Hi ​@TerryA.

Thank you for your post. We’re really sorry your experience in Edinburgh on 21 August didn’t match what our coverage checker showed, having little or no usable signal for several hours, especially at the Fringe, is frustrating and disruptive.

To help us investigate this properly, could you please share the postcode(s) or specific areas in Edinburgh where you experienced the issues?

That will allow us to check local network performance and any congestion or temporary faults at those locations.

In the meantime, please could you try the following steps to help restore your connectivity:

• Restart your device to refresh your connection to the network.
• Turn Airplane Mode on for around 30 seconds, then turn it off again.
• Check that your mobile data is switched on (if you’re experiencing data issues).
• Remove your SIM card, gently wipe it with a clean, dry cloth, reinsert it, and restart your device.
• Check that your device software is fully up to date.
• Reset your network settings to refresh your device’s connection to the network.

Once you’ve tried these, please let us know how you get on and share the postcode details.

Thanks,

Marquerita

The iD Mobile Team

Thank you for responding, but I’m not sure the suggested troubleshooting addresses the issue I raised.

As I mentioned in my original post, I was attending the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I was therefore moving around Edinburgh rather than experiencing a problem at one particular postcode. The poor connectivity persisted across the city over approximately six and a half hours, so this was not a problem confined to one location.

I also mentioned that I restarted my phone repeatedly at the time, without success.

I was also travelling with two other people who use a different mobile provider. Both had excellent service throughout, while I was struggling to get a usable connection. Indeed, their experience compared with mine was sufficiently different that I am now seriously considering switching to their provider.

More importantly, I am no longer in Edinburgh — I returned home three days ago and my phone is working normally here. Restarting it, removing the SIM, resetting network settings and carrying out the other suggested troubleshooting steps now would therefore seem unlikely to establish what was happening on the network in Edinburgh on 21 August.

The issue I raised was not simply that my phone wasn’t working. It was the discrepancy between what your systems were reporting and the service I was actually experiencing. Both your coverage checker and service-status information indicated excellent service, yet for much of the period between 13:00 and 19:30 my mobile data was effectively unusable as I moved around Edinburgh.

Given the very large number of people in the city for the Fringe, could this have been a network capacity or congestion issue rather than a coverage issue? If so, that raises the further question of why the service-status information continued to report excellent service when the network was, in practical terms, unusable.

What I would therefore appreciate is an investigation into what was happening with iD Mobile’s network in Edinburgh during that period and why your customer-facing systems did not reflect the service I was actually receiving. That would address the substance of my original question far more meaningfully than troubleshooting my handset three days later, when it is now working normally elsewhere.

Hi ​@TerryA.

Thank you for such a detailed explanation, and we're sorry for the frustration this has caused, particularly given the discrepancy between what our systems reported and the service you actually experienced.

While we understand you were moving around the city rather than staying in one spot, could you please share a postcode or two for the areas where you experienced the worst connectivity?

This will help us investigate whether there were any capacity or network issues in that area on the 21st of August.

Thanks,

Marquerita

The iD Mobile Team

Thank you, Marquerita. I appreciate the response but I don't think I can take this much further.

I was a visitor to Edinburgh, moving around the city for more than six hours while attending the Fringe. Several days later, I am not prepared to try to reconstruct my movements and research the postcodes of the various places I happened to be when my service was unusable.

I also think that risks missing the wider point. This wasn't an isolated loss of service at one particular location. My experience was of persistently poor or unusable connectivity as I moved around Edinburgh.

I should also correct one detail from my previous post. I was travelling with two other people using different mobile providers. One had uninterrupted service throughout, while the other experienced connectivity problems very similar to mine. That suggests the conditions in Edinburgh were not preventing mobile service generally — at least one network was able to provide reliable service despite the exceptionally high demand.

What this exchange seems to highlight is a limitation in the way iD Mobile identifies and investigates network problems. Your customer-facing systems were reporting excellent service, apparently nothing was being flagged as wrong, and yet my real-world experience over several hours was markedly different. Now, retrospectively, the only apparent way of investigating that discrepancy is for the customer to provide individual postcodes.

If your systems are unable to identify wider capacity or congestion problems without customers first pinpointing individual locations, then perhaps that is something worth feeding back internally. “Excellent coverage” and “excellent service” are not necessarily the same thing and from a customer's perspective it is the latter that matters.

I think I have provided as much useful information as I reasonably can. I will leave it with iD Mobile to decide whether my experience warrants further investigation or whether the limitations of the current monitoring and reporting systems are themselves something that should be reviewed.

Hi ​@TerryA,

Thanks for taking the time to come back and explain the situation in more detail.

I'm genuinely sorry that your experience in Edinburgh was so poor. I can completely understand why it's frustrating to be told that coverage appears excellent when your actual experience was the opposite for most of the day.

You've made a fair point here. From a customer's perspective, what matters is whether the service works when you need it, not what a coverage checker says should happen. I can appreciate why being asked to provide individual postcodes several days later isn't particularly practical when you were moving around the city as a visitor.

While we can't guarantee coverage or performance in every location, factors such as network demand, nearby buildings, local weather and the distance from the nearest mast can all affect the service you receive at any given moment. Large events, such as the Edinburgh Fringe, can also put significantly more demand on local networks than usual.

That said, I'm sorry that your experience didn't match your expectations, especially when one of your travelling companions was able to use their service without any issues throughout the day.

Unfortunately, because the problem isn't happening now, we're quite limited in what we can investigate or troubleshoot retrospectively. If you do experience anything similar again in the future, please get in touch while it's happening and we'll be happy to look into it further.

In the meantime, thank you for sharing your feedback so constructively. I can certainly understand the point you're making, and I'm sorry that your visit was affected by the issues you experienced.

Regards,

Gemma M

The iD Mobile Social Media Team