Network

[CaptainJohn]

This has been an ongoing issue for weeks and weeks. The signal has gone from poor to non-existant , there is now no service at all. This has been reported several times by several different people over the past few weeks and nothing has been done. Mast 0290 which covers a large area does not work , Vodafone have admitted this to many people when they have complained ,  many long standing customers of vodafone are getting no service at all in this area around ######ermouth. Please sort this out ASAP , it has dragged on far too long now. Personally I am sick and tired of being treated so badly. I will give this until Wednesday to be sorted and if it is not I will be changing providers as will all my family and friends. we refuse to be treated so badly.

[James]

Hi CaptainJohn,

Welcome to the Vodafone eForum from all of the team.

I’m sorry to see hear that you are having network issues and you feel that you have been treated unfairly.

When it comes to a network issues it is difficult to give any exact time scales for a fix as it does depend on the complexity of the issue.

However I can see that there is currently an issue with the site that you have mentioned and this has been passed over to our engineers for investigation and repairs under reference 2277169.

I have taken a look at the reference for you and can see that the issue at the site has been caused by damage from the local animals that inhabit the surrounding areas for the site.

We are currently waiting for the new parts to be delivered so that we can repair the damaged caused at the site.

I will request for this issue to be added to our faults board so that you can get updates on when the issue is resolved.

James

eForum Team

[CaptainJohn]

Hi James ,

Thanks for that. At long last it seems somebody from Vodafone is actually doing something.

Your Customer Service via the "191" telephone link is very very poor , This needs a huge shake up !. But of course remote call centres in Asia never are any good now are they ?.

No time scale on the repair I see , so we will still be paying for a non-existant service via our monthly fees.

How do we claim compensation for not receiving what we are paying for ?.

Many Thanks for your efforts so far. The moral of this saga is obviously use the Vodafone Twitter and eforum services for problem solving . The Asian call centres are worse than useless !!!

[magicmoonbeams]

James,

I am another Vodafone user in Cumbria who is extremely dissatisfied with the service (or rather lack of it) that we are getting from the company. I have had no signal at home (or anywhere near) for the best part of a week now. This not only means that I am paying for a service that is not being provided (a situation for which I seem to recall there is a legal term which is apposite) but in addition am having to incur additional costs using my land line to phone folk. That situation in itself would be unacceptable. What makes the matter even worse is:

a) Vodafone's inability to give any indication of when this situation will be resolved - are we looking at days? weeks? months?

b) The fact that it has actually proved very difficult to get any accurate information from Vodafone about what is going on. I emailed your customer support asking what the probelm was and when it would be resolved. The person who replied (not, incidentally within the advertised 24 hours) did not answer the question but wrote a lot of irrelevant stuff about hard re-setting my phone. They had clearly looked at your (currently inaccurate) coverage map and decided I had a signal when I had clearly told them I hadn't. Most unsatisfactory.

My current contract expires fairly soon - after such bad service I do not currently plan to continue with Vodafone.

[James]

Hi Guys,

CaptainJohn,

Many thanks for you kind words about the eForum and web Relations team.

We are a very small team working together to manage all of the eForum, twitter, Facebook and also some external forums and we do our best to help all of our customers as much as possible so it is definitely good to see that our hard work doesn’t go unnoticed.

In regards to this issue, I can see that it has now been added to our faults board and as you can see, there are a few issues in that area and we are doing our best to have full service restored as soon as possible.

Magicmoonbeams, 

Welcome to the Vodafone eForum from all of the team.

I’m sorry to see that you feel that the service has been unsatisfactory however as posted above, the time it takes to repair a fault can very from hours to weeks depending on what the issue is, getting access to the site, and also the availability of spares.

With issues such as these they will normally be repaired within 7-10 days however this is not a timescale that I can guarantee as it is the engineers doing the repairs and not myself.

Unfortunately the only thing that I can say would be to keep an eye on the faults board as linked above for any updates when we have them.

Everyone,

In regards to any compensation, as per our terms and conditions Vodafone do not offer compensation for cost incurred or loss of business whilst there is a network issue however if the network has been out for a number of days then we will normally be able to look at a credit for the cost of your line rental for the time that you have been without signal once the fault has been resolved.

Also, as we are a mobile network, it is impossible for us or any other network to maintain coverage in all areas of the country all of the time due to circumstances beyond our control however, we will always aim to have any issues resolved as soon as possible.

In the meantime and also looking forward, we now offer the option of a Vodafone sure signal which can be purchased via our online store and as it doesn’t use the local sites it will give you full 3G coverage at home through your home broadband connection even if there is a network fault in your area.

James

eForum Team

If you have any comments on how I have handled your query today, please complete our short customer feedback survey.

[CaptainJohn]

It seems things are getting Worse.

From the faults board there are now four masts logged as being down :

39754 , 290 , 4528 and 00472.

These masts cover a huge area of CA12 , CA13 and CA15. WHAT IS GOING ON ?.

A large area of Cumbria and a vast number of customers are getting no service. Surely this is now a serious matter that merits immediate attention ?.

