Giff Gaff data coverage shockingly bad

I recently ported a number to Giff Gaff as they offered the best deals , what i was not counting on was how bad O2 network is for data coverage in the South East , i foolishly thought " i'm in the southeast , the most populated part of the country , coverage should be good " .

Phoning and text work pretty much every where but the data network is very poor compared to my old Virgin sim .

I travel throughout out the south east and its obvious to me that i will have to move back to the Every Thing Every Where network . What i'm looking for is the best deal on that network with a sim only deal with at least 1gig of data , any advice and pointers on the best deals at the moment ,gratefully excepted .

This is the reason I left O2. The 2G service was pretty good for coverage (actually REALLY good). But data, 3G service... it is a joke. Worst coverage by far.

How it came top in an Ofcom survey is beyond me.

I'm glad I'm not the only one to find O2 data coverage bad AND slow.

30 day sim only with T-mobile you get 2000mins unlimited texts and truely unlimited internet

If you had a phone that supports UMTS900 then you might find things a little better on O2 as they roll out UMTS900 coverage.

O2 is the worse for 3G coverage. Three is the best for 3G coverage although as there is (often) no 2G to fall back on this can be a big problem if you intend to try and use your phone inside.

Thought it fell back on orange?

It does but not everywhere, that is only enabled in some locations. Far too often the mast locations are the same anyway with orange 2G having a similar foot print to three's 3G. So if it falls back to orange 2G that usually has a poor/marginal signal anyway.

In areas where it shows coverage usually the orange service has been turned off

Also when it connects to orange you cannot use any data

& ive just switched from 3 to O2. I agree the 3G isn't great BUT it's a massive relief to finally have signal in my house and in places 3 didn't cover.

In all of my locations 3 claimed to get good indoor and outdoor but never actually did...

Vodafone had 4 transmitters at the same mast location as 3 & admitted no service....
3 had one transmitter with lower power output, also it was 6 metres lower. Shocks me how they can claim good indoor and out...

Orange got full signal here but my phone never back tracked in this location.

In reply to a post by 5km:

If you had a phone that supports UMTS900 then you might find things a little better on O2 as they roll out UMTS900 coverage.

My phone does support UMTS900 . How extensive is the roll out going to be and can i be bothered to wait when i already know nearly every other network seems to perform better for Data coverage .

Yup it's really bad in the south east. I switched because I was paying £10 a month to T-Mobile and I don't use it that much, pretty much paying nothing with GiffGaff when paying 20p a day for internet - which I'll use maybe 5 or 6 times a month.

Great HSDPA signal in my area I moved to where T-Mobile has none, but trips from Hailsham to East Grinstead or London I barely get any G that works, and never H.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Also when it connects to orange you cannot use any data

I've never seen that.. My mum lives where there is no 3G service and "Three" works just fine.

Matt

In reply to a post by uno:

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Also when it connects to orange you cannot use any data

I've never seen that.. My mum lives where there is no 3G service and "Three" works just fine.

Matt

I saw it lots.

Perhaps it's location dependant but whenever I got edge or GPRS signal on an iPhone 4 data didn't work. I had the iPhone swapped 3 times over the two years and all of them did the same.

Data only worked on 3G networks.

& it wasn't that it was slow, an error would literally come up something like "safari could not open the page because it couldnt connect to the internet"

A good example is there were many times when I had GPRS signal and my google maps just wouldn't work. I'd continue driving to get 3G before the maps would work. Again it wasnt slow it just flat out refused to work.

and there is my main gripe , no data connection no Google maps no Ebay updates no nothing and i have become very dependent on my data connection and being honest , expect it as i have become use to having rather than not having .

I know i should of looked at O2 coverage maps and now i have im stunned at how bad there network is , buy cheap buy twice .

in the process of porting my number to T-mobile as i cant afford to be with out a data connection for the majority of my working day .

this has got to be costing O2 network customers , i guess that's +1 then .

Edit : this post was made from my new T-Mobile sim as i have coverage where i am today and the O2 sim has no coverage .

Edited by deleted (Mon 16-Jul-12 10:35:18)

I live in the south and the only reason I use O2 is because the office I work in gets no network coverage at all (some sort of faraday cage) but as we use O2 corporately we have our own micro cell in the building. So, at work it is the only provider you can get coverage on - but I hardly ever get 3G and a lot of areas I don't even get Edge.

I have nearly always been able to get a signal and been able to make and receive phone calls and texts , there is no problem with that and O2 network but i have moved on from just using my mobile for making calls but it seems O2 network has not moved on .

I have been using my phone to find my jobs for a good few years now and that's been the biggest problem for me , i have become dependent on Google maps and have not enjoyed relearning the art of map reading .

