Poor signal

[Mel393]

Despite being an O2 customer for decades, my phone is not fit for purpose. 

I cannot use it for calls or internet at: my local town, near my children's school, my carpark at work, on the route home from work, in a main town slightly further away. 

This has significantly impacted my life from not being able to play Amazon music in my car to not being able to call the GP surgery urgently from my children's school. 

I live in Buckinghamshire on the Oxfordshire border, not some remote part of the UK. 

Can anyone tell me if they have successfully made a claim in a small claims court? 

I am thoroughly disgusted with O2 and simply do not have the time to waste on their customer services. 

[Enlli]

First of all have you checked if it is a problem with the network, phone or SIM

See these guides to start

Guide: Is the network down for me or everyone? 

Guide: How can I sort out my network issues? 

See also

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

And use WiFi Calling at home if you can

https://www.o2.co.uk/help/network-and-international/wifi/wifi-and-4g-calling

As to the small claims court the terms and conditions sent to you on sign up don't guarantee reception everywhere 

[pgn]

And, @Mel393 - take your phone and SIM to an O2 Shop, along with some valid photo id, and ask them to change the SIM card (a free service) for you - a decades-old SIM card probably could do with a refresh. This in addition to @Enlli's advice above.

Good luck!

[MI5]

@Mel393 

You'll get nowhere with a claim unfortunately so don't waste your tiime.

Just pay off your device plan, keep the phone and leave.

Check other networks with PAYG sims before committing to another contract.

[japitts]

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@Mel393 wrote:

Despite being an O2 customer for decades, my phone is not fit for purpose. 

I live in Buckinghamshire on the Oxfordshire border, not some remote part of the UK. 

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Just on this specific point, this seems to suggest that poor mobile service in remote parts of the country, is somehow acceptable... but not in urban locations.

There's no reason for remote & rural parts of the country to necessarily have poor mobile service, although rollout there has different challenges to urban ones.

I don't see any evidence in your post thus far, to automatically assume your SIM is the cause of the issue. It may be, but there's no reason to conclusively say that it is. @Enlli  makes an excellent point, asking what tests you've done thus far.

[Enlli]

@japitts Phone dependant of course but the latest SIM does give access to Stand Alone etc 

At home Standard SIM  gives 4G 800MHz

Latest gives 3500Mhz and 700MHz Stand Alone 5G

[japitts]

Absolutely Enlli - all dependent on the phone & local deployment/config. It should be extremely rare for 5G-SA to give coverage when NSA doesn't, though.

Some users on this forum jump straight to replacement SIM without any thought for numerous other possibilities.

[MI5]

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@japitts wrote:

Some users on this forum jump straight to replacement SIM without any thought for numerous other possibilities.

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A case in point here. Whether that fixes the issue or not I guess we'll never know.

https://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Tech-Support/what-is-the-point-of-having-O2-if-I-cant-get-a-signal-at-...

[jonsie]

@japitts 

Because it's normally the easiest option to get the sim checked

Of course common sense would be to try the sim in another phone first but not everyone has a spare phone knocking about hence the advice to change the sim

I'm not sure why you feel the need to be so critical of members trying to help solve issues when normally the first advice when contacting customer service is to order a new sim leaving customers with an inactive sim for a week or so.We try to stop that happening by using the instore method.

I notice when you reply you usually give out congestion or mast issue without suggesting a fix for the customer. Easy to be an armchair critic and as they say, a little knowledge is dangerous/

[Enlli]

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@japitts wrote:

Absolutely Enlli - all dependent on the phone & local deployment/config. It should be extremely rare for 5G-SA to give coverage when NSA doesn't, though

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Not been my experience, especially since we appear to have had a massive roll out of 700Mhz SA around here.

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