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[braddels]

I'm currently in month 13 of 24 but the service in my area just keeps getting worse week-by-week. When i try to dial out i can get a "call failed" error 2 or 3 times before the call actually connects (both at home on sure signal and out and about). I no longer recieve ANY signal out side of my house once out of range of my sure signal box, meaning my phone is now useless when at work, however when I started the contract last year i would get about 3 bars of 2G so it was fine for calling and texting, but now I can't even make emergency calls. 

This is getting really frustrating now as I am paying £41p/m, (now you've decided to steal 14p a month from me), for a mobile phone which now only works in my home 

Also, when i set up the contract (previously with 3), I was told that I could monitor my useage with the iPhone app, but it went from being 48 hours out of date to 72 hours, which i think is extremely unexceptable and totally pointless, making the service i ocassionaly recieve, even worse

[Andy]

Hi braddels,

Please try the steps in our Network Troubleshooting thread.

If you are still experiencing the issue having completed these steps, post the template with your answers here and I'll have a member of the team get back to you ASAP.

Thanks

Andy

Moderator
eForum Team

[braddels]

Thanks for the respons Andy,

1). Does the issue happen in just one location?

 Happens all over the place, at home, University, whilst travelling

 
2). Does the issue occur if you try your SIM card in a different phone?

 I am unable to check this as I am the only Voda customer in my household and I'm on an iPhone 4 and don't have a microsim adaptor to use in an unlocked handset

 
3). Can you check your coverage here? Please bear in mind that this is only a guideline and can never be 100% accurate, particularly for indoor coverage.

it states i should get good signal "outdoors only" in my village with some areas being being good for indoor use.

it also shows i should have good indoor signal at my university however i have no signal in any room or most of the outside space too.
 
4). Can you check our Faults Board, which contains all the mast issues we’re aware of.

therer is a fault in my area (as of yesterday) but the problem has been on going for a few months now, this is probably just making the siutation worse 

5). Does this issue happen on 2G/3G or both. To check this, you can amend your phone's network settings, our Help Centre contains all the instructions, just select your model of phone and then select "network".

problems occur on both 2g and 3g when attempting to dial out
 
6). What is the full postcode of where the issue occurs (if you’re uncomfortable with this appearing on the forum, then please add it to your profile by clicking “My eForum Settings” on the front page and then selecting “Personal Information”

B504AW - Home

WR26AJ - University
 
7). How far you have to travel to get signal

To get any signal i have to travel about 6 miles, to get a constant signal 10-12 miles depending on which direction I travel in

 8). Do you get any error messages/tones if you’re having problems with calling/texting

Just "call failed" message on screen when calling and "message sending failed" error when texting

Brad

[Lee]

Hi braddels,

Many thanks for having a look at the template and for replying.

I've checked both postcodes and will approach each one in turn.

B50 4AW - This postcode has outdoor only coverage for 2G and almost non-existent coverage for 3G unless you head North but even then the best you can expect is outdoor only. With this in mind I've only checked for 2G issues at the serving site.

The site is referenced 185 and is currently located on the Faults Board. You can subscribe to the thread here and will be notified of any updates via your registered eForum address. Unfortunately I don't have any more information than is posted in the linked thread.

WR2 6AJ - The coverage for this postcode is supposed to be good for both 2G and 3G so I've had a look at both. 3G is supplied by site reference 47126 which isn't even on campus! It's over to the East in Worcester city centre near to the fire station by the river. The site stats look good but then at this time of night there isn't much traffic going through it. Still, there's enough to suggest there's not a problem.

I've had a look at the engineers' logs and there are no open cases right now. I have to admit, you're right on the edge of its reach and if the problems are during the day than you could be suffering from something known as 'cell breathing' which occurs when a site is busy. The site will reduce its area of coverage to cope with any extra demand. The last case on this site was closed in February.

2G is provided by site number 3683 which is just to the Southeast of you towards the hospital. The last case for this site was closed just over a week ago and once again the statistics look fine. 2G sites do not suffer the same 'cell breathing' as 3G so there's no worry on that score.

Tell me; how old is your SIM card? I appreciate you can get signal when you travel but because you're sometimes in marginal areas a new SIM could help. You can pick one up from your local store or we can send one out to you if you would like to reply to my email.

Cheers,

Lee

eForum Team

[braddels]

Hi Lee,

Thanks for your reply.

At WR26AJ I can't get a signal at anytime, wether it be 9am or 3am as i have been around regularly at these times, which is frustrating seeing as i purchased the phone from the Worcester store and speficially asked what the signal was like on campus.

The sim card is only 13 months old as i got it last september when i took out my iPhone contract with you.

If you feel a new sim could help the problem then i shall try that as other friends have margianally better service with you than i do in similar areas. I'll pop into my local store later this afternoon and see if there is a difference or not.

Brad

[braddels]

ok, so the woman in store told me i now have a "different gneration sim card", and what would you know? i still have no signal at uni  

as soon as i took 2 steps outside of the store my signal dropped from full signal to 3 bars too, and that's in the city centre only a couple hundred metres from where the mast apparently is.

[Lee]

Hi braddels,

I'm sorry the SIM change didn't work for you

I've checked both sites again for you....

Site 3683 has three cells to it numbered 1, 2 and 3. You should be connected to cell number 3 when you're on 2G. I can see between 3.15 and 3.30am there were 11 calls handled by the cell out of 12 on the whole site and there were no failures. There are still no cases for this site. There really should be no problems connecting to this site. 

So we can investigate further I've sent you an email. If possible, please could you supply us with an alternative contact number in that email so we can run a cell trace? Please only supply one by reply to that email.

Cheers,

Lee

eForum Team

[braddels]

Thanks Lee, I've replied to your emil with the required details.

I just spoke to quite a rude person within technical help who was trying to inform me of the signal i actually receive based on the coverage checker and wouldn't listen to me. However he has refunded the amount i paid for my sure signal box as he could barely hear my voice over the crackle in the line.

annoyed and frustrated don't come close to how I am feeling right now

[braddels]

Any idea when I'll get another call about this? The 48 trace on my phone started on Wednesday and I emailed with details of where I noticed signal problems and have only had an automatic email response

Cheers,

Brad

[braddels]

I would really appreciate it if somebody could follow up this issue after the last two email i sent regarding the situation only 1 has been answered and it wasn't exactly helpful as i don't think they looked at the case notes/details so weren't aware of the specific problems i am facing. it's been over a week since the "trace" was first active on my phone.

I am free today until 5:30 and tomorrow all day until 5:30