I doubt you'll get far with your battle, but guess you'll possibly get a few quid as people who keep shouting loudly often get something to shut them up.

Not sure why there is all the hysteria about thebennyboy stating he will use the obudsman system - it's there for things like this.

Three wont let it go that far anyway, they know full well it would cost them £300 win or lose so will bung him a discount.

If everyone that had bad service or poor data speeds complained and followed through they;d do something about it. I guess it's not bothering enough people for them to do a capacity upgrade.

As said before there is an old orange 2G tower covering the congested area which hasn't been MBNL'd yet AFAIK. I assume the fact it's still active means it is going to be upgraded at some point. Are EE still decommissioning orange sites or have the ones that are no longer needed already gone?

EDIT: Just had a look on sitefinder and apparently it's an old orange 3G site so maybe that is the problematic site? Three threw their equipment on it without adequate backhaul?

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.2791...7i13312!8i6656


Thank you.

I never said that i will use it, i just said that i'd use it if i had to. In all honestly i don't want a discount, i just want them to sort the issue out. Or at the very least explain what they plan on doing about it. I think they've had amble time to sort out the congestion.

No mobile provider can guarantee service, it's impossible. There is nothing Three have to do here as they haven't broken the terms of the contract.

I'm totally aware of that but there wouldn't be an ombudsman service if everyone was over the moon with their service.

You can't go to the Ombudsmen unless it's been 8 weeks since your complaint was first opened or Three have given you a deadlock letter.

What do you expect them to do exactly?

I think the service was set up for people with issues like serious billing problems, charges billed that they say they aren't responsible for and where the provider won't deal with the issue, or where a home mast has been dead for a long time, weeks / months leaving a customer users with no service at their home and making the contract effectively useless.

I think you have a rather more trivial / ridiculous expectation, and one which the contract you agreed to sets out as an expectation that it will be the case in some areas.

Every single network in the UK has places like this, in fact many would drop down to 2G in some locations leaving you with little or no data service. Complaining about 0.5Mb/s speeds in a place you travel through is ridiculous and you're clearly just playing the system for compensation.

You're clearly just out to argue. Not interested in what you have to say any longer. Just to correct your assumption, no i'm not interested in compo, i just want them to sort this issue out. I did say a discount would be nice until they sort out the issue, hardly "just playing the system for compensation".

I don't know - if this area has been over capacity for going on for a year now, an argument could be made that Three are now wilfully selling a service they know they can't provide in that area.

This isn't a broken bit of kit or a sudden unpredictable spike in usage or a signal blackspot in the highlands - it is a capacity issue that Three know about and state that they have no plans to fix in the near future.

I mean, come on, they say that their network is built for capacity right here.

There's no harm in complaining and pushing for an improvement, but going through the ombudsmen is silly and any claim might be rejected anyway. The contract does aim to protect both parties, and seems quite clear. Nor does the junior party suffer from anything that could be considered unfair.

And even expecting a few quid off is pointless, as it doesn't solve the problem.

The technical posts are basically why I read this forum so yes please!

I'm not going directly to the ombudsman, i am following their complaint procedure. The "social media advisor" even asked if i wanted to complain about it. I am going to give them a chance to sort the problem out, or at least explain how they plan on sorting it out. I'm not the vile human being which Thine Wonk seems to be trying to portray me as.

Virgin Media are doing that in many areas. There are endless threads on their customer forum about terrible speeds, and some users have even gone to Ofcom, the ISPA and even the Ombudsman without success. They don't guarantee a minimum speed so no one is bothered if a 200Mb connections drops to 5Mb at peak time. They appear to be untouchable. Unfortunately I imagine the same will apply to Three and all mobile operators.

No network in the world would be stupid enough to actually do that.

They make no guarantees about where you might get service or what the level of service will be.

It does seem like a long time. I wonder if the congestion is caused by backhaul or if it's something to do with the last itself? If it's a backhaul issue I'm afraid the only thing stopping them resolving it is money.

* Except when there are not enough customers complaining in that area to bother doing something about it

It may just not be a priority, there is loads of investment going into other areas.

