UKC

Looking at data only sims for my tablet, and giffgaff seems to be very cheap, what is the coverage like? They say 97% coverage, but is it ok in rural Scotland?

In reply to girlymonkey:

I've a normal giffgaff sim and it seems pretty good for coverage around the cairngorms. Depends on what you mean by rural though - a lot of places we go don't have ANY network coverage, let alone data......

Giffgaff piggyback onto 02's network, so their data coverage maps would be worth looking at. I've found either 02 or vodaphone works well in most places, but 3 seems better in some places around the black isle (for data).

Cheers,

Stuart

In reply to girlymonkey:
Should be the same as O2 as it uses their network. Personally, when I went to them from O2 I found reception to be the same. So that means large parts of real rural Scotland is little or no coverage. But then again certain areas don't have Vodafone, or orange, etc. No network is for going to be ideal for rural Scotland. Skye around the Cuillin to me seems particularly poor for O2 and orange I my experience. I have been in other parts of Scotland where orange (that's my tablet sim) has no reception when my Giffgaff does. Pays your money, etc!
I am happy with Giffgaff for my mobile, and orange for the tablet mainly as it gives me more chance of reception (and orange is an old deal which is incredibly cheap for me the way I use it!!).

In reply to girlymonkey:

I use giffgaff. As said, look at O2 coverage maps. In my experience (and not very scientifically tested!):

Pretty good in the Central Belt.

Highlands - data: not as good as Voda or EE away from larger towns. Not that they're very good either.

Highlands - voice: not bad, but generally not as good as Voda or EE.

O2 coverage often seems to be better on the Western Isles than in the Highlands.

There are, of course, areas where it's better than Voda or EE (e.g. Ross of Mull, in my experience), so it depends a bit where you'll be using it.

I don't have any experience of using 3, so can't compare to that.

In reply to girlymonkey:

Rules of thumb:

Voice Coverage: O2 or Vodafone as they have lower frequencies for 2G meaning signal travels further and penetrate into buildings better - that said Vodafone's network is performing poorly at the moment with a lot of dropped calls so maybe O2

Data Coverage (3G): Three or EE as they have largest number of 3G locations throughout the UK

Data COverage (4G): EE as they are the only operator with a substantial deployment at the moment

4G will become more widespread when the MNOs roll out their low frequency spectrum but this will take time & there is no defined voice standard yet.

BTW: Coverage maps are based on coverage prediction tools not actual survey data (e.g. no one has visited these locations to confirm the signal is there, they have used a 'computer' to calculate where it should reach).

In reply to jonfun21:

Do you know, is that a rule of thumb for the UK as a whole, rather than 'rural Scotland'?

It doesn't seem quite right from what I've found - and, in the Highlands at least, 3g and 4g are pretty much limited to the bigger towns, and even 2g is quite patchy.

That 97% coverage mentioned in the first post - I suspect that's 97% of addresses, or something like that, rather than 97% of land area - though I'm happy to be corrected if wrong!

In reply to girlymonkey:

Thanks guys, sounds like they are as good as any others really. As mentioned, many places in the highlands are patchy anyway, I'm currently using tesco mobile for it, and it's not great, but I think that's just always going to be the case. (my normal phone only does phone, so no idea about internet coverage on it)

In reply to girlymonkey:

You could just give it a go. GiffGaff allow you to buy a package, which lasts a month & to a set data limit.

Order a sim and put £5 on it - see if it works for you

In reply to blurty:

oh, I didn't realise they did that, I didn't spot it on their website. Will go and look for that. Thanks

In reply to skog:

The 97% is almost certainly based on residential addresses, so it tells you little about the coverage in rural areas. As stated above GiffGaff is a subsidiary of Telefonica - parent company of O2 - and they share the O2 network. Vodafone's network is partially shared with O2 so I would expect them to be very similar in rural areas. EE/Orange/T-Mobile also share a network and 3 have their own. So really there are only 4 networks, two of which may be the same.

I'd suggest you check the 4 networks for the coverage you want (on their websites) and then look at which providers use that network.

In reply to girlymonkey:

Isnt tesco on o2 anyway?

In reply to marsbar:

That's what I thought too. I moved from o2 to tesco and it seems exactly the same to me...

