Will O2 ever get decent coverage

[Anonymous]

Will O2 ever spend money on there network? I live in Wales and its only EE that provide 3G coverage. At the moment I am on Vodafone but 3G is non existent. I had a O2 PAYG sim card a 2 years ago. But the coverage was a waste of time. O2 disconnected it after a period of time as I think it was a embarrassment to them. Has this improved in the last 2 years?

[darrengf]

O2 have call waiting on contract as I use the feature all the time and never miss a call.

Delivery Reports on o2 were switched of a long time due to a problem with some older generation handsets and causing texting issue.

If you want a delivery receipt type *0# at the begining of the sms.

Not the answer you may have been looking for, but it does work.

[Anonymous]

Yeah I'm on PAYG so I don't get this feature. Not sure what the discrimination is for though :S

And I know, I've found that O2 apparently runs on a network built pre in the 2000 so their infrastructure is pretty old. Therefore they don't do the reports, just what I've read.

I know, but this can be troublesome on every message.

[perksie]

I don't know where you heard that, O2 have been spending £1.5M a day on the network for several years now.

[Anonymous]

delivery reports were used on the older models such as the early nokias, i used to use delivery reports then turned it off as i was revieving more of those than actual text 

[adamtemp64]

http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/news-it-infrastructure/bt-wins-contract-for-o2s-mobile-and-fixe...

Says the core network is new and upto date

And for base stations a 3 year complete renovation started in jan 2011 as reported here and many other places

http://www.fiercewireless.com/europe/story/ericsson-and-nsn-share-o2-uk-network-upgrades/2011-01-28

I guess that is where the 1.5mmillion a day is being spent etc

[Anonymous]

I still don't understand how Ericsson crashed O2's network. Well obviously its not that reliable, but why didn't O2 see this coming? And how are other mobile networks operating differently without Ericsson?

I guess the out of date thing may have just been made up with people furious over the lack of Delivery Reports.

[perksie]

The equipment that caused the problem was replaced immediately.

You tell me how you know when a light bulb is going to fail and I'll tell you why O2 didn't see it coming!

If you dislike O2 and the way it operates so much why don't you just move to the network that you know will never have any of these problems?

[Anonymous]

Oh I see, and haha I can't answer that, maybe when it flashes

I don't dislike O2 I'm curious, I want to know more of the technical details because I'm a techie guy. I'm just curious as to why O2 opted for Ericsson and the other networks are doing fine with some other company.

[adamtemp64]

it was not the network that crashed but the database that was run by ericsson that allowed sim cards to authenticate on the network from what I have read.

That is why not everybody was affected if the network had crashed the whole 22 million customer base whould have been affected.

[perksie]

The details have been common knowledge since it happened, you can read it for yourself here I've even looked it up for you:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/oct/17/02-out-ericsson-network-failure