Vodafone deactivates service in CM12 0-- postcode

[Yet another one about Vodafone.  I’d like to point out that I don’t have any particular issue with the network — they’ve been featuring rather a lot here on SMS Text News recently.  This isn’t by design.]

My dad is absolutely seething.

I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to him the other night.  I thought I should go and say hello after I’d finished chatting with mum.  I found dad stood at the master bedroom window.  He was standing on a stool and had the phone handset half out the window. 

He was screaming into the handset: ‘YES ITS A SHIT SIGNAL, SORRY, SAY AGAIN..’

Ahh.  When something doesn’t work, my dad just cannot relax.  Someone had called him and he was trying to give them the landline number. 

In the last 3-4 weeks or so, the Vodafone signal in the ‘CM12 0’ postal area has been non existent.  Not even one bar.  It’s been driving my dad, my brother, my mother, her friends — every Vodafone user I’ve talked to in the area — mad. 

Why?  Well, they’ve deactivated their cell station at the high school down the road.  I can only assume because the school’s concerned about pupil brains being fried.  It’s a bit late now .. the transmitter must have been there for a good ten years or so. 

Since they have deactivated the transmitter, everyone in the area is now being served by the transmitter at the station which is a good few miles away nearer the centre of  town.  Ergo you’re lucky if you get one bar, for a few seconds, when you switch your phone on and force it to poll for signal.  After a few moments, the bars go and you’re left, again, if you’re lucky, with just the basic ‘vodafone’ signal – devoid of bars and thus unable to call.  Well, you can try. 

Not even text messages are going through.

I’d be climbing the walls if it was me.  I enjoy a gorgeous t-mobile signal in the CM12 area.  Orange and o2/three are perfectly fine as well. 

Pretty darn annoying in this day and age. 

Dad’s phoned Vodafone.  They explained the issue and he took away from the conversation the perspective that there’s no solution coming soon — as they need to identify a new location for a mast.

It’s a bind — he doesn’t know whether to swap to o2 or T-mobile… or just put up with it. 

Still, when he’s at home, at least he’s able to focus on getting worked up about the lack of service and avoid being interrupted by work calls and texts.   It’s only when he reaches the station (and enters proper signal range) that an avalanche of texts and voicemails arrive from the night before!