Londonderry, Northern Ireland - New Account - Vodafone IE & Very Poor Recption

[steamship]

Just got my new SIM and activated it. Got the relevant emails and TXT messages confirming it, and have the operator name at the top of the screen on the phone. Extremely disappointed to say the least. Before I signed up, I checked the map for coverage and according to it, I can get great coverage, with the surrounding area saturated for coverage.

The signal on my phone says otherwise. This is what I'm getting sitting in my living room. If I go outside, I'm still only getting two bars. Also, as a result of being about 5 miles from the border, the phone is picking up Vodafone IE, and I keep getting messages about my roaming status.

Is there anyone else in the border areas of Northern Ireland that is having the same issues, as I may just revert back to my previous provider again, and accept my losses here. 

[SmartyTrousers]

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.

[steamship]

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.

[steamship]

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.

[SmartyTrousers]

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.

[steamship]

Thanks for clarifying some things there. I just wasn't thinking straight earlier. When I saw 'Vodafone IE', I totally forgot that Smarty use the '3' network in the UK, and that's why I mentioned about O2 and Vodafone using the same towers. However, the attached image shows the '3' cell towers in my area, and although there isn't as many, there are still almost 20 in a 5 mile radius, and it isn't using any of them.

In my previous image of the cell tower that it is connecting to (in the top left of the image), you'll also see a 'green' tower in the mid-left of the image. That is Vodafone IE and is definitely six miles away, so there are over 20 towers (both 3 and Vodafone IE) in a 6 mile radius that it won't connect to. 

I've even restarted the phone in typical Microsoft fashion to see if that helped... it hasn't!

[SmartyTrousers]

Yes, it is strange that it's not connecting to any of Three's masts that are clearly closer to you. Don't get me wrong, there can be circumstances where obstructions between you and a mast, and/or the frequency bands in use on a mast, mean that your phone doesn't necessarily connect to the nearest mast. But I think it'd be highly unusual for none of those Three masts to be providing a stronger signal than the Vodafone Ireland ones some miles away.

@JJP2's suggestion sounds like it's worth a try - basically forcing your phone to use only Smarty, rather than it automatically picking the strongest signal out of the networks you're allowed to connect to.

[JJP2]

Try this @steamship :

In an attempt to solve your issue, go into your phone’s settings > connections > mobile networks > network operators  > complete a network scan, select Smarty (It may even be listed as “3 UK” or “Three UK”, which is Smarty’s parent network. )

Make sure “select automatically” is not selected in your connection settings. 

If select automatically is turned on the phone will select the closest network for your connection, in your case the phone is connecting to a roaming network in the Republic of Ireland at least some of the time if I understand your situation correctly. 

Fingers crossed this works 🤞🏻

[steamship]

Many thanks SmartyTrousers and JJP2. Both of you suggested what I'd thought about late last night, but decided I'd try it this morning. Several more screenshots to explain the results. First thing I did was manually select the network. With SMARTY selected, I'm getting the same 0 bars.

Something odd happened, so I had to try and reproduce it, and get screenshots. Here's what happened, with SMARTY now being the selected provider.

At 10:23, it's using tower 11953, and about a minute later it automatically switched to tower 7721. Six minutes later, it switched again, this time to the Vodafone IE one that it was picking up from the start, 140918, the one 10 miles away. In the following image, I'm in the red square, and the two SMARTY (3) towers have the times against them. Tower 140918 is the one in the image from my third post above. I have even got another phone and put the SIM in that, and I'm getting the same 0 bars on that one as well.

[JJP2]

Unfortunately, it looks like the only thing you can do is switch network.

At least with Smarty only offering 30 day ‘contracts’ you are not locked in for a long time.

Its a pity, but I don’t think there is anything else you can do. 

[SmartyTrousers]

As there are plenty of Vodafone UK masts close by, it might be worth @steamship trying Voxi or Lebara. Do note that Voxi doesn't include free EU roaming, though (although it does include roaming in Ireland).

[steamship]

Again, thanks to both of you, but I wish it was that simple.

I got onto a chat session about cancelling the contract (within the 14 grace period), and the 'real' person I was dealing with could not understand that I've had an issue with the SIM since Saturday morning, and is putting it down to 'service interruption' due to my old number being transferred across, which is some time today according to my dashboard.

So tomorrow morning I have to restart the phone, check the service 'quality', and then ask for the contract to be cancelled. I then have to get a PAC issued so I can take the number back again!

[Chalkychap]

You'd probably save yourself a lot of time and hassle by requesting a PAC @steamship - if you don't mind losing the balance of your 30-day plan. 

SMARTY web chat can be hit-and-miss - sometimes you hit the jackpot.
I've often found myself very frustrated by the apparent inability of agents to comprehend what's being requested.

