Outgoing call quality poor

[Anonymous]

Hi All,
I wonder if someone can help me. I am having an issue with call quality with a number of users on O2 and can't seem to resolve it.

In a specific area (about 20 meters radius) all incoming and outgoing calls have very poor outgoing call quality, the person on the other end of the line describes the experience as "being underwater" or "robot voice" and if it's particularly bad every other word is cut out. My users can hear the other person perfectly with no distortion.

This issue is happening on a number of different handsets, SIM's and phone numbers. We've swapped all of these in the hope it helps, but it hasn't.

I have complained to O2 who have provided a femtocell "Boostbox" which doesn't seem to have helped at all. All my users have always had 4 bar full signal strength, with or without the boostbox. Even with the boostbox we still get the same issue.

If my users walk out onto the car park the signal clears up and all is well (although this is no good for business!).

I've come to the conclusion that it must be something interfering with the outgoing phone quality as this issue only started a few months ago. My understanding is the incoming and outgoing call are on different frequencies, although i dont know what these are.

My question is do my symptoms sound like interference or something else (an overburdened cell tower?), and if it is interference, how can I track down whats causing it and save my users a lot of headaches.

Thanks for any help

Gordon

[adamtemp64]

is thgis affecting 2g and 3g calls?

Have the users affected tried turning 3g off?

The boost box should eliminate any cell tower issues as long as the users are actually connected to the 3g signal on the boostbox..

[Anonymous]

This is effecting 2G calls as well as 3G calls via the Boostbox which is why I'm leaning towards interference rather than a cell tower issue, although I can't be sure.

[adamtemp64]

2g is in the 900mhz band 3g boost box is in the 2100mhz band so it whould not be in terms of radio interferance. Unless there is a local unauthorised (ilegal) wide band cell boster in use in the area.

And if on boostbox that rules cell tower issues out.

If o2 have sent the boost box have you said to them this is still happening

[Anonymous]

I have complained to O2 that the issue still exists but they didn't seem overly concerned. There reply was "we'll monitor it" which doesn't help resolve the issue.

What is more frustrating is that the issue seems to be intermittent. We can have a few "good" days, a week even, but then the issue re-occurs.

Your suggestion of the wide-band repeater has caught my attention as these devices are freely available and could cause us issues.

[adamtemp64]

Tracking down the source may be dificult

[perksie]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Your suggestion of the wide-band repeater has caught my attention as these devices are freely available and could cause us issues.

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If you do track this down please come back here and let us know.

[Anonymous]

I think without specialist equipment these things would be next to impossible to find, if indeed that is the cause of the problem.