Is their 3G coverage really better and faster than everyone elses?

Am on giffgaff now and seem to be streaming a lot more music these days but I find my current 3G isn’t very fast and cuts out quite a bit.

I’ve just moved from giffgaff to them as they are the only network with decent coverage where I live, can get between 5 and 10Mb speeds at home depending where in the house I am but I’ve never seen above 12Mb even in city centres (giffgaff used to regularly give 20Mb at work in Leicester)

No idea what the others are like. I’ve been with three for years. It used to be great but coincidently around the time 4G started with 3 my phone/3G connection has gone shit. Really slow at times.

Plus I dread renewal time or speaking to their customer services. I’m sure they are designed to be THAT bad on the phone. SIR I CAN OFFER YOU A GREAT DEAL (I’m not calling for a new phone you idiot).

Oh and they constantly call you to market an additional new contract/phone ontop of your existing one. Its 3- not an agent of theirs. Definitely 3 calling. You explain/ask them to stop- they actually can’t understand your point. Weird.

Not sure how I know if I’ve got 3g or not or speeds;-) I do know that streaming play music to my 3 phone is perfect. No hangups.

I do seem to get coverage where vodafone doesn’t when I’ve gone away with mates

I’m really happy with them. Changed from a sim only and eventually took out a monthly contract. Had to cancel the sim only contract. You need to be in the right frame of mind when phoning to cancel as they do keep offering you a deal and it is a battle of wills.

Generally good in my experience, though I’ve had no data connection for the past couple of days at work and home. And there was a 3 day outage of voice and data earlier in the year. I wonder if they are putting more resources into rolling out 4G than managing the 3G network.

Cheers,
Jamie

I’ve been with them for three-and-a-half-years and will stay with them until they do something wrong. Coverage has been excellent, generally, and the all-you-can-eat data saved me a fortune from needing a household broadband/phone. Also, my data allowance can be used in Ireland, where I travel regularly, and I can also phone/text back to the UK for free. 4G is rolling out in the NE now and speeds can be very quick, around 20Mb up and down.

I’ve needed customer/tech services a couple of times and found them to be very helpful. I even got a fiver discount n my bill because one if their masts was hammy for a couple of days, leaving me with intermittent signal at home until they sorted it out.

I’m always happy to recommend them, but would recommend getting a throwaway SIM card to test their reception in the places you visit the most. This advice would apply to any network you may consider moving to.

I wonder if they are putting more resources into rolling out 4G than managing the 3G network.

Reminds me- about that time I talked mrshora into ending her expensive TMobile contract and coming over to 3 (and still using her existing SamsungS2- the internet is noticeably slower than what it used to be onthe same phone under TMobile).

Worth having a look at Ofcom’s summary of complaints performance for the telecoms providers here.

Some clear graphs to show relative performance for landline, broadband and contract mobile. Runs up to Q4 2013 so there’ll be one for Q1 of 2014 imminently.

3 seem to have pulled their socks up from a couple of years ago when their complaints rate was very high compared to others (and I can confirm they were truly awful).