Southampton residents have reported “inconvenient” and “not good enough” phone signal – here’s why you might be struggling to make calls in parts of the city centre.

Those who live or work in the Ocean Village area may have noticed weaker signal inside over the last couple of months, particularly if you are an O2 or Vodafone customer.

Mark from Sholing, who uses O2 and works in Ocean Village, described his phone signal in the city as if he were 'on a train'.

“One minute it’s good and the next it’s dropping out,” he said.

“It’s annoying for work calls sometimes because I keep having to ask people to repeat themselves and I can tell it makes people annoyed.”

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Lauren Wright, 27, who works in Ocean Village, told the Echo she “constantly has to go outside” to get signal on her phone.

“It just makes my job so inconvenient, just to download a photo I have to go downstairs and stand around.”

Vodafone confirmed to the Daily Echo that their mast serving the Ocean Village area – also used by O2 - has been offline since September 6.

A spokesperson from Vodafone said: “The outage is due to a damaged fibre caused by extensive building works carried out by the property owner, which has unfortunately delayed a quick resolution.

“Our team is prioritising a workaround and working to restore service as soon as possible.

“The issue is visible on our Network Status Checker, and we encourage customers to sign up for regular updates.”

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O2’s Network Issues website also suggests that work will be carried out on December 23 to “improve network service in this area".

Some smaller mobile providers rely on O2 or Vodafone’s network to provide their service, meaning customers using those brands might be affected too.

Tesco Mobile, Sky Mobile, Lycamobile and Giffgaff use O2's network and VOXI, Asda Mobile, Lebara and Talkmobile are on Vodafone’s network.

An O2 spokesperson said: “We are aware that some customers in the Ocean Village area may be experiencing intermittent issues with their service, and we apologise for any inconvenience caused.

“Our infrastructure partner, Vodafone, is aware of the issue and will be carrying out upgrade works soon.”