Capacity problems on mast local to my home

[doublet]

Over the last 6 weeks I've been experiencing a very poor signal (0-2 bars) from my home address. It is very much worse in the evenings and results in calls being dropped, complete inability for one party to hear the other or just hearing garbled noise (like there's a dalek talking at the other end), and often when calls are dropped it is not possible to make another call at all for some time whereby my phone just says 'call ended' when I try. This is an extremely frustrating issue as I have no landline or other way to talk to anyone and my mobile phone does not support WiFi calling. Last year I experienced a very similar issue, again from at my home address, which took about 5/6 months for O2 to resolve. The issue was down to lack of capacity on the local mast and I'm fairly sure it's exactly the same problem I'm experiencing now. Despite the O2 status checker continually showing the network to be working fine, there is a note stating they'll be carrying out work on 23rd October 2023 to improve the network service in this area. I do not feel O2 is dealing with this issue sufficiently given the impact it causes and I'm not prepared to wait another 6 months for it to be fixed. Each time I report the problem I often receive a text a few days later saying the problem is resolved however the problems persist.

Any advice on dealing with this issue would be appreciated.

[MI5]

@doublet 

Upgrade your phone to use wifi calling or switch networks would seem the most obvious solutions.

The vast majority of new phones sold these days will support wifi calling on O2.

[doublet]

@MI5 I have considered that option however I don't have problems anywhere other than my home address and the cost of upgrading my phone is prohibitive.  Are you able to suggest a cheap phone that supports wifi calling on O2 that I could use just when I'm at home?

[Enlli]

@doublet Hard to give advice not knowing a budget you have in mind.

If your phone does not have WiFi Calling there is also a chance that it does not have 4G Calling either. That means the phone will have to drop to 3G to make and receive calls. The only way to check is to make a test call and look what happens. Does the icon switch to 3G

That will be the next problem as 3G is on the way out. Thankfully nothing will change on O2 for another year, but if you did consider a network change there will be no 3G on Vodafone from the end of the year and EE by next Easter. Three will not be far behind. So even if you can't afford it now I would advise thinking of changing next year.

Perhaps you can tell us the make an model of the phone you are using to see if we can help.

[doublet]

My current phone is a Sony Xperia 5 (first gen - J8210) running Android 11 and supports 4G. As I don't have any issues with this phone I would like to continue using it when out and about if possible. If I could get a very basic phone (only real requirements would be to use wifi calling and handsfree) for use only at home preferably for under £25 that would be ideal.

[MI5]

@doublet 

Your phone should be capable of wifi calling.

Have you asked O2 to enable it on your account?

[doublet]

@MI5 when I check on My O2 it says 'You currently have WiFi and 4G Calling turned on.' however I didn't think the phone supported it and am unable to find any setting to enable it.

[MI5]

@doublet 

You need to call O2 to have it enabled on your account.

Once done, you reboot your phone (may take 24 hours) then you will see the settings in your phone menu to turn it on in the phone.

[Bambino]

@doublet If you've never called customer service to ask for WiFi calling to be enabled on your account you need to do that before anything else can happen: Wifi and 4G Calling explained | O2

[doublet]

I did discuss it with Virgin Mobile (after they transferred to using the O2 network) when I had similar problems last year (as they suggested it as a solution) but they told me the phone didn't support it. They did send several new SIMs at that time and my phone still shows the network as Virgin but connected to O2 4G. I will however call O2 customer services to check.