EE at Glastonbury 2022

[Respectfatfrog]

Guessing there are no perks if you are already an ee member 

[Suprefan]

They let you even charge your power bank at the EE tent, right? If its kind of iffy with the property lock ups doing the charging thing I would rather be able to do that. The smart move is to take your power bank on thursday and have it fully charged for the rest of the weekend. 

 

in 2017 I had an iphone 8 and a 20k power bank. I used it all up over the 5 days. Now an iphone 11 and will have a 20k and a 10k which might barely get me through the weekend. 

[stuie]

7 hours ago, Respectfatfrog said:

Guessing there are no perks if you are already an ee member 

Full bar 5G!

[NoBuses]

How was Vodafone this year? Thinking about a voxi sim and they use that network

[incident]

18 minutes ago, NoBuses said:

How was Vodafone this year? Thinking about a voxi sim and they use that network

Shit.

[Alvoram]

They do need to think about another network too… Unless you’re on EE it’s hopeless, EE gets full 5g.

BUT as everyone catches on to this, the EE network risks being overloaded! 

I feel like O2 need to get involved, there are a few other networks that piggy back on O2 too (MVNOs.) 

Edited July 27, 2022 by Alvoram

[Mark E. Spliff]

I'm on Three and I found that I had almost zero signal from the moment the public arrived. However, I've also got a Vodafone mifi dongle which had good signal throughout, so I was tethering my phone to that and was able to use WhatsApp for calls and messages. Worked brilliantly, so Vodafone were doing something right, although I never tried the Vodafone network ior calls or SMS - only data.

[Zacko]

Very glad I switched to EE about six months ago. Had better signal all weekend than I do day to day in my flat in (very) central Bristol, was mad! 

[incident]

3 hours ago, Alvoram said:

They do need to think about another network too… Unless you’re on EE it’s hopeless, EE gets full 5g.

BUT as everyone catches on to this, the EE network risks being overloaded! 

I feel like O2 need to get involved, there are a few other networks that piggy back on O2 too (MVNOs.) 

Thing is, all the other networks can still add as much extra capacity as they choose, it doesn't need the Festival to be involved. Vodafone and O2 actually do add capacity - it's just that in the past few years it hasn't been nearly enough. Once upon a time Vodafone used to be mostly fine at Glastonbury but it feels like they haven't scaled up to match peoples (massively) increased data usage over the last decade or so and this year especially they were very poor.

All the networks know how much extra load Glastonbury creates on the local network, so how much capacity they add will be a purely commercial decision - they could choose to meet the demand in full, but have decided it's not worth it. Same applies at other festivals, which are often even more poorly served by the mobile networks.

For me it was a final straw, I'll be on EE or one of their MVNOs well before the next festival.

Edited July 27, 2022 by incident

[gooner1990]

8 hours ago, incident said:

Thing is, all the other networks can still add as much extra capacity as they choose, it doesn't need the Festival to be involved. Vodafone and O2 actually do add capacity - it's just that in the past few years it hasn't been nearly enough. Once upon a time Vodafone used to be mostly fine at Glastonbury but it feels like they haven't scaled up to match peoples (massively) increased data usage over the last decade or so and this year especially they were very poor.

All the networks know how much extra load Glastonbury creates on the local network, so how much capacity they add will be a purely commercial decision - they could choose to meet the demand in full, but have decided it's not worth it. Same applies at other festivals, which are often even more poorly served by the mobile networks.

For me it was a final straw, I'll be on EE or one of their MVNOs well before the next festival.

Its frustrating when you can't call/text someone but if this snippet is to be believed.....this is ridiclous.

If people weren't so hell bent on using social media/apps constantly throughout the festival then everyone would be able to call/text one another with no problem.

[Suprefan]

48 minutes ago, gooner1990 said:

Its frustrating when you can't call/text someone but if this snippet is to be believed.....this is ridiclous.

If people weren't so hell bent on using social media/apps constantly throughout the festival then everyone would be able to call/text one another with no problem.

I thought you lot dont use all that stuff cause youre not superficial like us pretty american influencers.

 

Luckily since I could choose my carrier with my u.s phone I just went onto EE and great reception all weekend apart from some spots at West Holts.

[Skip997]

Once upon a time we managed Glastonbury without mobile phones.

 

[Alvoram]

1 hour ago, gooner1990 said:

Its frustrating when you can't call/text someone but if this snippet is to be believed.....this is ridiclous.

If people weren't so hell bent on using social media/apps constantly throughout the festival then everyone would be able to call/text one another with no problem.

But the people that could use data on EE could also easily call and text. It’s not one or the other, either your network has capacity or it doesn’t.

In fact on my three sim after Wednesday, I had no chance of getting online, but did get a few texts away. 

[gooner1990]

1 hour ago, Skip997 said:

Once upon a time we managed Glastonbury without mobile phones.

