O2 failings: unreliable coverage; requires pressure to abide by Sale of Goods Act

[Anonymous]

25 July 2017. North Hertfordshire. Sandon.
Over past two weeks mobile service has got worse at my location (inside and outside property). Delayed reception of texts, banked-up emails; no internet connection at all; sometimes no register recognition to allow me to ring 202 on mobile to report fault.

A call to O2 elicited this sequence: Your phone's sim card could be at fault; for better connection switch phone off and on again; "no it's not your phone the local mast is having issues"; the mast will be functioning again by 21 July; (did get revived internet use for about two days, then outage again). I was awarded £7 in compensation for days offline and up to 21/7.

I tested lots of locations around my home and found what might be called a "blind spot" for transmission there and a few hundred metres around it. That is, very fast internet connections (even in a dip shaded by dense tree cover) elsewhere in the village but not on my "trajectory" (and tested at different times).

My call today to O2 (25/7) had this response: switch your phone to just use 2G (after a previous O2 call promised "you will have 4G by the year-end"); oh, the mast is 4km away (as if it had just got up and walked further off); we could release you from the contract and you can find another provider.

I said I was not going away and that O2 should visit this area and its mast and ascertain the faults. Insistence brought a manager to the phone who simply relayed the original call-taker's platitudes. I said that for the sake of others affected, too, I wasn't going away and wanted technical answers. You cannot ring the technical department directly but have to be transferred - by which time, after half an hour speaking or more usually left on hold, I had run out of time to continue the call.

But I shall persist another day. And I will get a technical assessment.

[MI5]

You will need as many people as possible to report the fault in the same area before they will take any notice.
Download the My Network app and keep reporting it through there.

[Anonymous]

Thank you, will do.

[MI5]

Good luck 😉

[adamtemp64]

not sure were soga comes in as that is now replaced by  the consumer rights act 2015

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/how-citizens-advice-works/citizens-advice-consumer-work/t...

But that normaly applies to the handset. not the coverage of mobile networks

O2 have this in the t&C to cover issues like yours

2.2 The Service isn't fault-free; a range of different geographic, atmospheric or other conditions or circumstances beyond our control can impair it. For instance, coverage is affected by things like the thickness or material of the walls of the building you're in. It might also depend on how many people near you are trying to use the Service at the same time. For more information about the things that affect coverage and data speeds, please look at the dedicated Network pages of our Website at o2.co.uk/network. You're entitled to the quality of service generally given by a competent mobile telecommunications service provider, using its reasonable skill and care. We will attempt to re-perform disrupted Services when possible. We may direct and manage traffic on our Network as is required to deliver this quality of service, including in some circumstances directing traffic onto different components of our Network such as 3G, 4G and wifi. You can disable wifi in the settings on your Mobile Phone or possibly other Equipment if you do not wish to use that part of our Network. We may also carry out upgrades, repairs and maintenance works to our Network from time to time. Sometimes technical issues, impaired quality of service or outages on our Network can occur. If something goes wrong, we'll try to fix it quickly.

as @MI5 says you need to get all affected to report, but at 4km unless very flat terain you are going to be struggling indoors

[Anonymous]

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@adamtemp64 wrote:

not sure were soga comes in as that is now replaced by  the consumer rights act 2015 [...] 

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I used this sentence taken from the above to get out of my O2 contract when signal was rubbish

"You're entitled to the quality of service generally given by a competent mobile telecommunications service provider, using its reasonable skill and care"

Basically, you have to allow them "reasonable" time to rectify the situation, but who defines "reasonable"? Its open to interpretation.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, my mistake, in haste, over relevant Act. The network provider is indeed covering itself for "variable" performance. But it is not jumping to rectify the problems or even listen properly as I describe the situation to O2 call-takers. The outages are not a new phenomenon for my service, and I have had to contact O2 before over similar problems (never really resolved) but it has been far worse this month.

I wish them now to take complaints seriously, which could mean investigating the technical hitches; at least taking time over the issue as I have had to do. Otherwise some of us will always be shortchanged, even if we switch provider.

It is very strange that what could be a certain line-of-sight signal from the antenna is sometimes "missing" certain houses in the area. I have no idea - as yet - about how O2 or its piggy-backers are managing the network, or why any action should lead to an intermittment sevice unrelated to the usual peak hours of customer usage. 

I hope to find out!

[jonsie]

One thing for sure @Anonymous is at you have everyone's sympathy here. There is nothing more frustrating than being without mobile signal for a day never mind over a prolonged period of time.

The ideal solution would be for O2 to fix the issue but as ever, it falls on the customer to do the fault finding and the chasing. I would be going through the complaints process and looking to leave O2 without penalty. 

[MI5]

100% agree jonsie.

[Anonymous]

Thanks all, for the moral support from the community. 

I live in north Hertfordshire, in the UK. I have a contract with O2, getting monthly bills.

If anyone wishes the follow the tedium of this particular case here's an update:

1 - On 28 July 2017 I spent an hour on call to O2 with their technical team - regarding no O2 network working for me in local geographic area. We did a sequence of "tests" switching from 2G to 4g etc, phone off and on etc. I say countless times that I have no internet access locally not even sometimes phone use; I turn mobile date off but wifi doesn't work either locally. Sometimes even texts have a delay - sometimes they are instant but occasionally they take from 8 hours to 2 days from sending to reception. O2 establishes the network is not reaching me.

I must say "no, I have still no internet access" at least 20 times during the call tests.

It's established something is wrong. I say, if the engineers will contact me I can flag up the "intermittent blind spots with the mast/antennae signalling" in my village.

2 - O2 gives me a case reference number, saying that in 5 working days the engineers will contact me /and/or resolve problem.

3 -  July 31 - I get an unsolicited call on landline from O2. I am told "you have a problem just with sending texts". I say the main issue - repeatedly flagged up - is no internet access. "Oh in that case we will tell the engineers". The O2 person says "we thought it was just texts". And she says, because of that - it's now a NEW CASE!

They bump me back down the queue - THROUGH THEIR MISTAKE!

In other words, deliberately  - or not, because I am delusional and simply dreamt the last phone call to 02 - they seem to be creating obstacles. Of course when I complain, saying I could not have spoken more clearly and that up to an hour was spent testing for internet use, they absolve themselves of responsibility and, say, of course, if I want to.... make a complaint ... I must ring again....

4 - I feel sick.

5 - August 1, 2017. Trying to use wifi out of my geo area, I switch wifi provider from (weak) O2 signals to another while in transit. Then I cannot add O2 as netwror, get O2 wifi or anything else for that matter, bar calls. A "Security Warning" keeps flagging up on the phone whether I'm trying to access websites or even log back into the My O2 site. A tortuous series of calls to O2 follow where they suggest "I don't know what I'm talking about". Lots of being left on hold. I give my present geo postcode but then the O2 person asks ME if there's an O2 cell in that area. (Who's the company here?) Then - while I think he's looking on the O2 site for a mast - he cuts off the call and doesn't ring back!

6 - Left without wifi or network access now.