Why such crap mobile reception in the UK?

Why such crap mobile reception in the UK?

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Discussion

urquattroGus

Original Poster:

1,845 posts

189 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
quotequote all

I am not sure if people agree, but its seems to me that mobile phone reception seems to be worse in the UK than it was.

One theory is possibly that as companies have merged, some masts have been shut down. The company I work at sells to farmers, and we know a good few who used to rent masts, but had notice served on them.

I live in Essex in a semi Rural area.

It never cease to amaze me how poor signal can be across the south east. It's the most densely populated area of the country, surely there should be good coverage!??

Whenever I travel to anywhere in Europe, or other countries such as Japan, the coverage seems to be so much better!

Big cities now have 4g and yet the rest of us can't even get a sodding GPRS or EDGE signal half of the time.

Do people agree?

I am finding it frustrating because we have 270 vehicles on the road, half of which are service vans.

We keep on being told to use the latest mobile data widgets, but none of them will work without a decent signal...

Anyway, half hear-ted rant, but surely this is holding back the UK just as much as broadband access.

MissChief

7,095 posts

167 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
quotequote all
The NIMBYS are the problem, telling everyone that mobile masts cause cancer and they don't want them placed in logical locating so you end up with patchy reception as the providers can't put in as many masts as they would like.

Fizpop

332 posts

168 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
quotequote all
shred2bits said:
Yawn
Thanks for the contribution, you'll do well here! smile

OP, as I understand it, the Govenment muted the idea of charging business rates on masts and farmers have been negotiating hard withe the mast operators, alot of which leases have been up for renewal. Might be having an impact.

JakeT

5,406 posts

119 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
quotequote all
urquattroGus said:
I am not sure if people agree, but its seems to me that mobile phone reception seems to be worse in the UK than it was.

One theory is possibly that as companies have merged, some masts have been shut down. The company I work at sells to farmers, and we know a good few who used to rent masts, but had notice served on them.

I live in Essex in a semi Rural area.

It never cease to amaze me how poor signal can be across the south east. It's the most densely populated area of the country, surely there should be good coverage!??

Whenever I travel to anywhere in Europe, or other countries such as Japan, the coverage seems to be so much better!

Big cities now have 4g and yet the rest of us can't even get a sodding GPRS or EDGE signal half of the time.

Do people agree?

I am finding it frustrating because we have 270 vehicles on the road, half of which are service vans.

We keep on being told to use the latest mobile data widgets, but none of them will work without a decent signal...

Anyway, half hear-ted rant, but surely this is holding back the UK just as much as broadband access.
As things like 3G 900MHz and 4G become more commonplace you will find signal will improve. These low wavelength signals that the analogue Television took up will travel further. Also the government is taking steps to improve signal over the country. I live under 10 miles from vodafone's HQ, and am with vodafone and until this year I was EDGE only.

Watchman

6,391 posts

244 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
quotequote all
JakeT said:
As things like 3G 900MHz and 4G become more commonplace you will find signal will improve. These low wavelength signals that the analogue Television took up will travel further. Also the government is taking steps to improve signal over the country. I live under 10 miles from vodafone's HQ, and am with vodafone and until this year I was EDGE only.
Low (as in short) wavelength or low frequency? IIRC low frequency (long wavelength) travels further.

jonm01

817 posts

236 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
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No idea how people use the Satnav on their phones given how poor the signal is on most motorways

Riknos

4,700 posts

203 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
quotequote all
JakeT said:
As things like 3G 900MHz and 4G become more commonplace you will find signal will improve. These low wavelength signals that the analogue Television took up will travel further. Also the government is taking steps to improve signal over the country. I live under 10 miles from vodafone's HQ, and am with vodafone and until this year I was EDGE only.
Vodafone have the worst signal coverage in the UK.

I hear some providers (can't remember which) are dropping 3g coverage in favour of 4g, so while they're rolling out 4g to more areas, some areas will lose 3g... basically alienating people on that wavelength, and people with older handsets.

The above could be part of the reason signal coverage isn't as great as it should be.

itcaptainslow

3,694 posts

135 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
quotequote all
Vodafone seem particularly guilty of poor reception. Their adverts claiming otherwise are laughable-it's the worst mobile network I've ever been on and their customer services seemingly don't give a toss.