You also cannot be serious when you suggest people should purchase a "sure signal" booster to get a mobile phone reception. This is the 21st century for gods sake. If you are not providing the service people are paying for you are in breach of your contract. People are already giving you money for nothing , why should they pay any more ?. Not many people in Cumbria in rural areas can get broadband anyway , and many rely on their mobile phones for many vital reasons.

Please sort this ASAP. This matter is rapidly escalating into a major event.

Keep up the good work James.

[magicmoonbeams]

James,

Just to be clear that your efforts are very much appreciated - you're the only person at Vodafone who is supplying any useful information at all.

However, it does seem that there is currently some sort of broader problem in Cumbria. The comment about C12 also being affected doesn't surprise me - that postcode covers Keswick and I noticed when I was there on both Friday and Sunday of last week that there was no Voadafone signal over most of the town - including places where I know that there has normally been a signal in the past. It does rather look like there is some sort of systemic problem in this area that needs urgent attention.

[mrscroggy]

I first spoke to a chap from vodafone over 2 weeks ago when i lost my signal for one & half days, I asked if there might be a problem with mast,He said he would find & contact me to let me know, he did call me back but i wasnt home in time to take the call. My phone was back working the next morning so I didn't  call vodafone back assumed everything fixed.

I phoned vodafone again on Tuesday 13th sept, as have had no signal in my house( I live in Cockermouth) or anywhere else for that matter since 5th September. was told moota mast & the mast at Lorton were down,but were being fixed as we spoke, found that a bit surprising considereing it was wet & windy couldn't think the guys would be at the mast on moota in that weather.

The lorton signal has always been crap & now there no signal at all now maybe mast has never worked properly.

Why isn't there a mast in Cockermouth?  Lorton is 4 miles away, moota again 4 miles keswick 12,

The first time my signal went it wasn't just Cockermouth, signal was up & down in Workington, aswell.

I need my phone to be working,at all times. It no good people trying to contact me on my landline in emergency if i'm not at home is is normally the case.

YOU REALLY NEED TO GET THIS SORTED SOON.

You state you don't compensate,vodafone bills  but i am going to get hefty bill from Bt for my landline what about compensation for that

calls were free on my vodafone contract, hence why i use it for landline calls & never called a mobile from landline  but am having to now.

I have posted this here as won't let me post on the cockermouth posts , Andy obviously doesn't want to have to respond to any comment posted

[Lee]

Hi folks,

Many thanks for your continued posts about the signal in Cumbria. I really appreciate how frustrating this is for you.

Unfortunately there is no further information at this time about the affected sites. I have checked our incident management report and there is nothing to suggest these individual sites are part of a wider network outage in the North of England or even Cumbria.

@mrscroggy - The Cockermouth posts are in the Faults Board which is a notice board and not a discussion board. All threads on this board are closed to new replies so you can rest assured there's nothing fishy going on.

Cheers,

Lee

eForum Team

[simonx]

Come on vodafone, you need to get your game together!!

We have been completely without a signal for over a week and your faults board is still showing no date for resolution. That cannot be true - or if it is then we really should be advised to subscribe to a network that will actually provide a service. Our household has five phones on contract with you and they're all useless most of the time just now.

Please put some real information on your faults board and make it clear to your customers what you are doing to resolve the problems we are experiencing.

The BBC's recent survey on network coverage showed that Orange and 3 provide better coverage than you in this area - don't add poor customer response to the reasons for us to look elsewhere.

[CaptainJohn]

So another nine days have passed and nobody has done anything at all , WHY ?.

I travelled from Manchester the other day and Vodafone has an excellent signal until you reach Keswick on the A66 , then it dies. All the way along the A66 to Cockermouth and to my home address (20 miles almost) there is no Vodafone signal at all. In this day and age this is totally unacceptable . What happens to a Vodafone customer if they break down on this the major road in to and out of West Cumbria ?. They are stranded and placed in Danger by a company who simply do not care , thats what happens. And , God forbid , what if we have another major RTC or some tourists injured on the fells who need urgent assistance and they are Vodafone customers ?. Unfortunately those unfortunate souls lives are in danger because Vodafone don`t care . Will it take a serious incident to get Vodafone to do anything at all ?. Because in a remote rural county like cumbria that is the reality every day.

I live in a remote area and for safety require a mobile phone THAT WORKS at all times , so I have had to purchase an Orange SIM card because my provider Vodafone couldn`t care less about me. With Orange I have full 3G everywhere. I have been with Vodafone for years as have my friends and family and still we are treated like dirt. Vodafone are too big to care it seems , they are quite happy to do nothing and put peoples lives at risk.

I have contacted my MP and will also be taking further action , because Vodafone won`t !. It is criminal to leave so many people in such an unacceptable position for so many weeks . It is shocking that the people of West Cumbria are being victimised and treated as second class citizens by such a large company as vodafone. It is discrimination by post code it seems .

[Dave]

Hi CaptainJohn,

There is certainly no discrimination or deliberate attempt to ignore the issues with the area. As the faults board shows, the engineers are aware of the issues there and are working to get these resolved.

