My phone contract is up soon and quite a few deals are available with 3. Currently I am with EE and in general their coverage around Scotland seems quite good. How does 3 compare? Any real world experience of areas in general around Scotland. 3 will be of little use if around more remote areas there is no network when EE would have some.

Thanks

I can’t help with your locality but if your looking at a 3 contract also consider Smarty – they use the 3 network – and you might find you get a lot more for your 30 days.

Thanks, for my locality any network will be fine, I am more interested in general rural locations around Scotland. Always handy to have reception in the hills in case of emergency. EE have been reasonable for general coverage around Scotland.

Tempted by 3 for their deals and lack of roaming charges. Will have a look at Smarty.

FWIW, I was with 3 for ages (enligt ease of roaming), but their coverage in my old part of Cambridgeshite was poor. Oddly it was excellent in rural parts of Sweden

Had a 3 payg sim to try in house at BOD it was shite. Get a sim and try
Been with EE for yrs have no reason to change

I’ve had a 3 SIM for a year or so and they’re great for international roaming – I get 12GB free out here in the Eastern Med – but otherwise they’re utter bobbins for semi-rural Scotland. I live in NE Fife which is mainly farmland and villages but with some reasonable sized population centres and so you would expect decent coverage. I struggle to get H+ reception at times. On the East Sands in St Andrews for instance, no data reception at all.

I’ve ended up knocking that SIM contract down to the lowest cost 12GB plan for when I’m abroad and have signed up with EE for home use. EE reception is better by a country mile.

As someone who works around the lumpier and bumpier bits of Scotland quite frequently I find I can usually get a signal on EE when colleagues on other networks can’t. Its rarely the other way around.

For 999 calls, any network will be picked up and used by your phone, doesnt matter which network you are on

3 will not match EE/BT in the remoter areas of the Highlands.

I’ve used 3 for years and while it’s definitely improved it can still be pretty patchy compared to other networks in rural areas IME.

I went from EE to Smarty (Three network).
EE coverage in Highlands amazing, Smarty is poor – even in the Central Belt.
Am swapping to Plusnet who are like Smarty but use EEs network

Thanks folks, after a bit of research, it looks like plusnet could be a good option. EE don’t do monthly SIM only deals but plusnet do and they use the EE network so it could be the best of both worlds.

Cheers GuitarHero, thats what my quick google seemed to suggest.

I know there’s a massive three blackspot from the A82/83 junction at Tarbert on Loch Lomond all the way through Arrochar and up the rest and be thankful and most of the way to Lochgoilhead. Reception is pretty poor on Three all around Loch Goil. I seem to remember it being pretty poor/ non existent around The Cobbler as well.

It’s also worth noting that whilst you can make 999 calls via any network if you’re not using your own network the emergency services receive far less location detail and don’t know what phone number you’ve called from.

Sounds like a good option, but if you use wi-fi calling at all be aware that Plusnet don’t offer that despite being on the EE network who do.

There are loads of options of Virtual Networks operating on EE, see link below. As mentioned above it’s the niceties such as wifi calling, roaming, etc that you need to double check your chosen Virtual Network offers (depending what is important to you);

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom_mobile_virtual_network_operators

cp
Full Member

Sounds like a good option, but if you use wi-fi calling at all be aware that Plusnet don’t offer that despite being on the EE network who do.

You also cannot reply to short SMS numbers on plusnet. I know it sounds trivial but it means you cannot reply to some automated services, e.g. my doctors want me to authorise logins to their website by replying to an SMS, and one of my banks, (I think Nationwide) sometimes send me a text where I have to reply Yes or No to authorise a payment. Pretty annoying not being able to.

You also cannot reply to short SMS numbers on plusnet

That’s rather crap! Does that prevent you messaging them for a PAC code when you want to leave??!!

Thanks for the info, didn’t realise that about wifi calling or sms reply. Had assumed it was the phone not the network.

Try Virgin Mobile rather than Plusnet. I was with Plusnet but got a much better deal with Virgin.

Try Virgin Mobile rather than Plusnet. I was with Plusnet but got a much better deal with Virgin.

Virgin use Vodaphone these days

EE are building the new emergency services network – they’ve added loads of new masts to provide the coverage the emergency services need and on most of those they’ve added consumer 4G services as well.

Out of 3 and EE there’s not much contest – EE wins hands down.

This will change a bit in the next 2 years though – 3 are already rolling out 5G services using some low frequency spectrum they purchased earlier this year. That will extend their rural coverage and increase speeds.

Not answering the OP’s question, but might be worth noting that EE are reintroducing EU roaming charges whereas Three still have GoRoam which covers not just the EU, and pre-dates the EU roaming charge ban.

