Why is my O2 Signal so poor nowdays

[FedUp1968]

For the last 9 months plus (which has been reported to O2 many times now) the signal on our O2 phones is terrible. We have 4 phones in total and if we go into Burnley they just keep saying it's a mast issue. Well it can't be because wherever we go there is no signal most of the time and half the time wi-fi calling isn't working.

We have tried all of the options on your support pages including new sim cards etc ( mainly because the shops are no help and you can never get to speak to anybody at O2 ). Nothing seems to work. These are 4 phones ( 3 Pixel and 1 Samsung ) and they are not even 1 year old so that cannot be the problem.

Everything was ok until Virgin Media came along and since then the service has been terrible.

All I want is for our phones to be working, we are paying for a service which is not being provided by O2.

Please tell me what to do in order to resolve this situation.

Kindest Regards

[madasaf1sh]

@FedUp1968 

It could be a mast has been removed due to the land owner wanting it removed, or wanted stupid money to keep it on their property, unfortunately as some communities have found it can take months if not over a year to find a new site, get it commissioned etc.

As o2 dont offer a 100% coverage as per your contract and the t&c's and nor do they offer a SLA for restoring services, your options are limited 

1. Pay off your contract's in full and leave o2  and move to another network, after testing with PAYG sims, to make sure it is not an issue with all networks

2. See if you can get an update via the My Network App and keep reporting the issues. 

That is it really... Or find someone with the Money to co-op with o2 to provide a new mast in Burnley (approx £50K should do it).. 

[jonsie]

The whole of Lancashire has really poor coverage and data speeds are only adequate at best

Nothing to do with the merger as it's been this way for years

I now rely on EE in my dual sim phone and to be honest the O2 sim is really only used when roaming and is the only reason worth keeping it.

[gmarkj]

If you still have some time left, see if getting WiFi Calling added helps with the coverage for calls at home (and when out).

To do that, there are 3 steps:

Get in touch with customer services and ask them to add it to your account - call 202 or 0344 809 0202 (best time to call is 8am), or message on social media:

Or you can message O2 on social media on Instagram https://o2uk.co/O2CIG), Facebook ( https://o2uk.co/O2CFB) , Twitter ( https://o2uk.co/O2CTW). 

Alternatively you can call 0800 902 0217 using Skype for free.

Guide here Guide: A Guide to Skype

Turn it on for each phone in your My o2.

Turn it on in your phones' settings.

[NWLondoner]

I’m in West London and can barely make a call anywhere close to my home. It was a superb service until a couple of years ago. In addition, when I traveled to the US, I paid £99 to get a month of phone and data usage. It took a week of calling twice a day before I got it working. When the 30 days were up, I paid a daily rate and was never able to get the phone or data up and running. 

[Cleoriff]

@NWLondoner 

Changes to travel to the US

USA - Roaming with O2 

[Oxonian]

@FedUp1968 

@NWLondoner 

If you decide to leave O2, do please follow the suggestion made by @madasaf1sh ; get some PAYG SIMs and actually test which network works best for you in your vicinity. I suggest that you do not rely on the network coverage maps. 

If you do not test the networks, you might end up with worse service than you have now.  

[nrs1981]

I joined o2 in December 2022. It was fine until March 2023. Since then the call quality had been awful, along with dropped calls. I have 3G more often then 4G and have only had 5G a handful of time. When i phoned up I was told since taking over Virgin Mobile, they don’t have the capacity.  O2 Refused to deal with the issue so i took them to the small claims court. They cancelled the contracts free of charge and gave me financial compensation.

[Enlli]

When you joined in 2022 virgin were already running on O2 just using their own name 

But yes, extra customers on a network that already has capacity issues in many places is not going to improve things.

[jonsie]

You're really getting boring now!