In reply to a post by Aaron_01:

Great HSDPA signal in my area I moved to where T-Mobile has none, but trips from Hailsham to East Grinstead or London I barely get any G that works, and never H.

I live on that London to Eastbourne road and am almost definitely living right bang slap in the middle of that massive data coverage black hole , nearest 3G signal is Uckfield one way and East Grinstead the other .

I can live with that though as i have internet at home , what i cant live with thou is the huge holes in there network when im out and about .

Gift gaff here in the north east dh4 area great, it all depends on signal to be honest.

I was on Vodafone for many years and took their decent 3G coverage for granted, I then switched to an iPhone a few years ago and O2 were the best deal or only deal at the time (cant recall which) and I have been reminded for the last few years just how bad O2 data is.

Even when you are in an area that they have covered with 3G it feels like they are routing everyone on their network down an old US Robotics 14,400 modem, just unbelievably slow most of the time.

I swapped my iPad over to a Vodafone Sim for 3G and its an amazing difference when comparing the two, Vodafone is always better as and as soon as my current iPhone contract is up I will be ditching O2 as a network provider.

Other thing that looked promising on O2 was their free extensive free WiFi coverage but TBH that is quite often a PIA to get working properly, its very easy to get blocked which then means you have to call them to get your phone unblocked.

I have to agree that o2s data coverage is not amazing. I switched over from 3 where I was used to 3g.

Thing is o2 gets me signal pretty much everywhere and almost always full bars. I prefer this to constantly having no service like I did with 3.

I have 3g where I need it to be honest though.

From what I gather everything everywhere (orange + tmobile) now have the best overall 3g coverage. That being said o2 was the cheapest deal and I get unlimited everything for a reasonable price. My data is unlimited but once I go over 1gb it's slowed down a fair bit.

As for the data feeling slow I've never experienced this.

Vodafone and o2 now have a deal to share infrastructure so it wouldn't surprise me if the coverage changes in the future. Whether good or bad only time will tell. Apparently thousands of current masts are going to be pulled down due to them being not needed once they share infrastructure.

Ultimately o2 and Vodafone should end up with similar coverage

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/voda...

Edited by ukhardy07 (Thu 16-Aug-12 04:00:14)

as giffgaff uses o2 in the next 2-3 years you should see 3g900 on all o2 2g 900 masts souce o2 forums in this thread http://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Welcome-News/Review-and... (pster abs an o2 employee) along with a very high 4g coverage in 2015 in another thread.

This is all due to the agreement with vodafone.

In reply to a post by adamtemp:

as giffgaff uses o2 in the next 2-3 years you should see 3g900 on all o2 2g 900 masts souce o2 forums in this thread http://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Welcome-News/Review-and... (pster abs an o2 employee) along with a very high 4g coverage in 2015 in another thread.

This is all due to the agreement with vodafone.

that is like a life time , 2 to 3 years , as its looking that Everything Every Where are going to have a 4G networked rolled out even before Vodafone and O2 have managed to get there 3G network up in large parts of the country .

O2 and Vodafone are getting a god almighty kicking in the Data coverage arena and anybody with a smart phone that dose not just spend there time in built up areas would do well to move to Everything Every Where .

Im sorry but O2 and Vodafone only have them self's to blame as trends in mobile phone usage has clearly shown people using there data connection more and more , with some apps needing a data connection to work .
This is not something new or just happening and i do honestly believe there lack of investment in there networks is going to cost them dear .

In reply to a post by woweebert:

In reply to a post by adamtemp:

as giffgaff uses o2 in the next 2-3 years you should see 3g900 on all o2 2g 900 masts souce o2 forums in this thread http://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Welcome-News/Review-and... (pster abs an o2 employee) along with a very high 4g coverage in 2015 in another thread.

This is all due to the agreement with vodafone.

that is like a life time , 2 to 3 years , as its looking that Everything Every Where are going to have a 4G networked rolled out even before Vodafone and O2 have managed to get there 3G network up in large parts of the country .

O2 and Vodafone are getting a god almighty kicking in the Data coverage arena and anybody with a smart phone that dose not just spend there time in built up areas would do well to move to Everything Every Where .

Im sorry but O2 and Vodafone only have them self's to blame as trends in mobile phone usage has clearly shown people using there data connection more and more , with some apps needing a data connection to work .
This is not something new or just happening and i do honestly believe there lack of investment in there networks is going to cost them dear .

