UKC

That's it, after many years with them, I'm ready to leave Virgin as my mobile provider and have just been given my PAC code.

I'd been planning on switching to Three, (initially for a rolling monthly SIM only contract to check their service & coverage) as I've spoken to a number of folk who are with them and rate them.

Any tales of woe to counter the perspective?


I'm guessing that in reality they're all probably much of a muchness, but I've been with Virgin for too long now and when things went pear-shaped last year, their atrocious Customer Service was the final straw that convinced me to leave.

Any thoughts from the UKC masses?

In reply to Fraser:

Giffgaff are brilliant!

In reply to Fraser:
Some questions about what you use your phone for:

Mainly data or mainly voice?

Mainly indoors or mainly outdoors?

Which rough part of the UK do you live in?

In reply to Fraser:

I dont have any complaints with three. Decent coverage particularly with the roll out of 4g. Their feel at home overseas roaming is rather good as well if you are going to one of those countries.
That said havent needed to deal with their customer support much, think only thing was switching on roaming, so cant say how good they are with that.

In reply to Fraser:

I've been on Three for ten years now, and the best thing I can say is that in the last 5 years I've only spoken to them twice, each time to upgrade my handset.

In reply to Fraser:

I thought coverage by 3 was awful, I left them a couple of months ago

In reply to Fraser:

Three arguably have the best 3G network in the UK; certainty its in the top two.

EE have the best and most extensive 4G network, they also own a lot more spectrum (even more after BT buys them) so are likely to lead the way for 4G for the foreseeable future.

The key stumbler of the Three network has been indoor voice coverage (as 3G services are at a higher frequency than traditional 2G from Vodafone and O2). This will resolve over time as voice over 4G gets launched and Three deploy lower frequency spectrum for 4G over the course of this year. In addition they now offer a "InTouch" application which enables you to make voice calls via WiFi.

However your experience will depend where you live and spend most of your time.

In reply to Fraser:

Three, cheapish, their customer service is good, their coverage is patchy compared to EE (wife's and my phone, same phone, side by side).

In reply to Fraser:

May be of interest

http://www.rootmetrics.com/uk/blog/special-reports/year-in-review-2014-uk

Their methodology isn't flawless but no methodology is. As per earlier post performance will depend where you live and spend most of your time.

As much as I wouldn't shop with them, Tesco mobile is brilliant as it is the O2 network for £12 per month for a lot of data, calls and texts.

In reply to jonfun21:

Same model of iPhone.....

In reply to galpinos:

Yep just re-read the post!

Just out of professional curiosity were they both on 3G networks at the time? EE and Three have a shared 3G network with nearly the same footprint of sites - however cell size gets impacted by number of users within it so there may be a lot of Three users in your local area reducing the size of the cell.

EE has the option for you to fall back on to 2G which is at a lower frequency than their 3G so achieves better coverage.

In reply to jonfun21:

I would guess at yes but not certain, sorry!

In reply to Fraser:

It depends where you are. I used to be on three but found their rural coverage appalling - even where they claimed to have good coverage I frequently got nothing, and definitely no data (this is in Scotland and the north east in particular). In built up areas they did have good and fast coverage though. I've shifted to Giffgaff and have much better coverage than with 3. Folk I know with Vodafone also seem to get good coverage and definitely much better than 3 for rural areas up here.

Cheers,

Stuart

In reply to Fraser:

I've found the ee service to be very unreliable in the past both for signal and for technical issues. Their policy for known disruptions is to say nothing until you phone up and complain at which point they tell you something like, "it's a known problem we've been struggling with for a while" (but they couldn't be arsed to put anything on their website or contact customers) or "don't worry it will be fixed in a week" in a tone that suggests you were just phoning to tell them about a problem for their own good rather than because you want a problem fixed, or even worse they tell you that the service was down due to planned maintenance but they still couldn't be arsed to tell anyone.

They also have recurring problems with their content management software that sometimes makes the great firewall of china look liberal and blocks everything down to the BBC news website, and when you moan at them and say " so what are you going to give me in return for not being able to access half the WWW for a week when I'm on a £35 / week contract they don't get the hint that you are pissed off and want some sort of recompense.

It seems to have improved recently and I now have a useful signal in the house whereas before I had to press my face against the kitchen window to make a phone call. And the odd 4G speeds seem to have been sorted; in Swansea i used to get 10 meg upload and only 2.5 med download.

In reply to Tyler:


+1 Planning to change when current contract expires

In reply to Fraser:

I'm with 3, have been for about 3.5 years, can't comment on customer service as I have never had any problems. Coverage for me is good, better than girlfriends O2 phone, but that is always going to be geographically dependant to an extent. Seem to offer slightly better deals than the other big players, but SIM only there are probably cheaper deals to be had.

