Mobile Phone Signals on CC Main Sites
With the size of membership of the Caravan Club, would it be possible for the organisation to put pressure on Mobile Phone Networks to get their act together and provide a mobile phone signal on sites? As an example, Ashridge Farm site is on the edge of the very upmarket village of Ashwell, but the site has little or no signal- I have to walk off site onto Station Road to use my mobile phone. How much extra power would it require to extend the coverage from the village to include the caravan site?
My Three Mobile phone works wonderfully at home, in Norwich, where I really don't need to rely on the phone, but when I do, at CC sites all over the country, I am frequently greatly disappointed by lack of coverage. When you consider that a CC site, when full, has a large number of outfits, the vast majority of their occupants will have a mobile phone with them- they are larger than an average village.
Comments
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This summer we had just over a week away on a fantastic rustic site 400 yards from the beach. No mobile signal, no internet access at all in the whole area around the site and the seaside village. It was fantastic enjoying family time, surfing, swimming, coasteering, walking doing stuff without interruption by calls, texts, e-mails. Just what a holiday is for.
The only other time we experienced in communicado was crossing the Atlantic on the QM2.
We did drive to a nearby large town for groceries and caught up on the connected world one day.
If constant telephony connection is required a satellite phone is a good option, rates are comparable to mobiles if you shop around, just don't use it in your caravan as it needs line of sight to the satellite.
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Some sites are network dependent. It would be very useful if the club could state what networks actually work on site and if 2 / 3 / 4G. Yes you can look on the coverage charts but these are often optimistic. You often see a group of CC types wandering round with the wardens on an inspection. Give these some cheap pay as you go phones on the main four networks O2, Vodaphone, 3 and EE and they can report back.
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The club have no control over mobile phone reception and with most sites being in rural areas you are more likely to find the signal weak but that is just the way it is. The site hand book does usually tell you where signals are poor so if it is important to you then I am afraid you just have to avoid those sites.
If there are two of you and a signal is essential then possibly using two different networks might help although even then you will still miss out sometimes.
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I think many people would be pleased to get a decent mobile signal in the areas around where they live and work. Camp sites aren't likely to be high on anyone's list of priorities and the thought of CC having some influence with the network providers made me chuckle.
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I use the 3 network and whilst in general it is OK the places that are usually poor are on sites which don't tend to be in areas of high population therefore not a lot of coverage.
If you use wifi on site you can call via that with 3, something we have done on a couple of sites where mobile signal was poor.
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Margaret and I are both on Virgin and we can get different quality of reception on either phone!!! I did once suggest on here that the Club encourage networks to place mobile repeaters on Club site but I was shot down by some posters because they thought their brains would get roasted if staying on the site!!!
David
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I'm on O2 and I can't remember the last time I was unable to get a signal. In the last few years O2 seem to have improved their network considerably. The only time it failed was at Bolton Abbey which I think is the same for all networks. As has been mentioned, if you have WiFi on site you can make calls via that.
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Freshwater East, Clumber, Longleat, Morvich, Buxton plus of course the one you mention, and that is just the ones with no signal, that we have visited. There have been several others with little or no / intermittent signal. I would agree O2 have improved vastly over the last few years, particularly ther 3 / 4G coverage. However, they still have a long way to go.
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Where we live the only reliable network for signal is Vodaphone , EE is iffy and 02 is non existant so the chance of getting good signals from phone companies in rural areas is not going to happen ,even the govenment have tried to get all the companies to share masts without success ,I find apart from the few sites that are known to have a problem because of their locations Ui can usually get a good signal on Vodafone
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Even when they say they share masts, they clearly don't. O2 make a big thing of sharing masts with vodaphone to increase coverage. Yet when we were at Morvich last May, we had a reasonable Vodaphone signal and non existent O2. That in a fairly remote part of Scotland, the very place they should be sharing masts.
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The real solution is to allow roaming between the service providers but for some reason this is resisted by the service providers yet when on the Continent it is not a problem. Maybe the answer is to have a foreign e.g. a pay as you go Spanish sim card which probably allows roaming in the UK.
peedee
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This has been discussed recently but from memory it was going to be several years before 'they' would introduce it.
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Sharing masts is just that. It's not sharing equipment.
There is a lot to increasing coverage from an existing mast (and equipment), it is not just a case of turning up the wick a bit. Easiest is moving antenna to shift the area covered which would loose coverage somewhere else that will probably be more profitable. Equipment is only capable of handling a defined number of cellphones at the same time, and to handle more means replacing a cabinet full of gear.
And anyway - the problem may well not be anything to do with the cellphone mast and its kit. Some of these modern slim handsets have a vary poor transmit signal, so even if you can see the mast, it may not hear your cellphone. I still use a 1990s phone when in areas with marginal cover as it has a far more capable transmitter although it eats battery power.
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