Kinda at the end of my tether with VF and their poor signal in my area. Can get EE on 4g(according to their coverage checker) in my area.

Any feedback on how they are in real use, see they were awarded best for next work and speed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28837671

<edit> I use my phone whilst on my bike hence why its in bike forum 😉

No criticism of network however they did put up the price of everyone’s contract mid contract a couple of years ago.

As did every other provider before them. Retail price index – always in the small print I’m afraid. They have the best network, that’s not up for debate really especially with 4G taken into account. Speed checker indicates that it’s quicker than my fibre broadband which is impressive. However, I’d check with someone in your area for reall world coverage. Every provider is terrible if you are in their poor coverage areas.

awful.

Reason?

As shite as the lot of them.
The whole thing’s a shitbag bit of a mess.

**** you mobile network regulations.

Mrs PF has just signed up with them.

Account management and service is unbelievably bad, it’s embarrassing. A comedy of errors.

Horses for courses. VF really have got bad. They used to be the best for digital phone coverage but I started getting fed up with them when data just didn’t work at my place of work.

In the end I jumped initially to Orange on EE and was really pleased and now have gone 4G on EE. My Mrs was on VF and coverage on her phone got worse at the usual places she used to be like at home and the in-laws. Moved my Mrs to EE too. No regrets here.

YMMV,

Based on coverage they have been brilliant compared to O2 in and around Yirkshire. Not had much need to call them. Can’t fault them.

No problems at all with me. Neither EE or Orange before them in 15 odd years. Must be lucky.

EE just came top by a substantial margin in the latest ofcom report – for both urban and rural coverage.

Vodafone came last – which pretty much equates to my own experience – my personal EE phone has 3G everywhere I go and 4G in quite a lot of places now, and my work vodafone spends most of the time on GPRS with a bit of 3G that doesn’t ever seem to work as it’s usually the 900Mhz wide coverage / no data throughput flavour.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28837671

http://www.rootmetrics.com/uk/special-report-2014-1h-uk

Vodafone doesn’t yet have a single 4G mast in Wales which pretty much sums up just how carp their coverage is these days.

Edit: EE’s customer service is hit or miss though – have only had to call them once though.

Customer service is shocking. I’m leaving at the earliest opportunity.

VF are terrible such a waste of a smarthphone as their data coverage is appalling.

I have the wife on EE and they’re excellent great coverage and not on issue with customer service. Got a cracking deal with them the other week too.

We went from O2 to EE with work a few months ago and the coverage seems a lot worse than O2 ever did. Lots more call drop outs. The 4G is a plus point which we didn’t have on O2 but obviously only ever any good in towns and cities

If it were my choice and I was buying my own phone/contract I’d go O2

4g on EE work phone here. Generally happy with it, and when you’re on 4g it flies, incredibly fast. Have never had to deal with ee customer service.

Edit – I’d suggest you buy a payg sim first and see what coverage is actually like where you are.

EE – awful coverage so had to switch to VF.
EE business support was quite good though.

Great 4G coverage in Bristol and suburban Leeds – the two places I need coverage. My friend on Vodafone had to use my phone to get on the internet this evening in central Bristol. Download speeds are impressive. Even when can’t get 4G (get H or H+ whatever they mean) downloads are still quick.

Phone coverage also good.

Generally had good service from them, but last time I upgraded my phone at the end of my previous contract it took two attempts to get them to offer me a decent phone and data/texts/minutes package despite having been with Orange for over 10 years.

I had a wry smile when I heard about that report on the radio.My wife has no coverage at home or at her mums(Reading-hardly a rural backwater) despite what the coverage checker and the customer services phone staff said… mind you her Orange coverage was just the same.

Had a work phone on “EverythingEverywhere” up to this time last year. Renamed it “NothingAnywhere” quite quickly, as coverage in the same room varied from full signal to (more usually) nothing. Definitely didn’t work in rural Suffolk, which was no surprise, but also unreliable in Sheffield and SW London…

Avoid.