Looking forward to when my contract is up.

thecremeegg

1,952 posts

202 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
quotequote all
jonm01 said:
No idea how people use the Satnav on their phones given how poor the signal is on most motorways
I use google maps and I'm on 3 - the only time I struggle is in the back roads of Wales or similar where there isn't any signal for anyone. Motorway driving it doesn't skip a beat, I assume as it loads the route in advance.

underdosed

112 posts

148 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
quotequote all
I'm with EE and live in rural Norfolk and 95% of the time have 3G signal, to the point where I now leave my phone in 3G/4G only mode.

judas

5,963 posts

258 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
quotequote all
itcaptainslow said:
Vodafone seem particularly guilty of poor reception. Their adverts claiming otherwise are laughable-it's the worst mobile network I've ever been on and their customer services seemingly don't give a toss.

Looking forward to when my contract is up.
Agreed. Been with them for a while now but there's been a very noticeable drop in signal quality over the past year. I'm certainly not paying for an upgrade to 4G just to get back to where I was a year ago. Problem with moving to another provider is that they're all as bad as each other, like the whole of the utilities sector.

MDMetal

2,775 posts

147 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
quotequote all
If you live in Cambridge don't ever try using your phone in a pub or restaurant! Never any signal when you need to check Wikipedia or alike, city of technology etc etc

rallycross

12,747 posts

236 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
quotequote all
itcaptainslow said:
Vodafone seem particularly guilty of poor reception. Their adverts claiming otherwise are laughable-it's the worst mobile network I've ever been on and their customer services seemingly don't give a toss.

Looking forward to when my contract is up.
Yes I've got 2 x vodafones (one 4g and one 3g) and they both are very poor signal, to give an example there is no signal at Clapham Junction station, one of the busiest station in the country. It used to be quite good but seems to have lost its signal.

stabilio

568 posts

170 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
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Another vote for Vodafone being crap for getting signals.
Just moved to EE and the difference is like night and day.

Strawman

6,463 posts

206 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
quotequote all
In some other countries the phone companies share masts, or allow rival companies customers to get the signal from the nearest mast no matter who own it, then have an internal market charging for usage. In the UK each company operates it own mast, hence poor coverage outside of urban areas, or so I was told.

Gixer

4,463 posts

247 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
quotequote all
Ive found the same. I was with 02 a number of years then a few years back they had that outage for a few days and I'm sure they have never been as good since then. In fact I moved to EE. They were better when I first switched but are nearly just as bad now. Meanwhile I still had an 02 SIMM in my iPad and that was hopeless everywhere. Even around London. I found my self having to tether it to my phone as the service on EE was better (which is saying something). The iPad now has a 3 SIMM in it. Not bad tbh and I can use it abroad although friends that have phones on 3 complain of dropped calls etc.

My work phone is just as bad. That's been on 02, Orange and now Gamma that I believe is a provider piggy backing on Vodapone.

The pad always get faster connection when I use a Vodapone payg SIMM in Portugal. In fact it always gives me good connections back in the uk until they cut it off.

Last year I was in the USA in the middle of nowhere a lot of the time and was amazed to see I still had 4g

philmots

4,630 posts

259 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
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O2 isn't much better, try holding a phone call north on the A19 from Thirsk.

One of the major main roads to NE England.. No coverage. Unbelievable.

Lowtimer

4,286 posts

167 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
quotequote all
I do that all the time on 02. Northallerton to Sunderland / Gateshead. Never had a problem.

Chicane-UK

3,861 posts

184 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
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I've been with giffgaff for a year or two now and I have to say I'm astonished at how often I have no signal, or GPRS only even in quite built up areas. I sort of stick with them because they're cheap, and because I get full HSPA signal at home (which, after living out in the sticks for a few years, is still a revelation to me!).

I really should look into trying EE though, as they do seem to have excellent coverage.

irocfan

40,153 posts

189 months

Tuesday 28th October 2014
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on the train between Brentwood and Shenfield is a complete PITA - neither T-mobile (as was) nor Orange seem to work there. IIRC nor does 02... let's not even talk about Vodaphone