Broadband and mobile coverage in "hard-to-reach" places

9411john

Network coverage web sites are to a certain extent a joke.

I am on giffgaff (o2 network) and according to network coverage checkers I should get 4g signal with full voice and text when at my daughters. In fact even withing 400 yards of her house I get no signal at all.
I tried moving to BT (EE network). Perfect at daughters but found that within 400 yards of my own house whilst I got very strong 4g signal and all services worked perfectly I got no incoming transmission on incoming phone calls (caller could hear me but I could not hear them)! Even bought a payg EE sim card and used other phones to test problem to prove it was not my phone or BT sim - still same outcome! EE expected me to record all call details to try and isolate problem but, needless to say, were not prepared to credit me with any call charges! Luckily BT agreed to cancel contract with no penalty.

Moral is to ensure that when changing networks do a comprehensive test in all areas where you are likely to use phone whilst still in cancellation timescale.

9411john

What we need for mobile is a similar set up to landline. Most of main network is built and maintained by BT with other operators piggybacking off it.
So, let's nationalise mobile networks, bring them all together under one umbrella and then let O2, EE etc sublet off it. Would give one universal network and would also mean that most of profits would stay in UK rather than going abroad!!!

phague

My Parent's have a caravan in Ulrome, East Yorkshire, near Bridlington. We are lucky to get 'E' signal anywhere on the site. Been like this for 9 years! We thought it would improve when Orange merged to create EE and you could share the signal of T-Mobile, but still shocking!!

iniltous

Icandothat wrote: »

I am in Rural Buckinghamshire - not exactly on the moon. We are delighted when we get 2mb but we did not move here expecting much else. What annoys me is that we can only buy our landline broadband from BT who haven't even upgraded the exchange from ADSL1. They have not opened up the exchange to any other providers and we pay the same as any other subscriber for a package that we can only part utilise. Certain elements of BT TV for example are included in the price but all we get is a "this is not available message". It is also unreliable, frequently stops altogether and is useless when it rains. I think for this low grade service we should be, at least, offered a lower price.

You are wrong, if your exchange only has BT , it not because they haven't opened it up to the competition, they have no veto, they cannot stop other providers installing their own kit, it's because the competition looked at that exchange and thought 'no money to be made there' so didn't bother, perhaps you should be grateful that BT have a universal service obligation that others don't, otherwise they may say , you cost them money , and by subsidising you it makes their overall price uncompetitive in relation to the competition, so they would uninstall the existing kit and concentrate on areas where the return on capital is better, leaving you with no service, at bit like Sky and TT currently do

k9heaven

I live in a village less than 6 miles from Alnwick in Northumberland and 4 miles (by road) from the BT exchange. So frustrating to see villages all around us now have fibre broadband enabled but we're still struggling with a download speed of 3.81 Mb/s and upload of 0.43Mb/s.

The real rub is this village is (rarely in this area) predominantly occupied by residents yet villages on the coast that are mostly holiday homes and not permanently occupied by residents have fibre broadband now!!!! Grrrrrrrr.

With much of the residential population here working in self employed capacity, decent broadband is crucial and satellite broadband is sooo expensive to install.

The provision of fibre broadband to this village is apparently 'under review'. We all know what that means: we'll be paying for the upgrade ourselves. So not on BT; we're not on some remote island, we're only 4 miles from the A1 and the exchange.

alduncan

We live on a new estate (2011) in Cardiff Central (10 mins drive from the city centre!!!) on the Roath exchange. Max speed is 3MB/S and it can be slower and can be very frustrating. Apparently some of the cables are not even copper but aluminium as they were put down during a copper shortage! It's not good for an area right near the centre of the capital of Wales. Why they didn't upgrade it when they built the new estate and the road was all dug up anyway, who knows.

Anyway, the previous MP Jenny Willott had a little campaign going a few years ago for the "Not Spot" around here - there seemed to be some 'promises' that something would happen but it fizzled out and faded into nothing. Now btopenreach just says 'Under Review' for our area, but no further information...

limayankee

I live near Clapham Common, SW1 (yes, central London). No voice/sms reception from 3UK within at least a 500m radius of my house since August 2014. Reported several times, apparently they couldn't figure out how to fix it. (Finally resolved in August 2015).

kit

I live in a village between Burnham on Sea and Bridgwater in Somerset. We are by no means remote and are a 30 second drive off of a busy main A road.
Our broadband has a top speed of 1mb, never more. Mobile signal is pretty much none existent with O2 being the only one which gives you any chance of a signal if you stand outside.

What annoys me most is that I still have to pay the same amount for my broadband as everyone with a much higher speed. My broadband package provides upto 17mb but the line only allows 1mb so there is nothing I can do.

Former_MSE_Will

Hi everyone,

Thanks so much for all your comments, this is obviously an issue that affects a lot of people.

We'll pass on the views already posted to the Committee. Please feel free to continue to the discussion, however we won't be able to pass on more comments to the MPs (they will stop receiving written evidence soon).

You can also keep up-to-date with the Committee's work on their inquiry page.

UKParliament

The House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee questions Virgin Media and TalkTalk's chief executives on the delivery of superfast broadband across the UK and the improvement of mobile coverage and services.

The session will take place on Tuesday 15 December from 11:15am.

The witnesses for the session will be:

• Dido Harding, Chief Executive, TalkTalk
• Tom Mockridge, Chief Executive, Virgin Media

Watch the session in full on Parliament TV.