O2 Network Coverage very poor in North Prestwood
by Mark Wingrove
Around the beginning of December my mobile phone started to drop calls while in the house. I did not think much about it at the time, but it has become a bigger problem since that time, with complete loss of coverage sometimes and missed phone calls. Prior to the beginning of December 2021 I have always had great coverage at home for my mobile phone, it has never been a problem.
What happened
During December I checked my mobile service provider’s website for any issues. I am with GiffGaff who use O2’s network. A message popped up to say that there was some maintenance activity going on at a mast near my location and it would be fixed by January the 7th 2022. It was not fixed, the problems have persisted right up until now (Feb 2022).
I know that it is not just my phone because 4 other mobiles are affected in the house. That is indicative that the cellular coverage for my location has changed. I have not built a Faraday cage around my house, or had any other building work done, so it looks like a transmitter/ receiver problem in the cell I am in. While seeking support from GiffGaff I have been asked if my building has changed.
Ground Hog Day
I seem to be stuck in the movie Ground Hog Day right now. It works like this: You complain to your provider (GiffGaff) they tell you to turn your phone on and off. So you go through all of the standard 1st level fault finding, nothing changes and they say we will flag this as a fault. They flag it on their coverage map to indicate that a fault has been reported in the area. You check 2 days later and they tell you no fault found. So you raise another ticket and we start again. I am on my 4th trip around this cycle now, it has even been flagged by GiffGaff to O2 and O2 reported on their coverage that a problem has been reported, and now it says it is all working. I was due to get a call from an O2 Guru and it never happened. So I am back at square one again.
How do we break the circle?
Over last weekend I placed a comment on the Facebook pages for Prestwood Village Association and Your Prestwood and Great Missenden. It appears I am not the only one, and several other people in the north side of Prestwood (Honor End Lane/ Kiln Road) are also affected. It also appears a few people have complained as well, and as with me, nothing has happened.
Nanfans Farm Antenna
Malcolm Appleby on Facebook pointed out that the coverage map for Prestwood no longer shows the antenna at Nanfans Farm on the maps. However the coverage for the north of Prestwood is still showing as 4 bars and 4G. It used to be, but outside I now get 1/2 bars and 4G and inside often nothing. Here is the print out for the status on the 5th of February for HP16 9HQ (Honor End Lane). The report suggests that I should have full coverage inside and out.
Network Coverage map for Prestwood (North)
Below is a screen shot of the coverage map for Prestwood from The Chequers out towards the Sprinters Sports Centre on Honor End Lane. It shows good coverage and strong signals both inside and outside for all of Prestwood. The 1 marked on the map is the post code HP169HQ.
This map shows the mast serving Prestwood is located along Wycombe Road. (Pale blue balloon shaped marker). If you walk in that area the cellular coverage is quite good, particularly where the common is, to the south and the west towards the mast, but further north it weakens. Along Honor End Lane, and Kiln Road is now quite poor and not representative of this coverage map. Blue shading indicates Good Coverage indoors and out and good for mobile broadband with 4G selected.
What may have happened?
There is or was a cellular site at Nanfans Farm. The aerial is still there, and it is still transmitting but at low power. The O2/ GiffGaff signal gets stronger the nearer you are to the aerial, but power overall is very low. As pointed out by Malcolm Appleby on Facebook the site no longer appears on coverage maps as can be seen above.
If this is the case, then it is quite conceivable that O2 checks their cellular sites and confirms they are all working. Because they are not looking at the one at Nanfans because it is no longer on their map. That may account for why a fault gets raised and then nothing happens.
Are you affected?
This is highly speculative, but if you are on EE, Plusnet Mobile, O2 or GiffGaff, and you live in the yellow shaded area, then your coverage may have dropped from December. I know EE is the same because I thought I would get around the problem by switching to Plusnet Mobile, but it is exactly the same.
