London: No 4/5G & mast faults reported in many places

[Fires1]

I've just listed to customers services half a dozen postcodes in all corners of the city where this has occurred in the 10 days since joining, and they confirmed faults at them all, in line with the online status checker.

Can someone tell me how this is possible from a network like O2? I never had this problem with EE. Is it just a coincidence that most places I go there's a mast fault or are there a lot of issues? I know operators are likely to over-report these outages in that I might not necessarily be impacted by a certain mast in my vicinity being down, but why then am I seemingly unable to connect to neighbouring masts in 2024 in a major city with a new phone?

[Bambino]

@Fires1 This is a customer community. We wouldn't have any idea why this would happen. Mobile phone technology is far from perfect, so I guess anything's possible.

If you never had this problem with EE, why did you switch to O2?

[Fires1]

Why have a tech support forum if customers are laymen unable to advise on technical issues?

Why would anyone stay with a network just to guarantee adequate signal? If I'd switched to a MVNO piggybacking on Three without checking coverage or lived in the countryside you might have a point.  But O2 on paper covers my home and I'd imagine all of London so it's perfectly reasonable to ask the O2 community why this isn't the case in reality.

I've literally struggled to post this message for a lot of the afternoon. This can't be right but all O2 can tell me is that they'll advise when the mast is fixed (presumably the one near home, rather than the other 5) but this can't be right can it? Obviously there are numerous other places where I'm struggling with signal too. Anyone got any ideas?

[Enlli]

This Community has been stripped to the bone of O2 staff so we customers are basically all that is left.

O2 network is oversubscribed in London in many places and when a mast goes down there is no spare to take up the slack.

Lack of bandwidth is another problem with O2.

[Bambino]

@Fires1 This isn't specifically a tech support forum. It's all customers, and yes, laymen. Some here are a bit more technically proficient than others, but there isn't anyone here who could tell you why a specific mast isn't working. Whatever O2 says on paper about coverage is only a guess. Their coverage checker is only an estimation. No network guarantees coverage. Read the Terms & Conditions you agreed to. Read them all from every network, including the MVNO's and you'll find they're the same. It's every network's 'Get Out of Jail Free' card. I'm not defending the network. That's just the way it is.

Lodge a formal complaint if you feel you need to: How to Complain | Help | O2 Just be aware that from what we know here as customers, the average wait time for a response is 8 weeks. 

[japitts]

I've long suspected that all operators' CS are guilty of being far too eager to blame issues on "mast issues" rather than properly investigate and/or escalate problems. Thus too many customers are left with the impression of "mast problems" when it's often not the case.

That said, phones will connect to any available site to obtain coverage, and in most urban areas there will be overlap to some degree. EE have historically had greater site density than O2, and thus are often in a better position to cope with single site outages.

You allude to poor data speeds as another issue. There will always be local differences, but on a national basis - EE consistently performs well for this, and O2 is consistently outperformed. This is a combination of site deployment and also having the right combinations of spectrum on individual sites - it's available capacity which is the main driver of speed, not coverage quality.