Coverage Indicators

MAS1963

Hi, were about to change our mobile provider, but what confidence can we have in the coverage indicators? My wife is with Plusnet/EE, and while their website indicates we live in a good signal area, data is fine, but a voice call is very dodgy. We don’t want to go through the hassle of changing but finding the service is no good. Any ideas?

Neil49

The only way is to get sim cards for each of the 4 networks and try it out for yourself. Where I live the coverage shown by the network indicators says that EE is the best while 3 is by far the worst.

In practice 3 gives me the best signal and I have now switched. If your phones support wifi calling then switch to a provider that supports it. This will help maintain a good signal at home. 

matelodave

The coverage maps are based on calculations and predictions rather than actual measurements. All you can do is what Neil suggests, get a paygo sim card for your chosen network and see how well it performs. It's worth a fiver to check it out before you  take the plunge on a contract.

I get a decent connection with Three at the front of my house but it can be a bit iffy at the back. However O2 is rubbish even though the coverage map reckons it should be OK, EE is OK. 

Frozen_up_north

MAS1963 said:

Hi, were about to change our mobile provider, <SNIP> My wife is with Plusnet/EE, and while their website indicates we live in a good signal area, data is fine, but a voice call is very dodgy. Any ideas?

On the face of it, having good data rates but poor phone call performance doesn’t make sense. However, if you have a 4G phone, try turning on VoLTE (voice over LTE), otherwise the phone will drop to 3G when making a call. 4G may use different frequencies to 3G and could give better coverage into buildings.

Beware of testing with a PAYG SIM, they are fine for basic coverage checks, but quickly run out of data unless you pour money into an expensive top up. Some areas with good coverage have awful data rates at times. I was with Three and one city centre had such poor data rates that you couldn’t even check the BBC news web site without waiting a minute for each page to load, signal strength was 5 bars. I am now with O2 and one place I visit regularly in a nearby town is much slower than Three used to be, it is often only 1 to 2 Mb/s on 4G... signal wise it is 3 bars on my iPhone SE (2020 model).

You can see what performance other users find in your area on the 4 networks using the Rootmetrics app. It doesn’t show whether the tests were indoors or outside, nor how recently they were done, but is still a useful guide.

liggerz87

Another way to get round the slow data would be change from 4g to 3g see if that's helps but as others have said pay go sim

japitts

Frozen_up_north said:

MAS1963 said:

Hi, were about to change our mobile provider, <SNIP> My wife is with Plusnet/EE, and while their website indicates we live in a good signal area, data is fine, but a voice call is very dodgy. Any ideas?

On the face of it, having good data rates but poor phone call performance doesn’t make sense. However, if you have a 4G phone, try turning on VoLTE (voice over LTE), otherwise the phone will drop to 3G when making a call. 4G may use different frequencies to 3G and could give better coverage into buildings.

Sorry to join this thread late, but the OP mentioned they're with Plusnet/EE. PlusNet is (albeit part of the BT group) an EE-MVNO which doesn't have access to VoLTE, their voice calls are carried over 2G/3G as a matter of course.

If the OP is on EE-direct with a pay-monthly account, then VoLTE is a standard service. Having VoLTE does enable access to EE's 800MHz coverage which (where it's available) can make a noticeable difference to indoor coverage. PlusNet's coverage map won't include this in its predictions, EE's will.