Poor signal strength

[Stukrugen]

We both have BT mobile in the same household. Signal for calls and 4G is very poor all over the house, mostly 1 bar, sometimes 2 intermittently. We had to switch to Wi-Fi calling as we could never take a mobile call in the house without going up stairs and pressing our heads to the rear bedroom window. This is not a new thing.

The confusing thing is, both BT and EE coverage checker for my postcode state 'Excellent' all round, yet when I check OFCOM, it clearly shows for EE we are in an 'amber' area with 'some problems' ( 'good' coverage with Vodafone).  We are half a mile away from a mobile mast installed 18 months ago but have no idea if that means we should be getting better from BT / EE or they don't use it etc.  Is it common for providers to report better coverage than it actually is? We recently got Hybrid Connect which struggles to get 1 blue bar anywhere in the house, so is the reason why I am looking in to this more.

[rbz5416]

Coverage checkers are only ever a "best guess" & can be affected my many things in the local environment. You may have a large tree or pylon blocking the mast. Your property may be in a dip or use materials that block/attenuate signal.

Masts are rarely shared so being close to one doesn't necessarily mean it's providing coverage. Have a look at Cellmapper to see your local EE mast. You need to select a provider from the hamburger menu.

[Stukrugen]

Thanks for that. Interesting. Looks like the new Mast, which is 0.4 miles away, is actually an EE mast. It's on an industrial estate which is on higher ground (approx 30m higher) than the area I live in, so we're in a dip, but nothing high in between, just some residential / industrial single / 2 storey buildings.

Looking at the Legend, there are one or two 'squares' along our street, which show dark green, presumably indicates 105-115 dBm. The squares are signal strength recordings?

[rbz5416]

I believe so, generated by users of the app on an Android phone.

Can you see a lot of bright green near that mast? That would indicate it's up & running & you can also look at the EE status checker. Be sure to click on Check Status as otherwise it just defaults to the predicted coverage.