State of the network

[paulbacon]

This is abit of a rant but just wanted to gather other peoples thoughts.

Ive been with o2 all my adult life - some 23 years. Started on PAYG then moved to contract when smartphones became a thing. Always renew my contract as i used to get friend and family discount (can no longer get this).

At full price o2 isnt the cheapest network, yet the service seems to be getting worse. Few issues ive noticed getting worse over the years:

1) Speed - despite my phone saying im on 5g (i know its really enhanced 4g) the speeds are poor. Even 4g is poor. In 2 major cities i visit, speeds can be 9mbps or lower even at 7am when the network is quiet. During peak times trying to refresh Instagram takes ages. Seems o2 havent invested much in way of capacity on the network.

2) Connection issues - randomly despite having full signal my phone will stop passing data. I have to wait 5 mins for it to come back up. Again this happens in major cities and used to happen on my old smartphone so im sure its a network issue.

3) Indoor coverage - the amount of bars/restaurants i go in that o2 had little to no signal is surprising. I see friends using their phones no issues who are on different networks.

Ive read online that o2 are not in a great place financially so havent invested in the network. But its not cheap to run a smartphone so this is unacceptable. Im seriously looking to move networks once my contract is up

So rant over 🤣 Anyone else have similar issues? 

[pgn]

Where I live, the opposite is true: O2 have much better coverage at home, and service at work has occasionally been poor, but switching to 3G after lunch every day for about 8weeks some years back was necessary as they brought 4G into the area. Spot-on service since then.

I expect some disruption at work as 5G is brought in, and hopefully the new service where I live, which has poor coverage from other providers as the geography is not ideal with hills etc, will remain good after upgrade to both masts covering the area.

Now 3 miles up the road, you are in roaming country, where O2 signal is weak and the Irish networks are stronger, means a roaming connection - again, O2 supports roaming like at home on those carriers too (not the same with the other main UK carriers!).

Horses for courses, @paulbacon. Perhaps time for you to try out PAYG SIMs from other carriers where you are before deciding to jump from O2 to a new carrier with better service where you are. Last time I did that, Voda and Orange were in the frame, both appalling compared to O2 here then. Good luck!

[paulbacon]

Yea sometimes its better the devil you know as other networks may be worse

I do like o2 is the only network left (i think?), that offer 'free' EU roaming as part of your normal data limits in the UK. But who knows how long that will last

[Enlli]

Only been with O2 a year. Got a cheap £8 SIM only deal to give myself Volt Benefits.

I have a dual SIM phone and my main number is Vodafone.

Yes, I can't believe how poor it is in comparison. I travel around South Liverpool, the M6 corridor area to Warrington. Also Widnes and Runcorn. In all of these places there are problem. Mainly slow or unusable data. My O2 App reports mast issues in so many places along with congestion etc.

O2 say they have improved capacity in thousands of post codes, but despite that their are probably more complaints than ever.

Adding 3.5 million Virgin Mobile users into the network has probably negated a lot of the work.