O2 poor coverage - why?

[Anonymous]

I have been with O2 for about 6 months after 16 years with Orange. On my last upgrade, O2 had better deals.

But I am amazed at how poor O2's coverage is, especially when compared with Orange/T-Mobile. I live within a mile of Canterbury city centre and within a mile of the dual carriageway A2 but the signal is not good enough to keep a voice conversation going. My phone always shows that Orange or T-Mobile are in range but the O2 signal just keeps dropping out.

We have just been to the Chichester area. Same again - although very near the A27, O2 coverage is terrible. Again, Orange coverage is fine.

It looks as if I made a big mistake changing to O2. Are they not investing in their network? I wonder if as one of the older providers they are not upgrading their antiquated transmission equipment?

I had expected much better.

[ewanrw]

Good link.

I've often wondered if planning permission for a base station could limit it to a specific frqeuency or maximum power output, as opposed to just location and height.

ewan

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the comments.

I have recently been watching the strength of the O2 signal around the Canterbury area using the Bluetooth in my car.  It is very poor or non-existent to the East of the city (I live here), and parts of the A2 are not covered.  The signal is also non-existent in parts of the city centre.

Using O2 in this area is a bit like Orange was in the late 1990s - you know, ducking and diving to find a signal, wandering around the house to try and find a useable signal, calls dropping out and being told that you sound like a Dalek.  

I had assumed that all of the mobile companies had pretty got most population centres, main roads and university towns covered but with O2 I was obviously mistaken......

[Anonymous]

Further to my earlier posts, I have been informed that there are now 3 universities in Canterbury.

Providing poor coverage in a university city is perhaps not the best business decision 02 has ever made.  Do they have market researchers?

In coverage terms, 02 have been left behind in this area.

[Anonymous]

I'm shocked quite how bad the O2 coverage is in SW London (Putney). I've got a couple of old Nokia phones on an Orange account that give perfect reception all the time. I was recently provided with a Smartphone from work on an O2 account - this is barely useable in most parts of SW15. In fact I switched from an iPhone-4 to a Blackberry Bold as I originally blamed the poor reception on the iPhone being more "smart" then "phone". The reception on the Blackberry is just as bad. I've also got a broadband dongle on an O2 account which is barely useable. It's not only SW London. I regularly commute to Leicester on business and the O2 signal is virtually non-existant along most of the route. Again, the Orange signal is always good to excellent.