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back to article EE: STILL Blighty's best mobe network, says 'Frappucino' Moore

EE is still the best mobile network in the UK, but the others are catching up and Three is the one to watch. This is the conclusion of the latest report from RootMetrics the mobile survey company which regularly looks at UK mobile coverage and is headed by Bill ‘Frappuccino’ Moore. The previous survey descended into a war of …

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  1. Ben Rose
    Megaphone

    Train Reception

    Reception on trains is still awful, on any network. Considering that, versus driving, train passengers are in a much better position to be using mobile data, I'm surprised networks don't pull their fingers out to improve that situation.

    6 0 Reply
    1. ukgnome
      Reply Icon

      Re: Train Reception

      Hasn't Dave PM said he wants 4G masts along the rails so he can keep tabs on the populous or summink?

      1 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Vodafone's decline since their deserved dominant position in the last 10-15 years leaves me speechless. Yes, they were/are the most expensive, but you got what you paid for (best reception). However, they've rested on their laurels, maximised profits with little real investment in their network, and other players have caught up and overtaken. Like most companies nowadays, they need to give less to shareholders, less to the top brass, invest more in their products/services, and stop trying to milk their customers for a little bit more every year.

    7 0 Reply
    1. b166er
      Reply Icon

      As is the same with too many companies to mention who, rather than investing in research and development, would rather line the pockets of their shareholders.

      The whole shareholder thing makes me weep, I understand the need for shareholders, but that does not justify the absolute greed evident in some large corporations.

      I wish it were, that the employees could be the majority shareholders, rather than the top 10% leeching the fuck out of the system for their own ends.

      3 0 Reply
  3. Steve Todd

    If EE falls back to 3G

    Their network performance is less than impressive. Their 4G performance has also fallen back due to the number of users sharing available bandwidth. Definitely not a competitive offering as a whole at the moment.

    6 1 Reply
  4. Caff

    customer service

    Hmm maybe they should weigh their network performance stats against customer service satisifaction stats

    4 0 Reply
    1. jonathanb Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: customer service

      I believe O2 scores best on customer service. At home, 3g is almost the same speed as ADSL, about 7.5Mb/s, but in city centres, it is not nearly so good.

      1 0 Reply
    2. DF118
      Reply Icon

      Re: customer service

      On that measure EE falls flat on its face. I've both written and read many rants about various companies' CS over the years, and they're the sort of thing you usually take with a pinch of salt as they tend to be perhaps a little unrepresentative. EE on the other hand really are nothing short of abysmal. No criticism of their CS performance can be too harsh. Consumer watchdogs, consumer help sites/forums, the lot: they are all reporting a huge rise in the number of complaints against EE/T-Mob/Orange and in my own personal experience (dealing with my partner's Orange account on her behalf after she lost the will to live) they were by a country mile the worst I've ever had the misfortune of interacting with.

      To be fair though I don't think Vodafone is any better right now. I was thumbing through Which? magazine at the dentist recently. It had a "mobile phone service provider" round-up type article. They didn't even bother reviewing either EE or Vodafone and had them lumped together in a special paragraph headed: "ORANGE, VODAFONE, EE AND T-MOBILE AT ROCK BOTTOM - WHY YOU SHOULD CUT OFF THESE FOUR MOBILE PHONE PROVIDERS".

      0 0 Reply
  5. Buzzword

    Twice the network

    It's hardly surprising that EE are best - they have twice the network, since they have both Orange and T-Mobile base stations. Or am I missing something?

    1 0 Reply
    1. Stuart Castle Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Twice the network

      Actually, sure I read somewhere they don't have twice the network. They've been shutting a lot of base stations down.

      6 0 Reply
      1. Neill Mitchell
        Reply Icon

        Re: Twice the network

        Yes, that's exactly what happened to me. After the merge they shut down the Orange tower 2km from my house so now my phone struggles to connect to one 6km away. I get no reception indoors at all and EE couldn't care less.

        3 0 Reply
        1. BongoJoe
          Reply Icon

          Re: Twice the network

          That is exactly my story with Nothing Nowhere. I gave up on them earlier this year.

          The customer services droid promised me that they were going to build a new mast right near me. But that was sales hokum just to get me to sign up for longer.

          I now have the ability to call from my office desk at home with my current carrier.

          4 0 Reply
  6. dogged

    Rootscore

    Sounds like marks out of ten from Sir Les Patterson.

    0 0 Reply
  7. Peter 18

    But EE's customer service remains awful

    That is all.

    10 0 Reply
    1. dotdavid
      Reply Icon

      Re: But EE's customer service remains awful

      Recently left EE for GiffGaff, cos I figured I may as well get a cheap deal if I'm gonna get bad service everywhere.

      When I was asked why I was leaving T-Mobile I told them I wasn't happy with them putting the price of my contract up mid contract, despite OFCOM telling them it was unfair. As far as I'm concerned if I can take a risk that I can afford to be tied into a price for 18 months they can take a risk that they can afford to provide the service for that price for 18 months. The customer service rep and I actually got into an argument as she kept claiming "all" the networks have been told to put their contract prices up every March in line with RPI "because her sheet tells her to tell new customers". I guess the poor woman was confusing "all" networks with "EE-owned" networks.

      GiffGaff's (O2) 3G network seems roughly equivalent to EE's from what I can tell. Quite happy with them so far but at least I can leave when I want now.

