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

ZhugeEX

jolizzie wrote: »

I lost my Orange /EE signal 10 days ago. I live near Dartmouth Devon and use my PAYG for texting. Think I will change to vodafone
Jolizzie

Have you tried contacting EE to see if there is a mast down/undergoing maintenance in your area? Sometimes It can take up to 28 days for some major issues to be fixed.

mbailey

Any tips on getting EE (T-mobile) to allow me to leave my contract?

Since the network upgrades, I now currently get "Emergency Calls only" on both our T-mobile phones when at home. Outside of home the phones are fine, so I know it is specific to my home location.

BlueBox

jolizzie wrote: »

I lost my Orange /EE signal 10 days ago. I live near Dartmouth Devon and use my PAYG for texting. Think I will change to vodafone
Jolizzie

I would suggest you visit vodafone eforum or there facebook. as been with them for 15yrs. and for couple of months there 3G service has been down with calls dropping and no network service. this issue is spreading to other towns and cities
http://burnham-on-sea.com/news/2013/vodafone-problems-30-12-13.php

NFH

I'm finally switching to Giffgaff next week, at least for the time being. I've tested Giffgaff at home and asked friends on O2 and Giffgaff what the coverage and service quality is like in London, and the feedback is much better than from my friends on Vodafone or Three. I can also look forward to 4G in two or three months.

At least I have £87 of free credit on Giffgaff just by having posted several times a month in their forums, so the issues with using Giffgaff as a business expense is currently a moot point for at least the next six months.

The guy in Orange's business retentions department was really nice about it and understood exactly my reasons for leaving. He claimed there is a regulatory reason why they have to remove transmitters before adding new ones, and that EE is as frustrated by this as its customers are. It seems quite plausible and there's no reason why I won't go back to EE in future when this mess is sorted out. I should also point out that the customer service from Orange's business call centre has been mostly excellent, and is all UK-based.

ZhugeEX

How is Giff Gaff treating you NFH?
Any better than Orange?

Anyway, as promised. Here is an update to EE's 3 year network optimisation plan. So as we know, there are just under ~9,000 ex-Orange masts that EE plan to decommission before the end of this year.

In 2012, EE decommissioned 2,659 sites , in 2013 they decommissioned a further 3,351 sites taking the total decommissioned to 6,010. This leaves EE with around ~2,800 sites to decommission before the end of this year.

EE are still in the process of integrating the remaining ~6,000 ex-Orange sites into MBNL and upgrading them to support 2G/3G/4G. This should be done by the end of Q3. This will give MBNL a total of ~19,000 sites by the end of the year with a planned population coverage of 99.2% for 3G and over 95% for 4G.

In 2013, EE (across all brands) lost a total of 1,374,000 customers. These were mostly pay as you go customers who left. This is more than double the amount of customers that left EE in 2012. In more positive news, The 4G brand saw high growth (unlike the 3G brands + Pay as you go) and now has over 2 million customers. EE are targetting a total of 6m 4G customers by the end of this year.

EE still plan to maintain their position as a premium 4G brand saying that their double speed 4G and other extras are worth the money. It is true that a lot of people have signed up to EE but I suspect most of those are existing Orange/T-Mobile customers who have been moved over automatically when upgrading. I think EE are going to have some competition from the likes of Three and Tesco who are also offering 4G services but with better value compared to EE.

NFH

ZhugeEX wrote: »

How is Giff Gaff treating you NFH?
Any better than Orange?

Giffgaff gives me much better quality of service than Orange. I'm really happy with it. Two of the problem areas are the City and Canary Wharf where EE's network congestion makes the service unusable. On my first day with Giffgaff, I did a speed test at Cannon Street station and got 12Mbps. I have a signal in lots of places where EE had stopped working and I've yet to find any coverage blackspots on O2.

ZhugeEX

That's good to hear. At the end of the day, the QOS is way more important than all the other stuff like price etc...

EE do have some good offers and extras. Theoretically speaking they should be one of the best networks by the end of this year once the optimisation plan is complete. Especially if you're a medium to heavy user or see 4G as essential. They are investing more in their network more than anyone else and are introducing new technologies before anyone else as well. Whether consumers will see value in paying for all those extras is another thing though. But technically speaking, EE will be ahead of Voda / O2 by the end of this year in a lot of areas.

The whole merger has been a bit of mess though. Generally speaking.

Zebrdee

Thanks for all the info guys. Vodafone said they were going to invest £7 billion on their network in the next two years back in Nov 2013 (http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=63835940&postcount=19), I wonder if they'll still keep to this after they just lost half their value last week? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-21/verizon-stake-sale-cuts-vodafone-s-value-by-half-to-100-billion.html

I think EE had a bit of a social cleansing attitude last year, denying many people loyalty discounts (including me), ie those paying under an arbitrary amount had to go.

If someone were still with EE/T-MUK/Orange, the info that ~2,800 sites to decommission before the end of this year must be very worrying.

Will EE be the last network to surcharge for 4G?

NFH

Zebrdee wrote: »

Will EE be the last network to surcharge for 4G?

We have yet to see what Giffgaff will do on this. Giffgaff needs to revamp its data prices anyway as they're somewhat inconsistent.

ZhugeEX

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.