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What Data speed is fair to expect in a good coverage area?

Jonick
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Hi,

I recently joined O2 after being with 3Uk for many years. I left 3Uk, because they have had a network capacity issue on the cell tower that serves my home address for many months.

I checked the O2 coverage map for my area, and it says good indoor 4g coverage, and indeed I do get a good, nearly full strength signal, and have no problems making or receiving phone calls or texts. However, mobile data speeds are horrendous at my home address and locality.

 

When I check using the O2 "My Network" app, I always get "There are more people than usual in this area right now, making our network a little busier" reports, more or less any time of night or day. 

 

I seldom get anywhere near 4Mbs, and often around 1Mbs throughput, however in places such as Sheffield, I will regularly get over 30Mbs download speeds. So, There is obviously a capacity issue in my home locality, which is the Western side of Scunthorpe.

So, I would like to ask, what is a reasonable download speed to expect from O2 mobile data? O2 at the moment is actually delivering slower download speeds than I was experiencing with 3Uk

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MI5
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@Jonick 

2mbs is the minimum expected from any network.

I have no affiliation whatsoever with O2 or any subsidiary companies. Comments posted are entirely of my own opinion. This is not Customer Service so we are unable to help with account specific issues.

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Pixel 7a (O2 & Lyca), One Plus 6 (Sfr), iPhone 12 Pro Max (Vodafone)
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Jonick
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Hi,

Thanks for the reply, and yes, after trawling through various Ofcom reports it does seem that they regard 2Mbs download speed on 4g as being "Decent". It just seems to make a mockery of networks pushing 5g and fast 4g+ networks as a selling point, when the users real world experience is likely to be speeds that are considerably slower the they experienced ten years ago on 3g.

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jonsie
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Jonick
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Thanks for the replies, I work at four different locations in the North Lincolnshire area, two of them are what you would call Urban area's two are rural. I live in an Urban area. All of these locations are shown as having good indoor 4g coverage, and yet in all of those five locations, I seldom see data speeds that reliably achieve 2Mbs. When I check the network status, I nearly always get the "More people than usual are using the network" message.

So, it appears that O2 have oversold their network capacity in my area. I have been in contract for less than twenty days, I was initially told that a cell tower that serves my home location was being repaired and that normal service would be restored soon. So I stuck with the contract to give things a chance to improve, but now the tower has been restored, I am getting the capacity message on network status, but I have now exceeded my 14 day cooling off period.

So, my question is, under these circumstances, would it be reasonable for me to request to be released from my equipment and airtime contracts?

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madasaf1sh
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@Jonick 

 

You can ask, but they may point the t&c's at you, and you have had time within that 14 day cooling off period to check network coverage and services. 


With more people working from home and where broadband speeds are rubbish people are using more 4G broadband, and like the old days of Broadband its a contended service. 

 

If only o2 weren't so popular.

 

o2 will be aware of the reduced bandwidth on the mast, but fixing these things takes time due to permissions required from the landowners of the mast site, the local council (if roadworks are needed or planning permission changed), and what backhaul speeds can be obtained in these rural areas....

 

I would download the My Network app, and report it via that. 

 

To give you some indication down the road in Ingoldmells, the EE mast has been out of action for 6months, due to parts and the council not allowing them to dig up the roads. 

- Xperia 1V - o2 and Spusu
- Pixel 8 Pro - o2 and Vodafone UK
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Owen_Carl
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This is all too common for O2 as their network is sadly too oversold meaning congestion through the roof. It is essentially the new Three. 

Three have worked hard to improve their offering, O2 need to catch up and start rolling out more 5G and band 40 to meet capacity. 

You can complain to O2 and they might let you leave, and should take a look at Vodafone as their coverage is similar in most places to O2 as they have a mast sharing agreement (slowly winding down) but speeds and capacity are not an issue for them. 

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Jonick
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Thanks again for the reply's

So yesterday I got an EE PAYG sim, and this morning (Sunday) I decided to visit my 5 different work locations and carry out a comparison signal test. Four of my locations are in the DN21 postcode area, one is in the DN20 postcode area, and my home location is in the DN15 area. 

All of these area's are in "good indoor 4g" coverage area's, yet non of these locations could achieve a stable 2Mbs data connection on O2. Test's were carried out using three different handsets, all of which returned similar results.

In three of the locations the "My network app" returned the "more users than usual" fault.

When carrying out the same tests with the EE sim, all locations returned good, stable 4g connections, most were above 10Mbs, the slowest was a stable 6Mbs.

 I phoned O2 customer support after carrying out the tests. They openly accepted that they have serious capacity problems in a large part of North Lincolnshire ( 20 mile radius ) But still insisted the I would have to pay off my equipment charges as my contract was 17 days old, even though I had called them during my 14 day cooling off period to complain, but I had agreed to continue the contract to give them chance to repair the cell tower at my home location ( this repaired tower is delivering an intermittent 1 -1.5Mbs )

So to sum up, I have agreed to pay my equipment charges, and taken a PAC code to migrate to another network.

It has been a very stressful and costly 17 days with O2, and an experience I don't ever want to repeat.

Moral: When ever you plan to change networks, completely disregard the company's "coverage map", go and grab yourself a few PAYG sims, and test out the coverage in your locality in a real world scenario. 

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Jonick
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Hi,

 

Quote: You can ask, but they may point the t&c's at you, and you have had time within that 14 day cooling off period to check network coverage and services. 

 

I called them during the cooling off period to complain and to discuss leaving, they asked me to bare with them, as they were currently in the middle of repairing the tower that serves my home location, and that things would get back to normal service within the next ten days. I agreed to give them some time to complete the repairs. The tower was re-commissioned late afternoon, Tuesday 17th. I initially got a stable 5Mbs 4g connection, but by Friday 20th the data connection had slowed to around 1Mbs and was unstable again. My 14 day cooling off period ended Thursday 19th. It continues to be over subscribed today. All of these issues were reported via the "my network" app, and by phone to customer services. So I feel pretty cheated by O2.

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gmarkj
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Sorry to hear of your struggles @Jonick.

It might be worth sticking a complaint in (o2's how to complain - https://www.o2.co.uk/how-to-complain) to see if they agree with the customer services rep you spoke to.

We have heard that using the Resolver service gets good results.

Please note, this is not customer services and we cannot access your account. Do not publish personal details (email, phone number, bank account).


Link to our guide on how to contact them can be found here

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