apparently EE & few others have had major signal issues recently.
That's the truth!
I was with Orange for years, 'cos they were the only network with half-way reasonable coverage among the sparsely-populated hills of West Wales - then they made a reciprocal agreement with the next-best, T-mobile, to share masts in this area, and the coverage became really good.
Then they were taken over by EE, who should be called EESotT (Everything, Everywhere, Some of the Time).
I've just been re-pointing a chimney for a guy who works for EE, and I asked him about the frequent lapses in signal (some texts just never get to their intended recipients), and he told me that EE are really concentrating their resources on rolling out better service in the 4G areas, and us poor peasants out in the 3G sticks will just have to wait for a while before there's a proper mast maintenance schedule again.
I do get a good cheap deal, though, I'm not much of a data user, and I get unlimited texts and more minutes than I could ever use, for £11.something a month, and a free new phone every 2 years (not your fancy touch-screen jobbie, though, just a good tough damp-proof Samsung 'builders phone' - the farmers round here all like them, too).