I've been with Orange, Vodafone and O2 at various times over the last 15 years, 3 are definitely better in my experience. I had to threaten Vodafone with court action.

In reply to Fraser:
Vodafone has the best overall coverage, but their data service is slow.

Talkmobile has the same coverage as Vodafone, and contracts are often very cheap, but they're notorious for hidden costs.

Where Three works, it's excellent with (often) unlimited data and 4G at no extra cost. However, coverage in mountain and rural areas is extremely poor.

EE is very expensive and 4G is still unreliable in many areas.

O2 has extremely poor customer service and a congested data service.

Giffgaff is cheap but not worth considering. Their service is unreliable and customer service almost nonexistent.

(Source for the above: two years working for Carphone Warehouse. All the networks have major drawbacks and I never met a customer who was 100% satisfied with their service, but I think Vodafone is the best overall.)

P.S. Most people who disagree with their networks end up doing so because they don't read their contracts before signing them. If you think the network "isn't holding up their end of the deal", they are almost always acting within the legal boundaries of the contract you signed. Basically it's your fault for not reading the small print. Yes, this is unfair, but ALL the networks do this and there's nothing you can do about it if you want a phone contract.

In reply to Only a hill:


I've been using them for a year and a half, and there have been two minor outages in that time.

This has not been a problem for me at all.

I wouldn't use them for business, but if you aren't wedded to your mobile and desperate to be available at all times, they're well worth considering. Especially as there's no tie-in to a long contract, so it's easy and cheap to just leave them again if you're unhappy.

In reply to Only a hill:
That said, their coverage (O2's coverage) is pretty crap in the Highlands, away from the larger towns.

In reply to Fraser:

Never had any problem with O2 in quite a few years of using them.

In reply to all:

Thanks for all the responses.

I should have clarified in my OP that I'm Glasgow based, usually use less than 1Gb/mo, and very little voice and not many texts. Three have a rolling £13/mo. contract which gives me u/l data, 600 mins and can't remember the texts but it was way more than enough. The big downside is the 'Traffic Management' which seems to be in place from 3pm-midnight. My thinking was that I'd try them for a few months and see what the service and coverage was like, then maybe decide on upgrading and going to the usual 24 month contract ... well, maybe.

I saw a review - link below - saying they were poor for 4G coverage (comparatively speaking, but not an issue for me as I've only a 3G S3 which now seems to be stable and reliable enough *touches wood*) but good on u/l bundles.

https://www.cable.co.uk/guides/is-3-mobile-any-good/


On the equivalent Virgin review it states their coverage is 99%, but my experience is quite different. On my commute, lots of other travellers are able to maintain a connection, whereas mine drops very quickly once the doors are shut and the train's in a cutting / tunnel. I therefore take that statement with a pinch of salt, although I suppose it could be my handset that's the issue.

In reply to Fraser:

I moved from T-Mobile to Three about a year ago, having been on the wrong end of T-Mobile's customer service a few too many times. The final straw was when I had a phone call in the middle of work from someone from T-Mobile trying to aggressively sell me another phone contract (despite having two at the time, one of which wasn't even being used).

So far, Three have been brilliant. I've only had to speak to them twice - one to enable roaming (if you go abroad make sure you do this first, roaming is disabled on your account by default and I only found out when I got to Geneva), and once a few days ago via Facebook to ask why I suddenly had no service in the UAE. I got a reply from their social media team insanely quickly even at the weekend, who after a bit more info forwarded it to their support department. Alas they aren't as efficient, and I fixed the problem myself in the meantime...

Also, I rate them highly for rolling out 4G with unlimited data to all customers free of charge, rather than EE's 'you must pay an extortionate amount of money for 4G'.

In reply to tehmarks:

Thanks for that, it sounds promising. I'll maybe consider the 4G handset upgrade option if the coverage and service are up to par after a few months.

In reply to Fraser:

As has been said it depends where you are.

GiffGaff piggyback off O2 so coverage-wise they're the same, but I found after several years with them data speed became unusably slow in many popular locations.

I have switched to 3 for data and find them fast and better coverage where I travel than GiffGaff. I can park up on Dartmoor / South Wales unable to make calls on GiffGaff/O2 but with high-speed internet on Three! All depends on coverage where you are though, as you've said a rolling month or even PAYG SIM allows you to check that out.

If you're mainly using voice and text I'd definitely check out GiffGaff, they are as cheap as you'll find, no contract and no hassle to just get a SIM to try.

In reply to Justin T:

Thanks, it's mostly data I use, so GiffGaff maybe not the best bet. I had considered them when renewing a couple of years ago, but discovering my real usage over the past 24 months has blown that out the water.