One thing's for sure though, SMARTY shouldn't be creating barriers when making a request to cancel an ORDER, within its cooling-off period. 

🍀

[steamship]

Yes, but the problem is my existing number that I provided the PAC to SMARTY with hasn't been transferred yet, and if I request a PAC now, I assume it will be for the number currently on the SMARTY SIM, which isn't the one I want back. I'm going to have to wait until the transfer goes through and then request it. In terms of balance, I can't use the phone, but no doubt they'll take their share out of the refund.

[Chalkychap]

Yes indeed, best to wait until the PAC submitted to SMARTY has been process in that case.

Does https://mastdata.com have much data on real world coverage at your location? 
Unfortunately, the online checkers offered by the network operators only show the theoretical coverage.

[steamship]

@Chalkychap checked that app and it is very similar to the Android app I already downloaded, with the same information being displayed. As for their website, according to a couple of their tables, my provider has 26 towers within 5 miles and SMARTY ('3') have 25. Signal survey has mine at 'Very Good' for 4G (-96) and has SMARTY ('3') at 'H3G Above Average' for 4G (-104).

[steamship]

Now the 25th and my dashboard says the transfer won't be complete until the end of today, whereas yesterday it said the end of the 24th! I also contacted my previous provider to ask them what I need to do in order to get the number transferred back to them (since I still have a contract with them for another 20+ days), and I was informed that the transfer to SMARTY only started at 7:03am this morning. So frustrating.

[steamship]

Received a TXT at 17:33 to say that the port was successful. Restarted the phone, and it's connecting to the SMARTY ('3') network. It's picking up a tower 3 miles away (behind a hill), but can't pick one 0.75 mile away with no obstructions other than some trees. Signal is hovering between 0 and 1 bar.

[steamship]

Five minutes after posting that last comment, the phone switched over to Vodafone IE again. Reception is still terrible. Had to make a few calls this morning. Sitting in my living room, it tool four attempts to make one call, with the first three being dropped within seconds of being connected. Ended up having to stand in my lawn under a tree away from the rain to make that call, and the others too. The sooner I can switch back to my previous provider, the better.

[SmartyTrousers]

Sorry to hear this.

Are you able to use wi-fi calling in the meantime?

[steamship]

So I finally get back to my previous provider, and I'm still having issues with SMARTY. In the past hour, I've received 5 emails and 5 TXT messages from SMARTY saying that "there's been a technical issue porting your number". I've been on their chat system about it, and they say it's because a PAC number is being requested from my dashboard. I also ask why I'm not getting a refund as I've cancelled within the 14 day grace period. I'm told the 14 days is from when I ordered the SIM, and I told them that I tried to cancel the contract within a week of ordering the SIM via their chat system (chatting to a human being), and was fobbed off with the excuse that I couldn't cancel the contract as I had to wait until the number was transferred across. I was then asked to provide details from the chat session (which thankfully I was able to find), and then got a response stating the chat system was closed for the night! So now I have to start again from scratch tomorrow.

[steamship]

Continuation of the above message. Back onto their chat system waiting for someone to sort this out, which basically means I'm stuck in the house until the mess is dealt with.

In the meantime, I've just discovered that just logging into my dashboard is instigating a PAC request, as literally seconds after logging in, I get an email and a TXT like the 5 yesterday, saying there was a problem porting the number.

[steamship]

And the final post on this debacle. AVOID this company at all costs. They do NOT abide by their 14 day grace period, and use every excuse under the sun. A total of 4.5 hours using their chat system, and it's same old excuses, time and again. Pathetic!

[Natalie_2037612]

Could you please tag me in your webchat? - Natalie 

[steamship]

@Natalie_2037612 sorry, but a bit late to the party. The previous post was to be last post on this debacle. I tried cancelling my contract 3 days after activating the SIM, and well with the 14 day grace period, but SMARTY 'refused' to cancel it. This was despite the fact that for two full days, I couldn't get any sort of decent reception. I even tried two different phones to see if that was the problem. If you read my posts above, you'll see that SMARTY wasn't connecting to any of the 25 cell towers in a 5 mile radius, but was picking up a cell tower 10 miles away. Fine for getting a TXT message, but useless for calls. On the subsequent chat sessions, I was then given the excuse that I was then outside my 14 day grace period. Very convenient for SMARTY then, that they don't have to refund me.

It's not even worth my while registering a complaint with the telecoms Ombudsman, as in order for them to even look at my complaint, I have to register a complaint with SMARTY, and then nag SMARTY for eight weeks, before I can register my complaint with the Ombudsman.

[JJP2]

Pity that you seemed to have had a bad experience, but, it’s not the experience of all of us ! 

Personally, Smarty has been great for me, and many others on this forum.