I took out an O2 contract in 2012 after checking all of the main telco's coverage maps: where I live it showed a full strength 2g / 3g signal so I signed up. Signal coverage wasn't great so I complained and was told that a transmitter was down and was being worked on, so I just waited. As time went on I was out of my cancellation time but signal strength still hadn't improved, and I was told that things were still being worked on - I was away from home a lot so it wasn't a major deal at the time but as my job role changed I spent more time working from home where the only place I could get a voice signal was in one room upstairs in the house, and I had to connect to wifi in order to get any data signal. Most of my received calls went straight to voicemail instead of ringing the phone.
I live in Milton Keynes before perhaps you think I live out in the Pennines somewhere with no signal!
After many more months of complaing and being told various variations on the "it's being repaired" story, I eventually got hold of a customer services advisor who I told that I wanted to leave as the signal issue was a joke by now - he went through all my communications since my first call and, while he could see I'd called, there was no record of any fault being logged by O2 and, checking further logs, he said there were no records of any repairs or faults on nearby towers so it was all likely just lip service to get me off the phone and retain me.
Furthermore he said that there had been something like 34 complaints by people in my nearby area that they had no signal - he admitted that nothing would be done unless probably hundreds of people complained and then they may consider adding a new tower! When I asked why my faults hadn't been officially logged down when I was told they had been, he had no answer to that.
I escalated it to OFCOM and, after protracted communications with O2, I was told that the coverage map is indicative and they cannot be held responsible even if it's completely inaccurate, so in otherwords if you get no signal despite their map showing 100% then tough. They also told me that they were not guaranteeing any signal in my house or in any building, so they cannot be responsible for that either. When I pointed out that when I went into my garden, which is obviously outside any building, and I still get no signal, the senior customer services person had no answer to that.
Bottom line was that I got no signal at home, was lied to about having my faults logged, was lied to about tower problems, was lied to when the coverage map showed full strength 2g/3g at my location despite O2 having over 30 complaints from people that this location was a very low / no signal area, and was finally ignored at the end.
Lessons learned?
- Buy a few cheap PAYG sims so you can see what the actual network coverage is where you are.
- Communicate by email so you have evidence of any issues logged by you / comments made by customer services.
- If you have home coverage issues from day one, and you are told that it's a tower problem that's being fixed (which seems to be a fairly standard reply), put it in writing that you obviously cannot judge your home coverage from day one so you want O2 to accept a longer right-to-cancellation time until the tower is fixed and you can judge clearly.
Don't get me wrong, these issues could affect any network, but it was the way I was handled which made my mind up that I didn't want to deal with any company that was either that incompetent or that dishonest.
Due to these issues, and the price rise hike which I view as a spiteful move 'just because', I am leaving O2 in the next few months and I will buy a few PAYG sim cards to see what offers me the best coverage before I commit to another contract, if I ever do again! But it won't ever be with O2.
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