No coverage in UK holiday in Dorset

[EllieT]

So, I've just got back from a lovely holiday in Dorset. From visiting the area before many times in many years, I am aware mobile coverage (data and service) is limited, but it has never been completely non-existent. On this occasion I went a whole week with little-to-no data coverage. I had the same instagram page for 4 days as it couldn't refresh! I couldn't use social media, keep up with news events, emails (not the point of a holiday but important) or more importantly check my bank balance or contact people. I tried turning off/on, aeroplane mode, all the usual tricks I know to make sure it wasn't my device, and whilst my phone often showed bars of 4G the phone was basically useless, I couldn't use the majority of apps on my phone. There was occasionally 3G which I expected to be slow, but was a complete no-go for any kind of apps/phone/message use. Does O2 even bother having customers on the Jurassic Coast? Apart from about 1 square metre on Charmouth Beach (where my phone went mad with notifications) It was basically dead. Is there any chance of a deduction on my bill for the weeks worth of no coverage?

[MI5 · Accepted solution]

@EllieT 

Little to no chance of a bill reduction as there are T&C's which cover areas of no coverage.

No network has full coverage everywhere in the UK (no idea why we are so behind the rest of Europe in this, but we are) and outages do happen from time to time.

In short, O2 have your money and there's nothing you can do about it.

O2 Service Status may give an indication if any work was going on during your stay but chances are that it was just a high influx of holiday makers overloading the system.

[madasaf1sh]

@EllieT 

There are parts of the UK, where they cant even get Broadband and are stuck on the old ADSL at 256K and chance of an upgrade unless they and the village etc fork out 10's of thousands to get connected, so in these areas there will be no chance of data even with full bars of signal

Some new technologies will help this which o2, voda and BT are testing, which improve things... But there will always be blackspots... 

If you can let me know where this was, as I could do with a week away from my phone, and work, as it sounds perfect for a detox..

As others have said you will not get a bill reduction, as the t&c specifically point out coverage and o2 dont offer 100% geographic coverage of the UK (There are Sims that will give you UK roaming across all networks but they aren't cheap)... look at anywheresim.com