In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

and as silly as this will sound 'I don't like having no 2G to fall back on'...

I always thought that Three used roaming onto Orange as their 2G fallback. But, as I just found out, it seems they canned that a long time ago.

Yes many many moons ago they ditched that. Things have got better I can't recall a time I have ever had 2G fallback even when it was in service. I once watched Netflix non stop through a rural bus location, it was the only network that let me do it - this was in 2012.

My O2 phone got signal for about 30% of the same journey.

In reply to a post by WWWombat:

I always thought that Three used roaming onto Orange as their 2G fallback. But, as I just found out, it seems they canned that a long time ago.

There may be some very remote places where it is still operating, but Three canned it across most of the country when I still had my 3GS, somewhere between 2009 and 2011. Basically it cost Three a lot of money for the fallback, and they put the money into the MBNL share with Tmobile to really improve the network.

In reply to a post by 23Prince:

Yes many many moons ago they ditched that. Things have got better I can't recall a time I have ever had 2G fallback even when it was in service. I once watched Netflix non stop through a rural bus location, it was the only network that let me do it - this was in 2012.

Tmobile was quite similar when you locked to 3G on the handset, but would fall to 2G too easily - for phone calls I suspect.

My O2 phone got signal for about 30% of the same journey.

Round here O2 was great for muffled phone calls (low bandwidth) on lots of 2G. There was no 3G - just like Vodafone, until CTIL upgraded things in late 2013 for 4G.

Edited by jchamier (Sun 22-Jan-17 13:43:02)

And then you get all the giffgaffer's jumping on to fight for the low grade scraps from the O2 customers.

It's mad.

I've stuck with 3, not so much for brand loyalty but because they are the only All you can eat provider and they have also been true to that. I don't use massive amounts, prob about 25GB a month but I'm out a lot of the day a lot of the week. So it's actually made me consider dropping one of my FTTC lines or replacing it with low grade ADSL.

I know many many people used to use 3 as a landline alternative and that's why they stopped unlimited tethering. But for the price they charge, what you get these days is a decent offering.

Sorry I ranted and forgot my point.. oh yeah, You get what you pay for - and in my area O2 was never worth the outlay.