Smarty is down

[ShipsCat]

It's been almost 3 weeks now since Smarty went down in Hartlepool with no warning. No mobile data at all. I've used the chat many times, spoken to agents who were of no help, and even made an official complaint which has been ignored. 
They say it's for maintenance but what maintenance takes 3 weeks? I bought a sim for a different provider now, as I don't think Smarty is going to work in this area again.
Apart from no service, I am most disappointed at the lack of customer service. They really couldn't care less about the situation.

[MSF]

@ShipsCat  This is just one area of Hartlepool? I say that because the Network Status checker reports no issues in a number of the postcodes I tried.

Did you wait three days for a response to your complaint?

[ShipsCat]

Use postcode ts24 0ru and you will get the message I get. 
And yes, it's been 5 days since I got the receipt of my complaint. 
Using the web chat I have been told several times that they have no idea when service will resume. That's not very helpful.

[MSF]

@ShipsCat One problem is that the masts belong to Three and not Smarty. We don't know how good Three are with communications to their sub-networks.

I agree that lack of response to a Complaint isn't the greatest.

[ShipsCat]

I know the situation of the masts belonging to 3. However, if they have been doing maintenance for 3 weeks, they must know what work needs to be done, and they are simply not communicating with their customers. We're in limbo, not knowing if or when service will resume. 
There has also been congestion on the mast at that postcode I shared with you for over 4 years. At what point do they decide to increase capacity? Obviously there is a need and demand, but people new to Smarty are not going to know that during working hours and early evening it's virtually impossible to get decent speeds anyway. 
This has been a wake up call as I need to decide if another network would be better, or even ditch MVNOs and pay the extra to someone like Vodafone. A much better and more reliable service might be worth the extra money.