Networks do get congested sometimes and there isn't always a cost effective solution for the network. At 0.5Mb/s in 1 area you travel through (not your home area) I just think you're going wayyy over the top with what you said about the ombudsman, I recommended you reading your contract which specifically doesn't promise perfect service in all areas and mentions that congestion can occur in some areas.

You accuse me of making you out to be something, but you were the one that brought it up. Anything I have commented on has been a result of your own posts about this 1 area you go through which only has 0.5 Mb/s data speeds. You also say this isn't your first time and that you did this in your previous contract too in a totally different area.

The social media executive could see that the mast is congested a lot of the time, so they have the data.

And they also haven't started turning new customers away in that area.

So what are they doing? Knowingly selling a service without the ability to supply. Thebennyboy only passes through but what if you lived in the area? It's even worse then.

An all-you-can-eat buffet doesn't give any guarantees about availability of food - but if they only brought out enough rice for each customer to have one grain every hour, I'm sure you would be asking for your money back.

Why would you necessarily stop people from signing up because a mast near them is congested? It's a mobile phone service, you're expected to travel, so performance in home is not treated differently to elsewhere - e.g. the same lack of performance guarantee that applies everywhere else. You could argue that at home you should be using wifi anyway.

It's a rather flimsy case and the best way to tackle it as a customer is to not sign up to a nice long contract if you know there's an ongoing issue, and move if you are out of contract. Find a network that is better for you.

You wouldn't, but you then need to accept people will complain, and rightly so.

You can sometimes get out of your contract if turns out you have no coverage at home, and there's no viable alternative like a femtocell, but for random places it seems unlikely.

But people can and do moan about anything.

Going by that logic, O2/Voda/EE should turn away all customers who sign up for services where there is only 2G coverage. Forget about 0.5mbps congestion, 2G is slower. Obviously that's a bad argument.

I live in a congested area on Three and they've given me a rolling £5 discount on my sim-only contract (I've had this rolling discount for over a year now). They also provided me with a home signal box for free. It's not as bad as it was since they've now 4G'd the area but around peak times it still slows to a crawl from one particular site. At the end of the day, they aren't about to go and lay fibre or do whatever expensive task is required to increase the capacity of the mast based on one customer complaining that it's slow. They will follow their own internal rollout/upgrade plans and unless the site goes down completely it will get upgraded in Three's own time.

All you can do is keep calling Three and harass them until they give you a significant enough discount, failing that, deal with it or leave Three.

I regularly take my kids to school and pick them up again in Ivybridge and half way there my signal goes from 4G (now my mast is on... did I mention it was on now ) to 3G to 2G (if I'm lucky) and then no service. About a quarter mile. They it goes back to 4G from then on.

Now I could complain about this but what would be the point?
I know it's going to get better in a minute (due to the positioning of the masts, 800Mhz, MIP mast going up nearby etc) so I just wait.
if I cost them money by complaining about it that will only slow the process so I'm shooting myself in the foot.
They have 18,000 masts to upgrade (EE), I see no reason why they should come and do mine first. (actually I have a pretty good reason. I've been with them continuously since 1996, spent thousands and am pretty loyal).
Still don't think I should get any special treatment though.

Frankly, the signal dropping to 0.5Mbps would be considered perfectly good anyway and I personally would expect to be laughed at.
It's fine for browsing, Bookface and audio streaming.
I think if I went and complained along the lines of I have calls, texts, and data that works but it's a bit slow, I'd feel a bit of a dick.

It wouldn't do for us all to be the same though and as Jon says there are those who can and will moan about pretty much anything.

I've had just 1G or 2G outside the house for 20 years. No signal indoors for 20 years.
What would complaining have achieved? Nothing.
Luckily I had the foresight to join a network that offers WiFi calling (indoors sorted) and is about to launch 800Mhz at a priority that means I can use it right outside my door.
BAZINGA!!!!

Some sites can't necessarily get upgraded easily or quickly either. There are places where there are battles to get permission to add new sites.

I think some are perhaps missing the part where thebennyboy said his calls were dropping in this area. This is NOT acceptable for any mobile network - this is the most basic feature of the network and they need to be getting it right where they are providing coverage.