We had Virgin mobile for a year. about 1-2 years ago. It was awful - the lack of Band 20/VoLTE mean lots of coverage gaps indoors and in rural areas. Very different to three (we didn't try EE) - though for us Vodafone works best - lots of bands in city, and good broad coverage in the country. as ever that is a very area specific issue

In reply to a post by Woolwich:

EE I know have better coverage (as well as legacy 2G for voice which Three don't). But they're pricey.

Only if you pay their advertised prices. With most of the major networks, you can get fairly good deals over the phone as long as you commit to a 12+ months contract. I'm currently paying £10/m to EE for their 10gb sim only plan with unlimited calls & texts, on a 12 month contact - I took this plan as a new customer. No reason why you can't get a similar deal with EE provided you're willing to haggle

Edited by deleted (Thu 02-Apr-20 09:55:22)

In reply to a post by Highland76:

I'm currently paying £10/m to EE for their 10gb sim only plan with unlimited calls & texts, on a 12 month contact

EDIT: Misreading the EE site, there are no 10GB SIM only contracts available. 1GB for £16 or 20GB for £22.

Did you get this deal recently? Perhaps there was a discount on at the time, in the past I've seen 30% or thereabouts reductions for a limited time. Did you deal with the call centre or a shop?

Thanks!

Edited by Woolwich (Thu 02-Apr-20 10:05:22)

It was couple of months ago, over telesales. It helps if you mention a competitors deal and quite often EE will match or beat it.

Edited by deleted (Thu 02-Apr-20 10:14:14)

VoLTE improves different networks in different ways.

On all networks, it's a lot better at handling voice & data simultaneously so a practical application would be voice calls continuing while you use Google Maps, for example. Calls will also setup in (sometimes) under a second compared with legacy technologies. And the networks can hold a LOT more voice calls per unit of 4G spectrum compared with 3G.

On EE & 3, VoLTE also unlocks access to Band20 coverage which, as others have pointed out, improves rural and indoor coverage noticeably. O2 & VF's original 2G & 3G networks were built on 900Mhz, so don't have this issue.

Historically, O2 & VF haven't had VoLTE in all areas whereas EE have. In other words, you could have 4G coverage on O2 but still fallback to 2G/3G for voice calls - EE have always had a blanket-VoLTE setup. The other thing is that VoLTE & VoWiFi use the same core network, so a 4G voice call can seamless handover to a WiFi voice call (where the facility exists) and vice-versa without the call dropping.