Intermittent O2 service on HTC One

[Anonymous]

I have had intermittent O2 service for some time on my HTC One (and before that on an HTC Desire). I am in a strong coverage area (in theory) but the received signal strength indicated wanders up and down and out. Now service is off more than it is on. Watching it this morning (with it still on a desk, with the cell base visible in the distance!) and it has come on for three or four periods of maybe a minute or two each, but been off all the rest of the time. I have checked another phone, and it too has intermittent service.

O2 says there is nothing wrong with the network (2G only) in our area, but I am used to them saying that even when they have had lots of calls from customers reporting trouble!

O2 support chat was unable to help. Any suggestions for how I can sort this frustrating situation?

Alex

[perksie]

Check here for mast problems using your full postcode:

http://status.o2.co.uk/

and the coverage checker to see what you should be getting.

A new sim might be worth a try.

[jonsie]

Have you checked your postcode for issues : O2 Status

Try cleaning your sim card. Anyone else you know having trouble with the O2 signal?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

O2 support chat was unable to help.

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I'm shocked! O2 support chat = chocolate tea pot!

[Anonymous]

Yes, checked those things before taking any further steps. Other phone having similar though not so severe problems.

O2 says no known problems in this area, but we know from past experience that they don't tell the truth, at least for our area. I am a presenter on the local radio and have in the past had the situation where a dozen callers have told me they have reported complete loss of service (which is not that uncommon here) and yet O2 customer 'service' was continuing to tell them each there had been no reported problems (presumably to avoid having to give compensation).

It's not just O2. Two or three weeks ago Vodafone was telling users there were no problems with their service and that it must be their phones, despite them having had doxens of complaints about loss of service. Last week they came clean when it was discovered that service was being lost owing to interference from faulty electronics on a ship in the area. It was true they coudl find no problems with their network, but completely untrue that they knew of no problems.

Anyway, back to my issue - right now my phone is saying emergency service only- ie it has a signal but no O2 service. It seems to me that it is as if the cell base is only occasionally granting service, not that the signal as such is faulty.

Alex

[perksie]

Across the network there will be a lot of upgrading work going on for the 4G rollout, which for O2 customers is good as O2 are committed to 98% indoor coverage of 2G 3G and 4G by 2015, two years ahead of the agreement with the regulators.

Not much help to you right now but things should improve before too long, O2 is also well into a mast sharing scheme with Vodafone where the two companies are working together.

Sadly there is no guaranteed level or continuity of service promised by any mobile provider as being a wireless signal it will never be perfect.

More on the network here:

http://www.o2.co.uk/network/future

[Anonymous]

Hi,

You can still report the 02 masts even if they are showing fine.

Also try cleaning all the ports in your phone to remove any possible build up of dust or lint.

[perksie]

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@Anonymous wrote:

You can still report the 02 masts even if they are showing fine.

Also try cleaning all the ports in your phone to remove any possible build up of dust or lint.

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The OP has spoken to O2.

Cleaning the ports will not solve this problem and it's happening with two different phones.

[Anonymous]

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@perksie wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

You can still report the 02 masts even if they are showing fine.

Also try cleaning all the ports in your phone to remove any possible build up of dust or lint.

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The OP has spoken to O2.

Cleaning the ports will not solve this problem and it's happening with two different phones.

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Appreciate that.

Dust and lint ingression is not only limited to one  handset  

[Anonymous]

I am pretty confident we will be in the 2% that doesn;t get 4G for a long time yet! The nearest 3G is 70 miles away (of course that 98% refers to population - it's more like 70% or so of the UK geograhically).

O2 and Vodafone have always mast shared 100% in the north of the country - I don't think they get planning paermission very easily here otherwise, and they may also have had grants to assist the rollout conditional on shared sites.

A signal analyser app on my phone reports the local service as 2.5G with a raw GSM signal strength generally around -91dBM (ASU 14) when showing emergency service only, an dnothing when showing no service at all (all with the phone in the same place).

I turned off the phone, cleaned the SIM again (though don't think that would cause my problem) and restarted - it showed to my surprise 5bars good connection, but then two minutes later just dropped down to zero and no service again.

Alex