming from, employees of the networks or from the net? if so I'm interested as I used to work in telecoms. (Plus any job leads would be appreciated )

Some is public some is not.

NFH

ZhugeEX wrote: »

No... this is absolute rubbish. Especially the part about cutting back on 3G. If anything 4G is accommodating existing 3G coverage...

This contradicts what was said above in posts 9 and 12.

ZhugeEX

NFH wrote: »

This contradicts what was said above in posts 9 and 12.

Not really. They are talking theoretically. 3G sites aren't being removed. All 19,000 sites will be 3G enabled bar like 20 or 30 due to the logistics. Those 30 or so will remain 2G only.

4G power levels are always adapting to accommodate 3G so that if you make a call while on 4G then the signal can always drop down to 3G.