I just left T-mobile/EE could not get away fast enough after 10+ years with them. Terrible customer service and they put my “contract” price up half way through. For example when they switched from T-Mobile to EE the european data boosters got much more expensive and restrictive and I could no longer access my bill online so I could not check what I was being charged for.

Now with Three who are excellent, free 4G and using a mobile wifif device I checked out all the paces I would normally use the phone and signal strength was excellent. Very happy.

Im with tmo and have been for years, signed up for 2 more years december good deal with handset, but having loads of problems in Bristol and Dorking where I am quite a lot. Not sure if the samsung handset is part of the problem, will go to O2 when I can, probably via giffgaff.

As other posters have said it is key to know how it is where you will be most of the time, get a payg sim often free or nominal and try it, website coverage maps are utterly meaningless in my experience and dont take into account hills and buildings creating dead spots.

Do check real world local opinions on signal.

I was with T-Mobile when I moved house, signal checker said “Good”, 3 out of 4 on their scale, I did actually checked before we moved, and as I was getting my new phone as we were mid-move. I couldn’t so much as receive or send a txt let alone calls.

Argued endlessly and bent over backwards doing all sorts of test to get out of my contract OR! get them to update their coverage map to reflect the reality which was a long way from “Good”. After a lot of fighting I got £100 off to get out but it still cost me about £200.

EE are T Mobile\Orange for non-4G as far as I know so don’t trust their coverage map.

Just checked and they have actually updated the map to show no signal for my place now. Very surprised by that tbh given the fight I had a couple of years ago.

Friend who works for VF says that EE is the best. Been with T-Mob (now part of EE ) for years and coverage excellent.

Not sure how long it will last as they all tend to go through cycles and at least one of the others is due a ‘let’s stop feeding the share-holders dividends and spend some money on providing the service’ renaissance.

As cp suggested I’ve ordered a PAYG sim to see how it is.

Mobile operator complaints – from OFCOM

Orange/EE for around 15 years, packing it in at the nd this contarct, unbelievanly shite “customer service”, including, but not limted to numerous (3 in one day) cold calls after being told that persisting with cold calls would mean I wouldn’t renew my contract. No customer service email address, but I did find their CEO and marketing directors email addresses so emailed them quoted Data Protection and OFCOM guidance that any more cold calls would result in my terninating my contact and suing them for something or other (OFCOM told me what to say).
Bloody shame because Orange were brilliant and I ecommended them on here more than once..

Everyone I know on Orange/EE seems to hate it with a passion.

Vodafone for phone
Three for data

Ha ha ha. So probably best to throw it in bin and forget about using a smartphone then. They all seem to be as ad as each other.

So my current provider VF poor data constant dropping of signal, no timescale of 4g rollout

Looking at coverage for other providers for 4g

EE – claim to have full 4G coverage

3 – 3G only 4G in other side of Aberdeen only.

O2 , Virgin 3G only no timescale of 4g

EE seem to stand out for data coverage, will see what it’s like when sim arrives.

EE is fine trust me as a VF user who also pays for his wife’s phone on EE. I’m switching to EE as soon as possible, been with VF for about 17years now but they’ve got worse then ever for data the last 2 or 3. Voice is still Ok but that’s a low priority on a smartphone.

Free iPhone 5C 32Gb £25 for unlimited calls, txt and 2Gb data was the deal I got the Mrs earlier this month.

In Cheshire it equalled two tin cans and a bit of string – contract cancelled after 5 days 🙁

Btw GiffGaff was actually worse, I have no idea why they win awards, two tins can with no string connecting the cans would sum GiffGaff up.

EE from 3 here, coverage in Town on 3 was patchy, coverage on EE excellent. For me data use age not an issue so 3’s all you can eat was wasted. I changed because of the 4g coverage and have been happy so far.
Only called Customer Services once to get them to turn off Data Roaming that I’d turned on whilst abroad (you add it, but can’t turn it off by the App, which is stupid) and they were rather good.