The map below is interactive, you can see the allegedly decommissioned tower on the map inside the yellow area. The other mast; the only mast serving Prestwood seems to be located behind the Wren Davis Farm in the fields roughly adjacent to Lodge Lane entrance on the Wycombe Road.
Possibly decommissioned mast at Nanfans Farm on Honor End Lane
The mast is still there, and there is some signal present at this location the closer you get to it, but the power is very low now. It is quite likely that this mast has been removed from the cellular network, that may be the reason why the service is now very poor.
What can we do about this?
I, along with several other people seem to be getting stone walled by the big service providers. This is not a complex problem to resolve. Either the mast is decommissioned, in which case we would like it recommissioned because the cellular coverage map is no longer valid for our area, or it is faulty. I suppose one solution might be to increase the power from the one on Wycombe Road. But the bottom line is our service has been withdrawn. I did not see any notices about it, and I doubt you did either. I am still paying for it. With many of us still working from home it is of greater inconvenience because many of us rely on the cellular network for work and staying in touch with colleagues. It also means if you back up your broadband data with cellular broadband, that will not work now for many people.
If you have been affected since December 2021, please add a comment below. I would like to point GiffGaff to this article and O2. If that does not work I will escalate it to the Ofcom Ombudsman for O2 and GiffGaff. If it is a lot of voices complaining it is more likely to get a result than just one or two. If you would like me to include you in any further communications please send a message to prestwoodmobilephone@wingrove-media.com
Thank you
Mark.
Update: 10/02/2022
Firstly thank you to everyone that has responded to this. I am relieved that it was not just me, but it is frustrating to see so many people complaining and yet not much seems to be happening. One thing has changed, which is a message on the O2 coverage site for our area, where faults are reported. The message, is the wrong message; it is not because of over subscription (we would all have 4 bars of signal if it was over subscription), but it is a step in the right direction. Clearly someone is looking. O2 have agreed to send an engineer out on Monday of this week (info from Chris Huxtable, well done Chris).
What next?
The pattern so far has been typical of large organisations with incumbent customers who are already locked in, an individual denial that there is a problem is difficult to argue with and progress through the layers of support. With currently 21 people commenting on this thread, it is more difficult to deny.
If you are an O2 client and are affected by a poor signal, please complain directly over the phone to them and point them to this address: https://prestwoodva.org.uk/giffgaff/ and then they can see for themselves. Please keep the pressure up and we will get this sorted out, or escalated to Ofcom.
Thank you for supporting this initiative.
Mark
Hello,
Today (18.02.2022 -11am) I’ve managed to reach Emma in the technical team at O2 who has logged a Case (ID INC00000 509 073) which she is passing to the O2 Case Management Team who will make a holistic attempt to get to the bottom of this North Prestwood O2 signal reduction issue since November 19th 2021.
I will be contacted in the next 5 days by the case management team (who are technical I’m told) and I will report back.
Emma tells me she actually wrote the procedure for customer services representatives to follow when users call O2 and that when the staff say that all (signal) is OK we (users) can say no (as always) and that they need to follow the ‘Calling Issue Process’ which means they will log the issue and pass it on to the Technical Team. Worth remembering in case you are given any run-arounds.
Emma is on the Pay as you Go side which knows nothing about the Pay monthly contract side (oh dear !) so she was unaware of signal issues (aren’t they always) and even suggested the coverage was OK (here we go again).
She has taken all my information about the Nanfans farm mast outputting low signal and I provided the address of Nanfans Farm (as she did not have this on the coverage map that we all know is struggling.).
I’m hoping this may have some impact but lets see ..
As always it was excruciating pushing this issue beyond Customer Service representatives, so use the above guidance if you wish to push up and above customer services to technical staff.
We are in Potters Close.
Historically, O2 is the only Network that covers this area effectively.
