T-Mobile's awful network performance
Living, working and socialising mostly in and around central London, I've long considered that all of the UK mobile network operators would have such good coverage here that there would be little to choose between them in that respect. Instead localised blackspots and the performance of my handsets would be the significant factors in dropped calls or poor reception. Blackspots, I reasoned, were an unavoidable evil, quirks of mast location, geography or a building's characteristics, and handset performance was down to my selection of device.
Since moving my main number to T-Mobile for use with my G1 (after many years with 3) I've suffered terribly with dropped calls, dropped data connections or no connection at all. 3G connections seemed to be the culprit, the problems disappearing if I forced the device into permanent 2G operation. Disappointed I added 'poor radio performance' to the long list of the G1's hardware failings (I still love Android - it's good enough I'm prepared to put up with G1) and got on with things.
Until yesterday.
Yesterday a second Nokia E63 arrived from the good people at WOM World - a loan unit to take to Mobile World Congress where its excellent keyboard will be useful for speedy blogging and twittering. The thing is, I know the E63's radio performance is excellent. I reviewed it at launch on 3 and it shone as, frankly, most Nokias do in this respect.
And so, sadly, the huge number of 'connection errors' and 'zero signal moments' I've experienced since swapping my T-Mobile SIM into the E63 has to be T-Mobile I've concluded... Dropped calls on The Strand, connection errors on the South Bank, failing data connections at Waterloo... all consistently bad between the G1 and the E63. The real kicker is the full-strength 3G signal I get at my desk which gives about a 1 successful connection in 4. The T-Mobile street-checker (predictably) says I have 'very good' 3G coverage - perhaps it's not a signal, but a capacity issue?
EIther way, I can't make calls reliably and people can't call me. Months ago I scoffed at Dan Lane as we sat in the shadow of the Big Ben* and his T-Mobile calls repeatedly refused to connect, but it turns out it's not him it's T-Mobile. Who'd have thought?
Three - I'm sorry and on my way back...
* Actually we weren't in the shadow of Big Ben, which is the bell inside the tower and probably casts little shadow, but you know what I mean...