I quite agree, been a Cellnet/O2 customer for years and I'm quite shocked in the lack of investment in their 3G network. 3G coverage in the Stamford/Rutland area is almost non existant. 1 3G900 cell site by the A1 nr Tinwell, no 3G2100 whatsoever. With Burghley Horse Trials on at the moment, the network is overloaded and the GPRS data network keeps falling over which equals no data at all!

My new T-Mobile SIM arrived today...happy days

in Warrington they seem quite active in placing 3g and 3g900 Pole masts up on the side of roads
norm config of 3x or 4x or some times rare daddy pole masts (4-8x mast that's taller then normal masts that are higher then buildings its next to) pole mast inside the top of the pole less bitchy people of they cant see the masts inside them (most just think tv booster or nothing at all unless they see the O2 sticker on the green Cab next to the pole, some look like wooden BT poles as well)

not that i have much 3g coverage issues with o2 around there any way with my giffgaff sim

a lot of coverage issues be solved if they did not build masts that are no higher then an House, but i guess planning permission gets rejected a lot for taller ones

can you get mini cells for O2 (is it just an mast on the roof and an booster for inside {grey area legal wises})

We have lots like this. Always o2 and always in a good location I find.
http://i50.tinypic.com/2rw8500.jpg

In the area I live vodafone, orange, 3 and o2 all share 1 mast. This is around 2 streets away at the top of a hill...

3 and T-mobile then have another mast around 2 streets away (in the opposite direction).
This basically leaves me in a zone of overlap between the 2 masts but I actually basically get no service. I can only assume they're trying to minimize overlap between the 2 masts.

I work at the bottom of a hill where only o2 and orange get service but orange is marginal.

Each to their own. Where I live I often get the train into central london which takes about 20 - 30 mins. I often listen to the radio during this journey via my iPhone's app which uses the 3g. It drops out 2 or 3 times for about 0.5 seconds during the journey but never fully cuts out. I could never do this before on network 3.

This being said in Sheffield where I sometimes head I get GPRS and no 3g where I go.

With o2 I very often find that when it reports edge or gprs, just flicking 3g off and on gets me full 3g signal. It sometimes seems to stick to the slower signal.

I think anybody that knows anything about network data coverage ( i have seen coverage maps now ) knows 3 3G network is the weakest closely followed by O2 and Vodafone with a clear leader that is Every Thing Everywhere .

My working area stretches from Somerset to Kent and up to Hertfordshire , Oxfordshire , so i travel allot and not always on main commuter routs or in built up areas .

So when somebody says it works fine at my house and my work , this could be true of any of the networks including the worst but it does not work fine at my work , as my work is the whole of the Southeast and as soon as i come out of a built up area there is no Data coverage and Google maps needs data so i end up getting lost , so the Giff Gaff sim ended up in the bin .

don't get me wrong O2 network for making and receiving calls and texts is outstanding , its just i need more from my phone than just that . times are a changing as are people expectations , i will return in a couple of years to see if the partnership between O2 and Vodafone has come to anything .

for now thou neither are a realistic option for my self , even thou i must confess to not trying Vodafone network , its better the devil i know .

I agree here.
Where I need it I get 3g e.g. at home and work... Sometimes driving around I get 2g or Edge.

For me even on 2g my maps etc all work though? Perhaps data only works on gifgaf on 3g? On 3 I didn't get data when it switched to orange 2g so perhaps it's similar...

With 3 I spent plenty of time where I had no service. When I had service it was normally 3g

With o2 I always have service. Sometimes it's 3g sometimes it's 2g but it's almost never 'no service' and barely ever drops below 2 bars from full.
To me this in an improvement over 3 as people can nearly always reach me now.

I do agree that everything everywhere have the best 3g coverage. I would have chose them but they were £6 a month more expensive and £49 for my phone. o2 offered me free phone and cheaper....

It'll be interesting to see how the vodafone / o2 share works out. I'm not overly bothered about 4g right now as I'm happy on 3g. I nearly always get over 5Mbps which is plenty for mobile. I've got a iphone 4s for around 19 months anyway so that's not LTE compatible.

In reply to a post by orozz:

I quite agree, been a Cellnet/O2 customer for years and I'm quite shocked in the lack of investment in their 3G network. 3G coverage in the Stamford/Rutland area is almost non existant. 1 3G900 cell site by the A1 nr Tinwell, no 3G2100 whatsoever. With Burghley Horse Trials on at the moment, the network is overloaded and the GPRS data network keeps falling over which equals no data at all!

My new T-Mobile SIM arrived today...happy days

Bucking the trend, we've suddenly been switched from GPRS to 3G - so either an upgrade or (more likely) the Vodafone sharing agreement is starting to happen.. Good for us either way

where about you find that offer and how much is?
is monthly rolling contract?

Post deleted by MrSaffron