Overall, 9/10 from me.

Just switched to VF after 15 years on Orange/EE. As part of the T-Mobile/Orange network merger they turned off the transmitter near me, so I went from great signal at home to unusable.

After a year of complaining they finally admitted I was in a “signal hole” despite the coverage checker saying it was great and cancelled the remaining 12 months of my contract.

VF have great signal at home (Cheadle/Stockport) and work (Wythenshawe), so work for me. Customer service seems ok so far, but so did Orange/EE until I had a problem. I asked neighbours and work mates who they were with and checked signal before I switched, I wouldn’t trust the coverage websites and make sure you can cancel if you don’t get good signal.

I’m on EE in your area, can’t comment on the 4G coverage as I mostly use a wifi connection but as for phone coverage it’s ok, bit patchy up Deeside past Banchory towards Braemar, not too bad up Donside except in the carpark at Pit F where there is no reception.. It’s ok higher up. Generally fine on the coast. Strangely i seem to get coverage where others don’t and vice versa. Customer service wise they’re ok, have had problems with them trying to put up contract prices/reducing minutes but I’ve always argued with them and they’ve backed down.

Well EE seemed to have failed at the first hurdle. 🙄

Ordered a PAYG SIM card with 10gb of 4g data preloaded last week, 7 days on I called up EE CS to enquire where my order was. I was told they were out of stock of SIM cards and they dont know when they will get more stock in. 😯

A mobile phone provider that has no stock of SIM cards, no a very good business plan.

I have them on 4G, service for use is fine. But I’m getting more than a little fed-up with spam texts and calls. Apparently it’s nothing to do with EE, despite all of them using my full christian name rather than what I use on all contracts/ accounts. New number soon I think as they don’t care. Then there was the pillock who last night wanted to ‘keep it brief’ but spent 20 mins trying to tell me what I needed on my contract.

well the transition of my 3 of 4 family contracts from VF to EE is complete need to wait until youngest is out of contract and he will also moved across.

The difference in data speed is night and day. Phone signal is has been good as well.

had to call EE CS a couple of times and to be honest they were ok no worse than VF maybe I was lucky.

S’later VF

EE have managed to charge me twice for a single new phone contract.

Simple error to make I guess and you would have thought it would be easy to correct?

So after getting the first doubled up bill, called them and they said, yes it was a error and they would cancel the bill, same thing next month and then the next!

After that, started to get the debt collecting letters and phone calls. Nice phone calls at random times of the day, all offering different ‘options’ that could be used to recover the debt.

Wrote to EE to explain what I had been told over the last three months, no reply to letter after a month! So sent a recorded letter again, this time I copied in all the UK directors to their home addresses (thanks to companies house).

Still no reply.

Now getting door visits from ‘the men in black’ offering to ‘lock up’ my neighbors car which lives in my drive, trying to explain the situation to them is like hitting a brick wall, even though I have copies of everything I have done to try and resolve the situation.

kids now have water pistols full of orange juice kept on their bedroom window sills to squirt the knuckle draggers with, that in itself has ended up with our boys in Blue turning up and then leaving, laughing their tits off, at our 8yo antics!

One of the Directors is local, wonder if he has ever had one of his cars ‘locked up’ on his drive?

As you can imagine, I love EE customer service, can thoroughly recommend them.

Their website looks great, but is actually rubbish if you try to do anything. Couldn’t do a roaming data top-up last week whilst in Morzine, which tied us to the chalet wi-fi instead of being able to work whilst out cycling. Total RUBBISH.

Works phone is on Virgin which uses EE’s network with it being a virtual provider.
Calls seem to be ok but Data transmission seems to be hit and miss, seems to be something to do with which transmitter is broadcasting/receiving as if your in between either a EE,T-Mobile or Orange one it cant seem to decide which to use, hence it just ends up timing out.

Had them at a previous company too and found the customer service was shocking too.
I have used 3 for my own contract for years and have no complaints.