In reply to a post by wolvesmad:

As you mentioned with your friend, same applies here. All the networks are pretty much rubbish.

Yes, EE had a fantastic opportunity to upgrade both masts and give stunning service, outclassing all the competition - but they chose to turn off all the 'duplicate' masts that a survey team decided (using maps) were not required. No wonder they've lost a lot of customers.

I live almost next door to what was a T-mobile mast, and when I moved in I was on orange, got okay 2G, but then I moved to T-mobile for the MDA Vario smart phone. Since then the mast keeps being upgraded, now its the only 4G mast for 3 in my area!. Just lucky I guess

In reply to both your posts

2100mhz 3G on o2 is still available round here and in most places as there's a lot of people with phones still that don't support 900mhz and I was with Orange as well when the merger happened and the when they decommissioned the orange mast very close to my house which was very good with 8mbps speeds on 3G with Note n7000 I ended up with barely any service as the closest mast for T-Mobile was very good signal but couldn't handle everyone at the same time... I left them and now have outstanding debt with them as I tried everything possible to end it fairly with them but in the end got a very abusive CS representative and the network just didn't want to know even though I contacted there CEO on many occasions and was even then told to stop calling and sending letters.

The debt was then sent around a few debt collectors until it ended up in the hands of GPB solicitors who where then shut down by the SRA, since I've heard nothing.

Sounds like you had the same nightmare I did with T-Mobile but instead took the quick way out. I went to CISAS who then ordered T-Mobile to pay me to leave. By the end of it I saw no money but was out of contract, T-Mobile always had a reason that I owed this that and the other and there was also this charge and that charge even though the CISAS decision meant all charges had to be dropped. In the end I just accepted it, they were such a [censored] bag of a company to deal with I was glad to be free. Did not want to fight anymore as their legal department were even more unprofessional than their CEO office and CS teams.

no wonder 3g/4g is so flaky and short on bandwidth if all they doing is removing masts.

But at least EE are nowhere near as bad as three, three is just plain aweful in every city area I have been in. I think on high density areas, every other person is probabky tethering torrents or something.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

no wonder 3g/4g is so flaky and short on bandwidth if all they doing is removing masts.

Round here 3G/4G isn't flaky or short on bandwidth, your experiences are pretty awful though.

What I think EE did was turn off Orange masts that has 2meg or slower connections, and the cost of upgrading the mast to newer equipment and faster link probably wasn't worth the number of people it covered exclusively. My friend is in a housing estate where over 85% wouldn't have noticed a change in service due to the former T-mobile mast, but his place was just further away. When Orange put the mast in, would have been years ago, 2G only.

I reckon EE need to do more analysis work on the areas where they've turned off masts, but I understand the economic reason for doing so.