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.