My wife and I are with Sky who piggy-back on the O2 Network. Last November, calls to and from from the house started dropping out. Sky advised me that maintenance work was being undertaken on the local mast and would be completed by 6th January. This made no difference and neither did new SIMS or switch off/switch on. I was then told that further maintenance work was required and that this would be completed within a few days. Still no improvement.
A similar thing happened several years ago when we were with t-mobile. The signal started dropping out and was caused by the local mast being upgraded for 4G. One of the comments above referred to the rollout of 5G which I feel sure is the cause of the current problem. The t-mobile signal, subsequently EE , never returned.
I have raised a formal complaint with Sky and am waiting to hear. They tried to call me today, but the call wouldn’t connect. Apparently, I cannot phone the complaints team, they have to call me. At least I can find someone to talk to although I am in no doubt that they are being given the runaround by O2.
I got Mum and Dad on Giff Gaff as it was the only one with decent signal in Greenlands Lane. Being elderly, they take their phones on walks now, in case they fall or get into trouble. It’s a real worry.
Several people with problems on Greenlands Lane since November. Three in this house. We have Giffgaff because it was the only descent signal here. But no more.
There’s always Wi-Fi if you have it at home but one time security codes from banks and HMRC are a real pain as they don’t arrive until they have expired!
I live off Perks Lane, south end of Prestwood. I was with GiffGaff for a few years and had an adequate signal although on edge of coverage. Through 2021 the signal deteriorated and became erratic. Sometimes I would get 3 bars but then it would drop to zero. I contacted GiffGaff, changed sim, phone etc to no avial. I became convinced that the erratic signal strength was because with more people working from home the mast was becoming overloaded. I suspect once the nearest mast is full, you are switched to a more distant one so the signals strength goes. The following network message from December 2021 seems to confirm my theory:
O2 Network Update: Meadow Gate, Prestwood, Great Missenden HP16 0JN, UK
Our Network can get busy in this area.
This means your data could be slower than normal. We’re sorry about that. Our team is aware and working to make it better. Our top tips for staying connected would be to find local Wifi hotspots and download whatever content you need whilst connected to Wifi, so you can still enjoy it on the move.
I have changed to VOXI on Vodafone. The signal strength is slightly better but the big difference is it allows wifi calling. When the mobile signal is weak is switches automatically to make calls over my home wifi. This seems to have solved the problem. Sounds like northern Prestwood may have a specific mast problem as well, but the population density relative to masts may also be higher excacerbating any load problem.
We live in Honorwood Close and have suffered the same problem in respect to loss of signal. We are with O2 and when we compained to our provider we were told that O2 were working on a mast in Hyde Heath, which from what we now know was wrong. Nonetheless, after several complaints to O2 they say they had fixed the problem but after we pointed out that we still had no signal we were given new SIM cards but this only made a slight difference.
I live in Honor End Lane. I have logged a fault with O2 on 4 occasions now. The 2nd time they said they had found a problem, by the evening they had “fixed” it – but, no change. The majority of the time I am on emergency calls only or just 1 bar. Outside of the house is not much better. Going for a walk, Honor End Lane did not get much above 1 bar, by the end of Clarendon Road it was on 2, Crossing the Wycombe Road it went up to 3 and beyond 60 Acres I had full signal. Walking the other way it jumped t 3 at the junction of Honor End Lane and Greenlands Land, but dropped to 0 / 1 by the time I had turned into Kiln Road. Along Kiln Road varied between 1 and 2 bars, 2 bars along the Glebe and down the footpath from Chequers Lane to the High Street where I had 3 bars. On crossing the High Street / Wycombe Road into Honor End Lane the signal dropped immediately to 1 bar. I have told O2 this and yet they still say they have checked and there is no problem.
I did request a call from a Guru – waited 4 days before they rang me. They rang 3 times on my mobile (no signal remember!) and left 3 voice mails – on the 3rd they closed the ticket. To be fair, they also rang the house phone, again 3 times, left a message each time and again on the 3rd closed the ticket. All 6 calls were made in the space of less than 1 hour, and I was not in the house at the time. Surely, anyone with a bit of common sense would have spaced the calls out at different times during the day.
