I’m having a bit of a situation.

Warning: this post is quite long-winded, heh.

It’s happened earlier than I never anticipated - 6 months into an upgraded 18 month contract.  My signal was good (much better upstairs though) but it would get tempermental; just one bar of signal.  This wasn’t such a big issue as I’m not constantly on my mobile and only use it at uni. or in my bedroom(s).

However, for the last two months my signal has been limiting or none existent: a text would take an age to send after numerous “unable to send text” messages; wouldn’t be able to call; calls constantly disconnecting, which becomes quite a big issue when you’re ordering by phone.  Note, this is at the old house where I currently stay, the signal in the new house is fine.

My only problem was getting better signal.  Numerous online searching came to nothing but a booster¹ so I called Three to try and resolve the issue, and as I guess they mentioned the possibility of the phone (my HTC) being the issue, to which I replied with Exhibit A: tested sim card on a Blackberry but to no avail.   After a couple of calls back and forth on their end, an engineer looked into it and as promised I received calls back.  In conclusion the signal at the old house was no going to improve…well, it would be but not until the near future.  I was then given a couple of options:

1. Continue with the then-current contract but at a discount – to be fair the deal was great but it would have been pointless if I wasn’t able to use my mobile.
2. Pass on the contract to a friend or relative – who doesn’t own a mobile these days?
3. Go with a reduced deal (less minutes, texts…) – again, would have rendered my phone useless so that wasn’t an option.

I didn’t think there was going to be a chance for me to even consider cancelling the contract, after all I was barely 6 months into it but I decided to enquire about it anyway.  Luckily, they agreed and the cancellation fee wouldn’t cost me a fortune – this includes a very generous discount.   I’ve been reading about people who have receive bad signal but their network providers wouldn’t let them out of the contract – I count myself lucky there.

Now, with my PAC code I have to find a new network and mobile – I would’ve kept the HTC but I have to return it.   Decisions, decisions…

1. I didn’t want to fork money on something, which only had a slim possibilty or solving the problem. [↩]

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