 

The first 3 or 4 reading festivals I did most people didn't have mobile phones.  Managed fine.

[gooner1990]

45 minutes ago, Alvoram said:

But the people that could use data on EE could also easily call and text. It’s not one or the other, either your network has capacity or it doesn’t.

In fact on my three sim after Wednesday, I had no chance of getting online, but did get a few texts away. 

This is the point, why do you need to go online? (not saying you specifically but everyone in general)

Can we not go a few days without it?!

I've just been at Truck Festival last weekend, same issue as Glastonbury - just caught up with everything when I got home on Monday.

[CaledonianGonzo]

WhatsApp?

[stuie]

3 hours ago, gooner1990 said:

Its frustrating when you can't call/text someone but if this snippet is to be believed.....this is ridiclous.

If people weren't so hell bent on using social media/apps constantly throughout the festival then everyone would be able to call/text one another with no problem.

EE users had no problem with calls/texts and that data total is data used on EE network. 

Basically, me uploading videos to my story via EE didn't affect people on other networks and EE coped just fine. 

Moral of the story, if you aren't on EE then get an EE sim for G2023. 

Edited July 28, 2022 by stuie

[kalifire]

23 minutes ago, stuie said:

Moral of the story, if you aren't on EE then get an EE sim for G2023. 

100% this. 

[gooner1990]

32 minutes ago, stuie said:

EE users had no problem with calls/texts and that data total is data used on EE network. 

Basically, me uploading videos to my story via EE didn't affect people on other networks and EE coped just fine. 

Moral of the story, if you aren't on EE then get an EE sim for G2023. 

What happens when everyone who wasn't on EE moves their contract over, or at least uses it at the festival?

Will EE then overload and breakdown like o2/vodafone/3 ?

[Crazyfool01]

12 minutes ago, gooner1990 said:

What happens when everyone who wasn't on EE moves their contract over, or at least uses it at the festival?

Will EE then overload and breakdown like o2/vodafone/3 ?

seems like they can up capacity at will at the moment 

[stuie]

2 minutes ago, gooner1990 said:

What happens when everyone who wasn't on EE moves their contract over, or at least uses it at the festival?

Will EE then overload and breakdown like o2/vodafone/3 ?

No - EE install masses of extra capacity and use it as a marketing tool - to create content like you quoted above.

They have spare capacity.

 

 

 

[DeanoL]

2 hours ago, gooner1990 said:

This is the point, why do you need to go online? (not saying you specifically but everyone in general)

Can we not go a few days without it?!

I've just been at Truck Festival last weekend, same issue as Glastonbury - just caught up with everything when I got home on Monday.

There's all sorts of reasons. People going on there own might want to be able to check in with home. People might be leaving kids, ill relatives behind. People might have friends or family at the festival they want to meet up with. And yeah, people might just want to share their experience with others on social media.

It's fine if some people don't like it. I don't like 90% of the SE corner and wish the festival wouldn't waste money on that but it's different strokes for different folks isn't it.

(It's also still a commercial enterprise, and it's not a guaranteed sell-out every year, and the marketing buzz you get from social media of people posting stuff while it's on contributes hugely to demand for tickets)

[gooner1990]

1 hour ago, DeanoL said:

There's all sorts of reasons. People going on there own might want to be able to check in with home. People might be leaving kids, ill relatives behind. People might have friends or family at the festival they want to meet up with. And yeah, people might just want to share their experience with others on social media.

It's fine if some people don't like it. I don't like 90% of the SE corner and wish the festival wouldn't waste money on that but it's different strokes for different folks isn't it.

(It's also still a commercial enterprise, and it's not a guaranteed sell-out every year, and the marketing buzz you get from social media of people posting stuff while it's on contributes hugely to demand for tickets)

I get what you're saying, but from my observations a lot of people are just addicted to their phones and sit in their campsites scrolling social media/news/whatever....I've seen it with my own eyes countless times including people I've camped with.

Truck festival last weekend there were a couple of people camped near us and each time I walked past they were on a game or just immersed in their phones.

For me its sad that its gone that way (just my opinion mind) 

[DeanoL]

Loads of us are introverts. It's nice to take ten minutes out of interacting with the real world, especially at something that's otherwise super-social like a festival.

Yeah, I got through Glastonbury fine before that was an option, but I enjoy it more now that it is. I'm happy that it makes the festival more welcoming for some people.

(And yeah, I can't deny for some people it's an unhealthy obsession with sharing every detail of their lives on social media, or getting into arguments on forums about who is big enough to headline festivals, or doom-scrolling on Twitter. But I actually think for most people it's a quick, socially acceptable way to take some downtime.)

[kalifire]

I actually think Glastonbury is an outlier for mobile phone behaviour. Most people I saw got their phone out for a quick video or couple of shots, then put it away again to enjoy being in the moment. I’ve never seen anyone there watch a set through their phones for longer than a minute or two.