We are on Parliament Close and have had awful signal since December. We went to the02 shop in Wycombe to see if we needed to update our sim cards because one of the suggestions from02 was that they may have been out of date for 4G. Their information was that a mast had been vandalised but now fixed. Still no good signal even with new sims. Have complained again
I live on Kiln Rd, alway had great o2 signal at home but since November have been having a shocker! 1bar signal at best and the majority of calls go straight to voicemail. I have to stand out in the garden to speak to people and that’s still unreliable.
Live on Kiln Road, Prestwood and we have lost all signal in the house since end November 2021. I have reported this and have been contacted by O2 who can’t register my problem unless they speak on the phone that has the problem, but with no signal I keep missing their calls!! Ive been told there are no issues in the area. Clearly this is not the case. Can only make/receive calls outside the house. Not very convenient!
Hi – to report the deteriorated O2 mobile (over the last few months) service issues I please use :
https://status.o2.co.uk/
Thanks.
O2 has got worse since about November last year for me.
BT/EE has always been poor especially indoors for my wife.
My wife uses O2 and I use Giffgaff and we live in Clarendon Road Prestwood.whilst we are both still receiving signals and making calls we have both noticed that there is a much weaker signal at 1 on a rating of 1 – 5.
Please if you are effected by this use the O2 network status and make complaint O2 keep telling me they have no other complaints and every thing is running as normal Chris
I have experienced similar problems regarding O2 coverage. I live on the north side of the village and have always had good signal but this started to deteriorate in December. Sometimes I can get a signal but that requires me to go to the bottom of my garden and hold my mobile in the air – not something I want to do on a regular basis particularly at this time of the year. I also registered a complaint on the O2 website and was advised by text (eventually) that the signal was ok.
This continues to be a problem and is more than a little inconvenient. Some online financial transactions require a code to be texted in order to proceed so with no signal this means some important banking activities can not take place. I have also had a lot of missed calls, one of which was from a vulnerable adult who couldn’t get hold of me. As I understand there is the prospect of landline phones being phased out, the mobile signal becomes even more vital.
Hi Mark – as you have seen on FB (also I’ve posted on Nextdoor) I too am affected and another O2 user in my home as well. I even tried a 3rd O2 SIM in a third mobiles device and the same inadequate service to one side of the home and no service to the other. Also since November and with the same notifications as you received from O2 and also with no resolution for a service that ran fine till November 2021 for many years.
I live in Honorwood Close and I get 1 bar signal strength, 2 if I’m lucky. I have issues on mobile calls at times. I’m with Vodafone.
I am a direct O2 customer and my experience is the same as Mark Wingrove. I had perfect coverage for 2 years and then the signal deteriorated to such an extent that at times I am only offered emergency calls only.
After the 6th January “fix” that wasn’t, I wrote to O2 and received a standard “valued customer” letter. The reply was – There is good 4g coverage in your area and have you tried switching your phone on and off. My husband is on O2 and has the same problems. I am now starting my second letter to O2 armed with more information on other customers problems in the area.
I am on EE and always used to get a Good Mobile Phone Signal at home but now signal is very low even missed phone calls as a result.
While chatting to EE/ Plusnet mobile because their coverage is the same as O2/ GiffGaff in Prestwood I was told that there is some rationalisation going on at the moment as service providers plan to add in 5G. Some masts are being taken out. Could not comment about our region though.
Interesting. I’m on GiffGaff and have never had a problem. I gave up on EE as it was useless here – I live in Nairdwood Lane – and O2 has never let me down.
Pam, you are fortunate that you are close to and within range of the Wycombe Rd antenna. The people affected are towards the north end of Prestwood.
Live in Greenlands Lane, signal disappeared Completely at the end of November.
After removing some shielding from my phone’s case I now get a very weal signal which can be erratic.