County-wide anger at mobile signal problems

Mobile phone giant EE today insisted full coverage had been restored to remote areas of Shropshire - after being forced to apologise to customers for poor service.

Officials said a new mast had been installed in the Bishop's Castle area, and added poor signal in the south of the county had been caused by the removal of an old mast which had been mistakenly deemed surplus to requirements.

It comes after Shropshire Star readers across the county - including urban areas such as Shrewsbury and Telford - came forward with their tales of poor signal provided by EE.

The issue was taken to the industry regulator by councillors in Bishop's Castle, Clun, Chirbury and Worthen, after multiple residents claimed there had been a marked drop in mobile coverage over the last year, and EE was not responding to complaints.

EE was asked to apologise to customers in the area by CISAS, an arbitrator appointed by Ofcom, as it found the firm's lack of response to complaints about poor coverage was "in breach of its duty of customer care".

An EE spokesman said: "We sincerely apologise to customers that have been affected by signal issues in Bishops Castle.

"We removed an old Orange mast that appeared to be providing duplicate coverage in the area.

"Since a small number of customers reported being affected by this we have reinstated the mast, and full coverage has been restored."

In response to issues being raised elsewhere across the county, the spokesman said there was a technical fault affecting 2G coverage in north Shropshire that was fixed on August, and full service had now been restored, with a "good level" showing on the mast.

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In the Shrewsbury and Telford areas there was also a good level of service showing on the mast, he said.

Despite such complaints, EE was named number one mobile network in the UK for the second year running this month, with a study by industry analyst RootMetrics finding the firm was top for overall network performance and joint number one for network reliability.

EE has also announced it is investing more than £275 million this year in upgrading 2G equipment, increasing capacity on 3G sites, and improving coverage in rural areas by bringing 4G to 3.5 million additional people across more than 2,500 villages and small towns.

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