I, like a lot of my colleagues in the UK, use T-Mobile as my mobile phone carrier. Partly due to the superb 3G data tariffs that they provide, (I commute, so being able to connect and check email, get stuff done etc via my mobile carrier is important).
However the other day I was trying to phone a client and my phone just kept disconnecting – literally the moment it actually made the connection – this continued on and off for the entire day. I initially thought it was one of the apps on my phone getting a bit too clever for itself and taking out the connection. Further investigation though discounted this. So at that point it was time to call T-Mobile Business support…
Long conversation short, it seems that T-Mobile are doing work on providing improved levels of 3G coverage over a greater area of the UK. The knock on is that you will likely get random disconnects when trying to make calls if you have 3G active.
The way around this is to turn off the 3G and just use GSM. To do this go to Tools > Settings > Phone > Network > Network mode and select GSM as opposed to Dual mode. Now that sorts out the connection drops, but the real kicker in this saga is the fact that they are doing this work all over their network for at least 2 months and Business support couldn’t confirm where exactly they were doing it (well obviously it is where I am at the moment). So no real solution, more of a work around while this goes on.
The Business support bod then went on to assure me that 3G wasn’t that important “…as it is only used for video calls…”. Yeah right – Data, hello!
If it continues I’ll be resorting to a good old letter of complaint.
I wonder if this is something to do with the tmobile and 3 UK network merge going ahead. I had some really weird call issues a couple of days ago, on their plain 2G network…
@Fred, it wouldn’t surprise me. The aspect of this that really gets me is that I didn’t receive notification or notice on their site that there was going to be this level of disruption to the service as a whole. All I can hope for is that it only lasts a few days and normal service is resumed where I am quickly.
I haven’t tested it in London yet (I’ll do that on Monday)
I have exactly the same problem in Holland at this moment! Also with T-Mobile, no-speed-at-al since 4 months.
*because of an update