Forum Discussion
Londonderry, Northern Ireland - New Account - Vodafone IE & Very Poor Recption
Sorry to hear the signal isn't what you were expecting. Have you checked Smarty's network status checker? It could just be a temporary issue in the area.
The good news is, if things don't improve, you can leave under the 14 day cooling off period and received a partial refund for the month you've paid for. I don't know if you've ported your number into Smarty, but if so, I'd recommend you port it out first, then contact Smarty to arrange the partial refund. That way, there's no chance of them accidentally terminating your service before you've had a chance to port your number out.
I just checked and coincidentally there's a message stating they're 'fixing an issue' time-stamped at 12:45pm. I'll wait and see how things go today and tomorrow.
This seems to be a common issue in the border areas as the Irish transmitters seem to have a stronger signal. Even with O2, I get 'Welcome to Ireland' TXT messages driving along some country roads 6-7 miles from the border.
I did try switching to BT mobile several years ago, but it was that bad (I'm one mile from the cell tower) that I couldn't even make a call from inside the house, or even at the front door. I had to walk to the end of the garden to get a signal.
I just checked the locations of the cell towers, and both O2 and Vodafone are transmitting from the same tower, one mile from me. The O2 is showing 3 bars (inside) and the Smarty is showing 0. The attached image shows all the Vodafone towers in the area, the purple line to the left is the Irish border, and I'm in the area marked in red. The screenshot is from the cellmapper.net site. Over 30 cell towers within five miles, and I'm getting 0 bars. Not looking promising.
So I just did some more digging and found an Android app that shows you what cell tower you're connected to, and the results are ridiculous. In my previous response I provided a screenshot of where I am and where the nearest cell tower is, roughly one mile away, with over 30 towers in a five mile radius.
Where is Smarty connecting to? The attached screenshot shows where. The cell tower is in the top left of the image and I'm in the bottom right. Distance between them is 10, yes 10, miles.
One thing to be aware of is that Three's/Smarty's network status checker updates the 'last updated' time automatically (I think it's every half an hour), presumably to give the impression of progress being made. So don't read too much into that timestamp.
It's not surprising that your phone isn't connecting to any of Vodafone's masts in the UK, as Smarty doesn't have a roaming agreement with Vodafone UK - they have roaming agreements with foreign networks (e.g. Vodafone Ireland) so you can use your phone abroad.
Also be aware that masts shown in red on Cellmapper are ones it's unsure about the location of, so it may not be quite as far away from you as it appears to be.