      4 0 Reply
    2. MyffyW Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Re: But EE's customer service remains awful

      EE had my dear Mother close to tears when she tried to cancel after 2 dreadful years. She naively visited the EE store, but apparently that's only for snaring you in. After a lengthy (30 minute) conversation with someone offshore and officious she finally escaped.

      It makes me laugh that EE keep coming top - their signal was pretty much nonexistent at my Mother's house, and most any place she needed it. O2 and Vodafone were just fine.

      5 0 Reply
      1. dotdavid
        Reply Icon

        Re: But EE's customer service remains awful

        The last laugh seems to be on EE, as they have added a "notice period charge" of twenty-odd quid to my final bill as I used my PAC without giving them 30 days notice or something. Honestly, they even try to kick you in the teeth when you're trying to escape their abuse...

        0 0 Reply
  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    EE the best?

    I think the phrase we are looking for here is "best of a bad lot".

    7 1 Reply
    1. MJI Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: EE the best?

      Actually the REAL EE was the best, argue against EE Lightning and EE Deltic!

      0 0 Reply
  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmm ...

    Given that Root Metrics shows over 30% of Cheltenham as having no results you really have to question how good their figures are. really any good. OK you could argue that they are equally bad but that isn't the point

    0 1 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hmm ...

      The data collected by RootMetrics themselves isn't shown on their website - the website only contains crowd sourced data. The two data sets are different and it's the former not the latter that Ofcom bought.

      1 0 Reply
  10. Dabooka

    My comment adds little....

    Other than to say I can't believe EE / T-Mobile / Orange / Whoever are top dog. They are truly fucking terrible now and I can't wait to leave in November after 11 (?) years. Something Elsewhere must be in complete denial if they think they're mast shutdowns are not impacting customer access or pissing us off in the process.

    And they seem to have destroyed Orange's previously respected customer service, although that is not from personal experience just close friends

    4 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Something Elsewhere

      They really made a large rod for their own backs with that choice of new moniker. Apparently the bit of the rather lavish launch event where they whipped out the whalesong and jossticks and explained it was a deeply nauseating experience for those unable to speak fluent bollocks.

      Actually El Reg should run a competition for the best derivative. With beer as a prize perhaps...

      1 0 Reply
  11. Suburban Inmate

    giffgaff runs on the O2 network. They are diafuckingbollockal.

    All but non functioning data most of the time. Speeds do occasionally go quite nippy for a minute or two, but only when I am idly titting about rather than doing something important.

    1 2 Reply
  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Never mind the (customer service) quality...

    ... feel the (band) width :)

    http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3515061059

    0 0 Reply
  13. dmck

    Well I was originally with T mobile and it was fine.

    But now with EE in Edinburgh, with 5 bars I can't even ping as it fails latency.

    Sitting in the dentist in Dalkeith with 2 bars I can stream video.

    I don't think the're that good.

    2 0 Reply
    1. <shakes head>
      Reply Icon

      you got to sit down at that dentist, my butt never manged to touch down through the whole visit 15 min from walking in to walking out

      0 0 Reply

  14. This post has been deleted by its author

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The mere fact that EE is Root Metric's customer begs the question of how impartial these tests really are?

    With EE paying Root Metric a hefty sum to get the some shiney reports that no one else gets to see, it would be in Root Metric's interest to move EE to the top of the pile, keep them happy and keep the money following in. Hence why the Rootscore formula is not published.

    EE should learn about customer service from Root Metric, always keep your customer happy!

    1 0 Reply
  16. MJI Silver badge

    English Electric

    EE will always be them to me!

    1 0 Reply
  17. Zmodem

    EE is just another crap telecom that has gone middleclass and can`t handle, and only care for people with no intelligence who can watch youtube movies and chat on facebook 24/7

    EE limit your connection to a 28kb modem and block all uploads, while still being able to watch crap movies and do all the middleclass internet life

    time fior tesci where the middleclass will never go and crap out

    0 0 Reply
    1. Zmodem
      Reply Icon

      EE are no choice for businesses, if your a journalist, construction worker, engineer, the proxy filter will kick in whenever it fills like it whether you have bandwidth or not, and if you want to upload a zip, check the pdf manual, or replay that video for a client, you have a high chance it wont happen for another 2 hours when you stood out in the rain eating your chicken sandwich

      t-mobile was better off on they`re own, and just needing a socks 5 proxy to connect to a FTP server with a desktop client

      0 0 Reply
      1. Zmodem
        Reply Icon

        + all those millions that do car shows in the uk, will probably want a tesco sim in their £800 kenwoods, and dash mounted tablets and notebooks, infinate wifi routers and media nas servers

        0 0 Reply
        1. Zmodem
          Reply Icon

          might aswell finish with one last post

          EE need to fix the filter, limit speeds to 56kb modem so pages dont timeout and you want wait 30 mins to upload a 2mb file or disable downloading massive png files in your browser, and then add bandwidth topup booster packs

          then they might not loose a million custom in a few months time

          0 0 Reply
          1. Zmodem
            Reply Icon

            get all you can eat data on three pay as you go and all the free international data

            http://www.three.co.uk/Store/SIM/Pay_As_You_Go

            EE has started to employ vodafone staff they go down hill forever and all still living in the 1990s

            0 0 Reply

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