Full 4G signal but pathetic speeds in Chelmsford city centre

[martin2345uk]

Every time I visit my family in Chelmsford, Essex, I get about 0.4mbps when I'm in the city centre, mainly around the high street, even though the phone shows full 4G signal. It's ok in other areas of the city but always seems bad in the centre!

i even popped into the Vodafone store to ask and the guy was pretty dismissive and said yeah there's been issues with a mast in the area but it's been going on for a year!

Any ideas what could be going on?

[AnnS]

Hi @martin2345uk 

The first thing to do is to work through the network issues on the link below and copy and paste the results back, this will give Vodafone an example of the problem and something to work on. When the issue has been investigated, you will get a reply from Vodafone.

 Network Issues 

[BandOfBrothers]

As this is a city centre your having speed issues in @martin2345uk  I'm thinking it's more of a mast congestion issue due to the numbers of people that will be connecting to the mast cells in that area.

This can affect a persons user experience.

Perhaps try toggling off 4G and see what experiences you have on 3G !

That or it's a fringe coverage area.

As you state things are Ok in other areas this leads me to think your phone , sim card and account is fine.

Hopefully the Network will improve its coverage in that area.

Edit 》 I've had a quick look at a few postcodes in the City Centre using the Vodafone status-checker , and they report back as Ok.

[martin2345uk]

Hi there

Thank you for the reply. I went again to the Vodafone store in the city centre today and this time the guy did tell me yes there are congestion issues and also they are "working" on the mast, though this has been happening on and off for like a year now. 

On 3G it's fine, in fact it's faster than I usually get from Vodafone's 4G network around here!

Worrying thing is I am moving back here next year so I guess I will have to consider moving to a network that doesn't have these issues which is a shame as I quite like Vodafone!

[colinbonney1]

The problems been going on for months now, I keep complaining but no one’s doing anything about it. I live on the edge of Chelmsford city centre. The customer service is really poor, I have 4 phones registered to my account and house, i work from home and can no longer rely on my mobile, no choice but to switch network, been with Vodafone 25 years plus. And the customer service is shocking, all use the same scripts. 

[Mark]

Hey @colinbonney1 I've taken a look at the Chelmsford area on our Network Coverage Checker and I'm unable to locate any issues affecting the whole town. So we can take a closer look into this, pop us the full postcode for the area you're struggling to connect (If you'd prefer not to post this publicly, you can add it to the personal information in your profile. Only you and our moderators will be able to view it) and we'll be able to check this for you.

[colinbonney1]

Mark

I’ve added my postcode details to my profile. 

had a call from technical support yesterday to ask me if I still had an issue (even though there had been no attempt to fix it and still no engineer visit) to which I said that, yes it’s still an issue and to let me know it’s a bank holiday and so they couldn’t do anything else????? Was that Worth interrupting my holiday for?

im forever hopeful but sadly constantly disappointed and as my wife said yesterday, this has to be the last resort. 

I tried the network status checker myself yesterday, but the service was so bad the page wouldn’t load. 

but thanks for trying 

[Mark]

I've taken a look into the network in your area @colinbonney1 and we've no issues at this time, the mast serving you (77762), is working as expected and has experienced no recent outages.

So I can take a closer look into this for you please confirm 👉

- Does the issue happen in just one location? If so, how far do you have to travel to regain service?

- Does the issue occur if you try your SIM card in a different phone?

- What errors are seen or heard when the issue occurs?

- Does this happen on 2G, 3G, 4G or all?

- When did you first notice this issue?

- Is the issue permanent or intermittent? If intermittent, are there certain times of the day when it occurs?

[colinbonney1]

Sorry Mark

missed this response. 

happens from our Home, affects multiple phones (new Iphone 12s). Affects us 95% of the time, we now rely on wifi calling (not the answer). 

Had it both days of this weekend, we really are being forced to move network. 

walk 50 yards in most directions and it works ok, but still don’t get 3 or 4 bars. 

I think I first reported it about 6-8 months ago after an incident at a local mast (COVID cited issue). At the time when I logged it they mentioned that incident along with 5G upgrades, but it’s never been restored. 

No engineer has been out to us. And customer service is shocking. Never received the promised call after the bank holiday. 

regards

colin

[Farai]

Thank you very much for getting back to us with these details @colinbonney1. It sound like the signal your immediate area might be the issue. I'd recommend that you drop our Social Media team a message here and they'll help you get to the bottom of what's going on.