Weak reception coverage – I’m in the process of buying a house but it seems like the phone/internet coverage is weak in that area. I didn’t sign the contracts yet; anyone having similar issue where you live? Can this be boosted/fixed somehow?

11 comments

  1. You would need to find out about broadband not just mobile phone signal. If you have acceptable broadband available then there’s ways to work around poor phone coverage. With fringe coverage you’ll probably still be able to get incoming texts so really it’s only voice calls you might be missing. You can use WhatsApp or FaceTime instead for phone calls.

    But if you can’t get broadband either then you are fairly stuck…

  2. What’s the state for 3G and 2G? There isn’t much you can do to fix this, but the others will at least give you text and voice.

    +1 for checking for broadband coverage in the area, you will clearly need it.

  3. The best thing to do is check your coverage while viewing the house. I find the coverage maps a bit hit / miss, which is to be expected in fairness. You could also search the ComReg website for the mast locations and see what providers have a mast near the house. If it’s close enough and not totally obstructed, you can get outdoor antennas for both 4G(& 5G) & ordinary phone reception.
    You could also check with Eir about “landline” broadband. They can tell you the maximum the lines are rated to for the area.

  5. Like others have said broadband is way more important, for me I have zero coverage in my house on cellular but we are lucky enough to have gotten the fibre to home broadband with eir. Most of our communication is by WhatsApp or viber but I’ve also upgraded my phone to a Samsung S21 which has wi-fi calling

  6. I just checked my home house on this website. It also listed the 4g as Fair. We have mobile broadband and while it has some bad days (feels like capacity can get pushed a lot at peak times), it’s generally fine for the odd video call / streaming / gaming etc. When it’s bad though, it’s makes you miss good internet immediately and you can’t rely on it. So if you needed good internet for work/business it could get very frustrating.

    I would check what the NBI website says in terms of rollout of broadband too. https://nbi.ie/map/ You could also go to the house yourself, turn on 4g and do a speed test from there.

  7. Check Vodafone or Three – they use their own separate infrastructure. Eir a useless shower anyway.

    And for internet access, look for what wired (DSL/phone line, fibre, cable) or fixed wireless options are available in your area.

  10. Not only that, but my place in a rural area is on a 4g 3g border with only one provider and coverage has recently reduced to 3g. I’ve no other options. I expect they changed equipment. Gotta wait for Nat Broadband.

    Something to watch for too.

    Nowadays new houses builds should consider coverage.

  11. You say phone/Internet…few ways to interpret that.

    Mobile phone coverage for calls and texts would likely be fine (you don’t need much, though you may find voice calls have poor reception, mobile data coverage may be close to unusable.

    However this is only for Eir. We have *two* other primary providers on Three and Vodafone. You need to check those as well.

    Internet, that is broadband, is not covered under these graphs. There are *three* to *four* primary providers here as well: open eir, Virgin Media, SIRO and the rollout from NBI.

    For open eir you can sign up through a load of different operators including eir, Vodafone, Imagine, Pure, Sky etc.

    Virgin Media is only usable by Virgin Media.

    SIRO is use able by a load of operators (basically the list for open eir but remove eir).

    NBI is likely use able by all operators, again just refer to the open eir list.

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