Pete

In reply to marsbar:

yep Tesco use the o2 network

In reply to girlymonkey:

I'm with giffgaff. Coverage is ok as stated above. In the last year there have been a few outages which I never had on o2 or voda. Some of them were equipment failures which sometimes just happen, but gg don't seem to have the same redundancy of enterprise providers. If your phone connectivity is really important to you, I'd think carefully. On the plus side I get payback which means I actually pay very little for what I get.
With my previous providers I only used the support numbers a couple of times. Giffgaff don't have them so you either solve the problem yourself by searching for it, or you ask the community to help. If you are not keen on technology, this could be a concern.

I suppose I should be selling giffgaff a bit harder, as I have an interest in the company, but I wouldn't want you to feel I cheated you. I'm staying with it for the forseeable future but accept that it may not be for everyone. If its not against forum rules, if you ask a current giffgaffer for a referral(ie me ), you both get a free fiver.
Get a sim, put a tenner on it and see what you think. If you like it, you will probably save more than a tenner, if not, you haven't lost much.

In reply to skog:

Correct the % is population coverage not land area; the number of sites you need to provide 98% then 99% etc. follows an exponential trend vs. c. 18,000 for 97%.

The government Mobile Infrastructure Project (MIP) will enhance mobile coverage in rural areas; including Scotland.

As you point out data services (3G & 4G) are typically not available outside towns, as per my post 4G will go further when deployed at 800 MHz

This is close to where O2 and Vodafone's 2G service is today at 900 MHz, whereas EE using 1800 MHz for 2G service which doesn't travel as far from the site vs. 900 MHz.

In reply to Oujmik:
Need to be careful with shared network vs. shared sites/locations.

In addition operators don't share their spectrum, so you will still get performance differences depending on how much spectrum and what type they hold.

Also number of customers vs. spectrum held makes a difference; for example Three only has c.8m customers vs. EE's 28m so the Three network is generally less congested.

EE & Three
- Share the same 3G network*
- Share the same sites for 4G but not the same network, they have separate equipment and footprint

Vodafone and O2
- Are in the process of consolidating their separate set of sites into a single grid of c.18,500 sites
- Will share various parts of the network; but in the recent auction Vodafone bought significantly more spectrum than O2 so will be able to offer much faster 4G services

*EE have a few extra 3G sites than Three

In reply to jonfun21:

Thanks.

In reply to girlymonkey:

Is it possible to teather your table to a phone?

I recently changed my phone contact to sim only with unlimited data as part of the deal. At the moment when I am away from home I find teathering works very well with my phone and tablet.

In reply to The Lemming:

Depends which network are you on, for example Three let you tether:

http://support.three.co.uk/srvs/cgi-bin/webisapi.dll?command=new,kb=mobile,...

In reply to The Lemming:

No, my phone is an indestructible brick, and only does phone!
Even if it did though, it would be handy to have them both on different networks to increase my chances of some sort of contact when remote. If I can only get phone signal, I can at least phone home to get my husband to check emails etc for me.

In reply to girlymonkey:



No worries. Just an idea if you ever change your phone.

In reply to girlymonkey:

I'm on Giff Gaff. I live in London zone 2 and have never had 3G signal (which I routinely had on the same phone in Canada before switching to GiffGaff), the best data connection I seem to get being Edge. I don't know how this pans out in Scotland, but I find it odd to have such poor provision in London.

Call signal is good, though not great.

If I wasn't fairly skint I'd switch to a bigger provider.

In reply to hamsforlegs:

do you have a friend that will let you try their SIM from a different network?

it might not be the data that's the problem but that your phone can't do UK/Euro 3G (which is not the same as NA 3G)

In reply to hamsforlegs:

On giffgaff too
My experience in Scotland outside of the central belt.
Fort William & Inverness - Fast 3G coverage
Aviemore - gprs only and very slow
Torridon - gprs only but its actually very usable.
Glencoe area - gprs only - acceptable performance

Not been a major outage for a while, last one I had was an o2 mast having issues locally. THe big ones though always seem to relate to giffgaff specific hardware problems.

In reply to rallymania:

It's a sensible thought. In principle the phone (quadband) should work fine, but I haven't tried it with a different SIM.

In reply to hamsforlegs:

You are using O2's network, they are a 'bigger provider' though Three and EE have greater levels of 3G coverage than O2 or Vodafone

In reply to hamsforlegs:

might simply be the configuration of the network access point or whatever it's called then?

still i'd try a mates sim if you can or visit a shop like carphone warehouse and ask them if you can try a few sims?