One that works in remote areas where I might want to rustle up an air ambulance because I’ve broken bits of me due to being “over-gnar”…

Vodafone or O2 as they have 900 MHz spectrum which has greater range = better remote coverage (on average).

Ta.

May be worth registering here too if you’re over-gnar.

http://www.emergencysms.org.uk/

http://www.go4awalk.com/the-bunkhouse/walking-news-and-discussions/walking-news-and-discussions.php?news=710209

For real emergencies it doesn’t really matter. 999 calls route through any available network.

available network.

Ahem.

Edit: Er, oh. I see. 😳

Orange and T-mobile piggy back off each other now if one out of range

Wot Jam Bo said.

For normal use Vodafone has the best coverage and quality.

Wife and I have Vodafone and Orange between us deliberately as in remote spots such a West Coast Scotland there are many places where one of the above works but not the other. Vodafone would be my choice of the two if only one phone was available.

I also avoided 3 after finding out they have no data allowed when in a 2G only area and their customers are piggybacked onto a host. This means no online weather forecasts etc which is a bit pants – I’d rather get a painfully slowly delivered forecast in a 2G area than nothing at all.

Currently having “contract” issues with T-mobile but it’s the only problem I’ve had with them and I suspect it’s not unique to them.

All ‘x is better than y in remote areas’ is anecdotal. What might be best in the specific remote area you’re talking about could be wholly different.

I’ve carried phones from O2, Orange and Voda, and there’s been plenty of times where I’ve had full signal on one but out of service on another. It always varied as to which one, though. Notably, it was nearly impossible to get a signal on Voda when I was sat at home, which was a bit problematic when working from home with a work-supplied Voda phone.

There’s nothing to stop you carrying multiple SIMs, bear in mind. In addition to an O2 contract I have got an Orange PAYG SIM purely for the Orange Wednesdays offer; if I were going somewhere remote where signal might be a problem, I could take the Orange SIM as a fall-back. Could stash it loose behind the phone’s battery cover for safekeeping.

Phones don’t even need a sim in to make emergency calls.

Happy with Tesco Mobile here. Cheap too and I’ve had hardly any signal problems in the 10 months I’ve been with them.

Tesco uses O2 masts, mine even says ‘O2’ as the provider when I first turn it on before it changes to ‘Tesco’

I can’t post in a mobile phone thread however without mentioning how utter utter bobbins Three are in every single aspect of mobile phone providership. I can’t think of a single company I want to see crash and burn more.

Good advice from Cougar & Convert. It’s very hard to generalise about coverage, each operator will have hot spots and not spots especially in ‘gnar land’. The EE network covers Tmo & Orange sites with seamless roaming on 2G/3G and is the biggest in terms of the sheer number of cell sites. It’s also correct that 900MHz (i.e. O2 & Voda)has agreater range than the 1800MHz spectrum. I would have thought that multiple sims would work assuming the phone is unlocked I guess.

Coolhandluke -Tesco is an MVNO “Mobile Vitual Network Operator”, that is to say they do not have a physical network but use O2’s I think. Same for 3’s 2G network.

Hope that helps

I dont live in a remote area and have had dire signal coverage/call quality on vodafone network(used with several different phones to rule that out).

On the otherhand I have never had a problem with 3 (unlike others on here) so its horses/for courses.

Your better off checking on each providers sites in the area you are/or thinking of travelling too.

.

I have never had a problem with 3

Granted that one employee is not necessarily representative of an entire company, but the guy my OH spoke to when she rang to cancel a 3 contract almost had her in tears. I’ve never heard such shocking conduct from a call centre employee, ever (and I’ve worked in one).

For normal use Vodafone has the best coverage and quality.

Not round these parts matey, all the others work except vodaphone!

Phones don’t even need a sim in to make emergency calls.

Is this definitely true? I know a phone will say “Emergency calls only”, but I’ve read (either here or some other cycling forum) that it won’t connect in the UK?

I’ve just switched to Giffgaff. It runs on the O2 network (so O2 coverage applies) but is community run with support over the forum and self managed via the website.

Pricing is like a contract, but with no tie in at all. Seems good so far.

If you don’t go with it as your primary number, it’s cheap enough to get a SIM only as backup to stick in an unlocked phone so you can cover more bases – say, Vodafone or Orange on contract and a Giffgaff sim to use the O2 network.

You’re not paying for call centres (most of which have been poor to terrible from my experience). Support is via the forum, payments via the website and advertising comes from word of mouth – if you sign up from a referral, you get £5 credit (and so does the referrer)

If you are tempted, you can use my referral link to get a fiver for each of us (or just order off the main site if you want)
http://giffgaff.com/orders/affiliate/gravityslave
You’ll need to top up by £10 to activate the SIM though.

Is this definitely true?

Yes.

Cougar – Member
I have never had a problem with 3
Granted that one employee is not necessarily representative of an entire company, but the guy my OH spoke to when she rang to cancel a 3 contract almost had her in tears. I’ve never heard such shocking conduct from a call centre employee, ever (and I’ve worked in one).

We had truly awful service from 3 and cancelled our service from them, and then they kept charging us, with them denying they’d had instruction. Cheap but not cheerful. Vodafone regularly drive our company admin person up the wall whenever she needs to get in touch with them. Orange on the other hand have been very good for us.

My wife has just gone onto giffgaff too – seems to be working out well.

If you’re going somewhere properly “remote” you might want to have a look at a Spot device http://www.findmespot.com as they work directly with a satellite so don’t need any mobile signal.

I have one.

Rachel

2nd the Spot, my MTB friends in the States all have them for riding in the Rockies etc..

Telenor seem to have good coverage in Scandinavia – that’s pretty out of the way

HTH

Telenor seem to have good coverage in Scandinavia – that’s pretty out of the way

HTH

We had truly awful service from 3 and cancelled our service from them, and then they kept charging us, with them denying they’d had instruction.

Just when I finally thought I was rid of them after 3 months without signal anywhere in my house, I got a text with a courier tracking number for my ‘upgrade’. Literally a day after I phoned up to cancel the contract, someone else had phoned up pretending to be me, upgraded my tariff to £40mo, charged £250 for an iPhone 4 to my direct debit, and tried to have it delivered to an address in Leicester! I had to deal with all this through a call centre somewhere in India, but just to rub it in I kept getting about 3 calls a day from nice chirpy English people still asking me if I wanted an upgrade. Nearly had an aneurysm.