UK Mobile ‘phone coverage

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

This gets discussed from time to time here

… so I think this might be of general interest:

https://apple.news/AzGlREioJTI-ZzzkU3hQILA

MichaelG.

[Dod MoleParticipant @georgeclarihew]

Quote :-  ” Rural coverage has long been pretty poor: just 69 per cent of rural areas are covered by all four big mobile network providers, according to telecoms regulator Ofcom. But due to a confluence of different factors, the mobile phone blackspots that have long blighted the countryside are starting to hit cities, too. ”

I have told them that years ago and it ain’t getting any better.

Only last week I was told to use wi-fi cos its better except using wi-fi defeats the whole object of having a MOBILE phone

[Harry WilkesParticipant @harrywilkes58467]

Also it could be your phone my iPhone 11 worked OK on EE down in mid Wales my son in law gave me a newer iPhone 12 5g swoped my sim card out of the iPhone 11 into the iPhone 12 came back to mid Wales and what a pain it is in the same places to get the latter to connect

H

[larry phelan 1Participant @larryphelan1]

And I thought that only happened in this quaint little country !

In my area, I would be better off with a few carrier pigeons.

My “Providers” are keeping the situation under “Review”, might be better if they actually did something about it, but perhaps that,s too much to ask for.  Just pay up and shut up !

The best I could do was to reduce my TOP-UP from 40 Euro,s to 15 Euro,s per month, since the “service” was/is little more than useless.

[VicParticipant @vic]

We get a bad signal in my area on both O2 and Three. I resort to WiFi calling if I need to use a mobile at home.

We’re still getting the irritating letters about a smart meter but I’m not sure it will work where I am. I understand it’s a completely different system but some have suggested they sometimes share the same mast as the mobile phone network.  Anyone know if this is true?

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

When my smart meter was installed the fitter said he had three options. He started with the meter’s internal aerial, next was to add an external one but internal to the house and last resort was to fit an external one wherever needed up on roof if need be. Despite the 2ft thick granite walls the internal one worked. The signal must be better on that side of the house than the living room but it does depend on network.

Just as google traffic uses info from everyone’s phone to plot traffic speed on all roads the mobile companies have millions of phones contacting them every few seconds with a signal report. Therefore they have detailed an accurate maps of the signal in every valley and hill however remote. They can see if there is a temporary outage of a local repeater within seconds. They also monitor the number of people going into and out of a ‘black spot’ to determine the priority of putting in another repeater to fill the gap.

Big brother can’t be bothered but the phone companies can tell when you are having a party as they can see the sudden increase in a number of phones in a small area on a Saturday night. Same applies if you give your mates your wifi password – suddenly lots of Facebook requests your phone is making in the background for ‘news’ are all coming from the same IP address.

[Vic]

On Vic Said:

We get a bad signal in my area on both O2 and Three. I resort to WiFi calling if I need to use a mobile at home.

We’re still getting the irritating letters about a smart meter but I’m not sure it will work where I am. I understand it’s a completely different system but some have suggested they sometimes share the same mast as the mobile phone network.  Anyone know if this is true?

I have effectively zero mobile network coverage … The SmartMeter display shows -99db [possibly because it only has two digits], and cannot therefore communicate via that ‘channel’ … but it somehow manages by using a MESH connection.

I still don’t understand the details, but my meter ‘hitches a ride’ on another dedicated system, by communicating with a nearby meter.

[if it’s of any relevance, my Supplier is Octopus]

MichaelG.

[Michael Gilligan]

On 16 August 2024 at 11:03 Michael Gilligan Said:

This gets discussed from time to time here

… so I think this might be of general interest:

https://apple.news/AzGlREioJTI-ZzzkU3hQILA

MichaelG.

I gave up … kept getting an overlaying screen on that site which I had no way of cancelling without buying something.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Apologies, Peter … I simply tried to share a page from Apple News

It should be an article in the i  … but having tried it myself, just now, I see exactly what you mean.

It looks like they have launched some new, and very intrusive, subscription campaign. … I AM NOT IMPRESSED, but did manage to grab this shot for reference:

MichaelG.

.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

This may not work

I have just “Reset my Identifier” for the News App, and I can now access that article again via my History

https://apple.news/AzGlREioJTI-ZzzkU3hQILA

You, however, may still see all the fly-posting !

… I don’t know

This all seems very un-Apple-ish

🙁

MichaelG.

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Now that some banking apps need G4 to confirm transactions, I have been unable to complete said actions whilst at home.

Very annoying

Bob

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

At least twenty five years ago I was working in Uzbekistan. At the time there was no mobile service in my home village in Lincolnshire. However, I was amazed to find that when travelling between Tashkent and Samarkand on an unpaved ‘dual carriageway ‘, which was really like two parallel farm tracks, I had five bars of signal strength on my UK Vodafone. Obviously, this was on the local provider’s network but it amazed me how far in advance this relatively poor country, then only recently released from the Soviet Union, was of the UK.

[Speedy Builder5]

On Speedy Builder5 Said:

Now that some banking apps need G4 to confirm transactions, I have been unable to complete said actions whilst at home.

Very annoying

Bob

4G.  Should work over WiFi?  Barclays app on phone is fine on both.

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

My new Samsung mobile phone uses my cable supplied WiFi at home for updates as the monthly allowance in my contract is 3Gb and I prefer to use it sparingly.

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

“My new Samsung mobile phone uses my cable supplied WiFi at home for updates as the monthly allowance in my contract is 3Gb and I prefer to use it sparingly.”

It’s none of my business what you pay for your mobile contract but 3Gb seems pretty poor as a data allowance. I pay £8.95 per month, SIM only, and get unlimited calls and SMS in the UK and EU plus 30Gb of data per month all of which I hardly scratch the surface. Of course, I had to threaten to leave the provider that I had been with for nearly 30years because it was threatening to put its monthly charge up to nearly £20 for an inferior deal but I couldn’t turn down their revised offer after being so stupid as to pay a higher amount for years. I bought a brand new Galaxy A15 for £99 from a dealer on eBay, for which the provider’s shop wanted over £200, and it transferred everything from my old Alcatel phone when I slipped the SIM in and powered it up. I no longer have any loyalty to any company these days. I saved a massive £432 a year by leaving BT, after being a loyal customer since 1978, and moving to a full-fibre provider which has guaranteed the price for the duration of the contract.

PS. I just checked on the SIM providers website and there is an offer on for 40Gb of data and unlimited UK and EU calls and SMS for £7.95 per month. I have no idea how that compares with other SIM provider’s prices but it seems pretty good to me.

[Author]

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