Poor/Non-existent signal for months at a time, just to be told they're working on it, year on year.

[benfphillips]

Hello all,

I'll keep it short, and to the point as much as I can.

My expenditure with O2 between work and business is a few pounds shy of £200 per month. I live in the South West of England where the signal isn't usually too bad. maybe 5-10mbit. no 5G.

For the last two summers from June-July onwards it becomes a total joke. Web pages, even single ones don't load. Speed tests (when they work) are awful. Often 0.05mbit down and 0.02mbit up. We're genuinely in the realms of 56k dial up from the 90s or WORSE.

I complained last July to be told (I can see it gets busy and we ARE working in that are to improve it). 

This year comes around and somehow the service is even worse and today was really the straw that broke the camels back.

I've been ill this week, unfortunately involving a hospital trip and multiple GP visits. I woke up to see the low electricity notice. I make a drink, I sit at my desk to address the power issue and my electricity goes off.

I pull out my phone and I cannot load the British Gas site or app on any one of the two phones and two iPad pros I own. In fact, I cannot load ANY site at all. I reboot all devices, I toggle airplane mode and mobile data on and off a few times to get a useable connection. No joy.

I then end up having to walk around the stressing when its hammering it down looking for a free Wi-Fi from someone BT/EE internet connection. After about 10 minutes I find out, I'm able to login to BG and make the payment so that I can have electric again.

Sure, it's an extreme case but not being able to load pages, or watch netflix, or youtube videos when my devices are ALL reporting full bars of 4G internet (4/5 can't remember how many) on a REGULAR basis is really starting to bug me.

Is there a department at O2 to speak to about this? Are there options to cancel airtime contacts? I don't care about paying for the devices as that's fair but the airtime contracts are an absolute joke.

This isn't just a problem in/around where I live which is Truro and arguably should/probably does have the best mobile infrastructure.

The irony is that I had this issue last July of no internet data at all, went to Spain on holidays and it worked perfectly. How Malaga can provide a better infrastructure when they're getting hammered with tourists, yet Truro who get very seasonable tourists, of much smaller numbers just cannot cope is beyond me.

I'm not really one for asking for compensation or complaining as such but this is REALLY becoming bothersome. Is there recourse or is it the old we'll give you your airtime costs back, but disregard the expensive and totally unusable device you pay to use the airtime plans on, you know, the one that regularly don't function for days at a time, despite reporting the maximum possible number of 4G bars possible.

[Bambino]

@benfphillips It's highly unlikely that O2 will invest in improving the infrastructure in an area with such a small population. For what it would cost, they'd never see a return on their money.

In your grand scheme of things, the longer you wait to get a positive result from your 0% interest payments, the longer you'll be without a viable service. If there's another network that can provide a better signal on a regular basis, you're probably going to have to bite the bullet and switch providers. 

Someone from customer service may offer you a token gesture of goodwill for your lack of service, but that's cold comfort if you can't use your phone.

[Oxonian]

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@benfphillips wrote:

I will be in contact with cs. I've just tired them off an email with the twitter thread. More the fool for me to thinking O2 could upgrade the network in what they admit to be an area that suffers with data issues.

Apologies, I've just noticed I wrote year in year in the title, despite it spanning a little more than 2, it's not entirely accurate in the grand scheme of things.

At the end of the day I just want the damn thing to work, ya know?

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If you just want it to work @benfphillips, you could see if anything here helps you :-

Guide: How can I sort out my network issues? 

Guide: Is the network down for me or everyone? 

My Network App - Find Out More About Your Network Coverage | Apps | O2

https://www.o2.co.uk/apps/my-network

[japitts]

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@benfphillips wrote:

More the fool for me to thinking O2 could upgrade the network in what they admit to be an area that suffers with data issues.

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I've not exhaustively read every comment in this thread, but sufficient to get a feel that this is another case of insufficient capacity in a given area, causing data congestion issues. There will always be local variations, but the 4 MNO's are generally ranked consistently for data performance.

The fix for data congestion in any given area can vary. If carrier-adds or tech-adds are a straightforward task, they tend to be implemented quickly. If a carrier-add involves more complex antenna works or reconfiguration, then those can often work to more extended timescales.