funny enough three 3g has improved at my home now, I was able to tether to pc (when FTTC was down) and use youtube HD, browsing was also reasonable. Downloading email didnt make everything else not work, so clearly they did something that has improved it here.

I tried O2 for a few days, speeds were pretty good 15mb+ outside the house and work. I tried Three, much slower upload speed and slower download speed. Where I may need tethering most at my warehouse Three easily outperformed O2, 3G and 4G. In the end I cancelled my O2 contract and signed up with Three.

Thanks for this useful info. When i was with Three a few years ago, if there was no coverage (eg rural areas) the phone automatically went to Orange 2G network, if available in that location. Is this roaming agreement with Orange/EE still in place or is it a case of you either get a Three signal (3G) or nothing at all? Unfortunately 4G is still a wet dream here in the Scottish Highlands......

So 3 has never had access to the entire orange network. In some areas where 3 knew they had no coverage they had an agreement to share the Orange signal in those areas only and it was only a 2g share usually without working data.

Nowadays that agreements been removed in 99.999% of cases only remaining in a very very minority of areas. Perhaps it's gone all together now though... In actual fact quite a few remote areas were cut off entirely as 3 removed the Orange agreement but have no signal in that area still. My parents address included.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Nowadays that agreements been removed in 99.999% of cases only remaining in a very very minority of areas. Perhaps it's gone all together now though... In actual fact quite a few remote areas were cut off entirely as 3 removed the Orange agreement but have no signal in that area still. My parents address included.

I assume 3 looked at the costs of the agreement, and might have decided that so few people were using it that they could save money - and invest in growing the 3G network.

In theory if EE now have 3G signal in an area, it should be in 90% of cases from an MBNL managed mast - which should, in theory, give both networks signal. However as we know there are still quite a few areas with Orange only masts left, and even if the local mast is right, it may not have the coverage needed without 2G.

Think my phone would still roam onto 2g at my parent's house about 2 months ago on Three. That was the only place I've seen it.

The coverage for all of them, bar Vodafone, is equally poor there though. I'll keep an eye on it the next time I'm visiting.

EE 2G on Three is still very much available.

My phone connects to it daily.