We have 3 for phone and broadband SIM here. ONLY because they offer coverage in our rural location that is patchy at best on O2, VF and EE.

When it works, it’s fine. Cheap as well. But their network seems to suffer pretty bad outages and poor performance.  If we had the choice we’d use someone else, but at £10 SIM Only monthly for 12 gig/unlimited calls/texts and (currently) roaming plus 23 quid for SIM Only broadband that gets us 50 meg/10 up, we’ll be sticking with them for now.

If stuff goes wrong tho, you cannot report it. Whoever designed their support systems thinks entirely in circles 😉

Yeah the roaming charges is what got me thinking about 3. Need to balance out UK coverage vs roaming.

Amusingly the roaming coverage (in Europe at least) was often better than the coverage in the UK. I’ve even had issues in big cities where ‘turn it off and turn it back on again’ has been the only option to get a working signal.

FWIW EE’s coverage in London is stellar. Now this was a good few years ago, but I found Three’s terrible. It would say full bars 4G but you’d not be able to get any data at all.. Which can be disconcerting when you’re trying to use maps to get around the place. I imagine that is less of a coverage thing and more a capacity thing.

I realise this is a bit niche. But I occasionally have to visit the place for work

It may have changed now

Otherwise was very happy with 3. But I’ve never once had a coverage dropout with EE so they’re a premium for a reason.

 Three’s terrible. It would say full bars 4G but you’d not be able to get any data at all

Yep. Still get that in London (or did when I was last there 18 months ago and also Brum and Cardiff)

cp

That’s rather crap! Does that prevent you messaging them for a PAC code when you want to leave??!!

No, luckily that does work!

There are loads of options of Virtual Networks operating on EE, see link below. As mentioned above it’s the niceties such as wifi calling, roaming, etc that you need to double check your chosen Virtual Network offers (depending what is important to you);

Yeah, I got caught out by this when I was briefly using Smarty – to be honest I can’t remember what it was they didn’t do (it would have been something like tethering or wifi calling), but I found out too late and it was a PITA.

Not really the issue at hand but FWIW I got a decent SIM only deal with Three through Quidco when mine came up for renewal this spring, 12gb for £8 – spoke to them a couple of times to see if they could match and they said no, more or less as soon as I signed through Quidco they got in touch and matched the deal. That was a bit of an annoyance but, on the other hand, going abroad, turning your phone on and having it JUST BLOODY WORK is amazeballs (ex Virgin customer here) and home is at the edge of a 5G area so if broadband’s sluggish, turn wifi off on the phone and it turns super-quick. Contract renewal faff aside, I like Three. 🙂

FWIW EE’s coverage in London is stellar. Now this was a good few years ago, but I found Three’s terrible. It would say full bars 4G but you’d not be able to get any data at all.. Which can be disconcerting when you’re trying to use maps to get around the place. I imagine that is less of a coverage thing and more a capacity thing.

Indeed – if you’re in traffic and everyone around you and everyone around you is using googlemaps and Spotify and there are offices aroind you as well then data can just grind to a halt. I get the same issue working in central Glasgow sometimes – great call signal but data next to useless until 5pm when all the office workers browsing tiktok on the loo go home when suddenly it burst back into life.

Was up in the Trossachs last week. Phone is dual SIM. O2 generally had coverage in the hills, but not 4G whilst Smarty(three) had no coverage. Apart from one spot near Loch Earn.

Cheers folks, have managed to get a deal with EE of Sim only 10gb data & EU roaming for £10 a month which seams pretty decent and I don’t have the hassle of switching providers.

same as what i got from them apart from some of my data says uk only.

was going to swap my wife onto plusnet as EE are changing here onto a different more expensive deal, until i found out about no wifi calling on plusnet which we need at home if we are downstairs. going to phone them for a PAC code and mention the plusnet deal and see what they offer as it worked for me last time.

@cultsdave
where did you get that deal?

Rural English/ Welsh boarders here. I’m on EE, best coverage in the area. We got our son a cheap plusnet deal expecting the same network coverage.

And no, it may use EE but the signal was crap in comparison, compounded by no wifi calling

EE the best for us although unfortunately you have to pay a premium compared to other networks

@bigfoot if you want to be more like for like use Smarty as the comparison as they do include wi fi calling. My wife recently did this and EE matched my Smarty Plan (£10, Unlimited txt and calls 30gb data) with a very similar deal (£9, Unlimited txt and calls albeit 15gb data) for her.

@mrchrispy,

I found the deal on U-Switch and then phoned EE and they offered that deal.