Mobile coverage checker

thriftysomething

MSE offer a mobile signal checker that seems to be pretty arbitrary at best and so far I’ve found contradictory and thus pretty useless. I wonder if it is based on Ofcom’s offering who have been publicly roasted on forums like Trustpilot. 

I know and understand the excuses for signal variation (growing trees, suddenly appearing cranes, weather and other such nonsense) so IF it is such a huge estimation why bother with it at all? Surely punters are better off using the big providers coverage claims as a guide then trying them out for themselves. 

oldernonethewiser

Any site will give an approximation of what coverage might be like but can't guarantee it.

As you suggest only by trying to connect a real device in a specific location will you know what works, and what doesn't.

ProDave

It is a lot more complicated than "what network is it" as I have found out I only get service with one of the EE MVNO's at home, the others, it turns out only use a subset of the EE network.  I am sure this applies to other networks as well.

thriftysomething

So the customer is left with less understanding of what they’re signing up for and in some cases won’t know until they get it.  And even then, finding out what they’ve got might take some effort probing the behaviour of certain services. I’m not sure if this smacks of the big players having a transparency problem or they have a Frankenstein on their hands that they must sell at any cost.