As mentioned in the terms and conditions, it is impossible due to the nature of the technology to guarantee service at all times in all locations due to the number of things which can affect signal. Our aim is to minimise the time that any such disruptions do take.

That said, there are factors that can extend the time it takes to resolve a fault. There are times when the parts required need to be ordered, there are issues accessing the cellsite, especially if it is located on private land when we need the landowner's permission, or when physical damage to the site itself, such as flooding or structural damage, have to be addressed before work can begin. I don't have information regarding the reason for the delay in these cases, but it may be that something like this has delayed the completion of the work.

In rural areas, the cellsites generally tend to be fewer, and it is not common for the masts to connect through each other in a chain back to the point where they connect to the network itself. Looking at this issue, it's possible that one of the sites that are down is one of those up the chain from some or all of the others affected, which means that the issue affecting it prevents the others from connecting to the network even though they themselves function normally. It also means that larger areas are affected when a small number of cells go down as there are no others to take up the local service, which explains the situation you described on your drive.

With regards to any major issues which may occur, there is an agreement in place at all times that emergency calls from any mobile will be able to use whatever signal is available, so even if there is only one network providing coverage in an area, your mobile phone will always be able to use this no matter who the signal provider is. This is designed to ensure the best coverage for emergency calls that can be provided.

I do appreciate that this is taking longer than is ideal to resolve this, but please rest assured that our engineers are aware and are working to get this sorted. As soon as we have any news we will update the faults board to advise - I can see that we have received notification today that the site issue affecting CA13 has been resolved.

Dave

eForum Team

[CaptainJohn]

You made the local press today :

http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/hungry-cows-cause-misery-for-mobile-phone-users-in-west-cumbria-1....

And today a very weak signal has at long last returned , not as good as it once was , but it will have to do until the problem is fixed properly. I believe in Cockermouth the reception is better in places as well , but still nowhere near good enough or as it was.

Many thanks for at least making some limited progress.

Hopefully things will get fixed entirely soon.

[Jenmarcus]

I have simply had enough of all of this. Have tried phoning on numerous occasions only to have the phone put down on me after 30 mins of waiting aaarrrgghhh. What can we do please somebody help. I have no signal along with hundreds of other people! I am paying £40 per month for nothing at the moment and i can't even speak to somebody about it. I really am angry. A massive company and it is almost impossible to get a response. I have sent numerous emails to be told there is no issue and no we won't be getting a refund at the very least this is what i would expext is a refund and then some. I have been with dvodafone for years. As soon as my contract is up i am done with vodafone purely and simply because of the customer service aspect.

I have no other option than to put a complaint in writing with a copy to the CEO and to the ombussman. I would like my money back and a new provider. This is simply not good enough vodafone.

[Lee]

Hi there Jenmarcus,

Many thanks for voicing your concerns. Your feedback is important to us.

I am truly sorry you've experienced poor network coverage recently and rest assured our engineers are working as hard as they can to rectify the local issues.

Once the fault is fixed then we'll be able to discuss a gesture of good will credit.

Cheers,

Lee

eForum Team

[CaptainJohn]

So here we are three weeks on and still no major improvement !.

What is going on ?. The signal still comes and goes and is at most two bars and weak and erratic .

When will this be fixed ?. Its over a month now and nothing has been done , this is simply not good enough.

This is the 21st Century , if you can`t fix and maintain the technology there is something seriously wrong with your company.

I suppose as long as people keep paying the monthly direct debit nobody at vodafone really cares , that is what the evidence is clearly saying anyway.

[Lee]

Hi there CaptainJohn,

Thanks for your thoughts; they're really important to us.

I've flagged this up with an engineer. I'm unable to provide you with a timescale as to when this will be fixed, I'm afraid.

As soon as I have any more information I'll be able to update the thread.

Cheers,

Lee

eForum Team

[CaptainJohn]

A month has now passed since my initial post and over six weeks since the problems with Vodafone reception began .

What has been achieved = NOTHING !. The only thing Vodafone has done is continue to take my money for no service.

We still only get ten minutes signal every hour , it comes and goes like a yo-yo.

Thanks for nothing Vodafone , your customer service is appalling .

I feel sorry for your poor employees because if you treat them with the same contempt and lack of care and support as your customers it must be a god awful company to work for.

Thats it for me , my partner , her business and my friends , collectively we are leaving . So when all the contracts expire by February 2012 thats around 250 accounts you have lost. Great work Vodafone. Your company is a disgrace.

[Trev]

Hi all.

The site 0290 at Moota Hill (CA13 0QD) is all up and running, and has been for a few days.

I've just checked the site out, and it's taking a good flow of traffic for both calls and data, in fact 160 calls were successfully made through this site in the last 30 minutes.

I also checked the other sites in this area, and again there are no issues with a good traffic flow.

If you haven't already I'd certainly suggest you pull your battery and restart your handset to see if it updates and your service returns. You can check to see the time your handset updated on the network by typing *#105# on your keypad.

Regards

Trev