Where I live, all four UK mobile network operators have "good" coverage.
In reality they can all be a bit flaky.
Earlier this year EE vastly improved their coverage in my area, and after doing a few speed tests I decided to give them a go.
I have been using EE MVNO Life Mobile for several months because they are cheap and provide a good allocation of minutes, texts and data on a 30 day rolling contract.
However, I have had a few issues with a weak signal on this network over the past week or so, despite a day where there was no signal whatsoever due to a "mast upgrade" - If anything, the signal is now much worse.
So I have been looking at the various SIM only and PAYG options (even referring to my own PAYG bundles website) to see if I can find a better deal which works.
The best network for coverage is Vodafone, but they are too expensive and their customer service puts me off (I had a terrible experience with them a few years ago, and by the sounds of it they have become progressively worse). Vodafone's main UK MVNO Talkmobile was the best option, but their customer service is even worse (see my previous blog post)!
After a bit more research I've discovered that O2 has the best coverage for my area. Three's is pretty terrible and EE isn't good enough.
I don't want to pay O2's prices, though, so the best value (once again) becomes their own MVNO giffgaff.
Giffgaff do have some pretty reasonable PAYG monthly bundles, and you can easily change your bundle each month - or even buy a new one if you run out of minutes/data.
However, data speeds (and even reliability) on giffgaff have been pretty abysmal over the years, so I needed to do some of my own speed tests.
None of my speed tests would set the world alight: 0.55-1.6mbps download speeds were typical, but for my needs this should be acceptable, and I'm hoping that I'll get much better voice coverage than with EE, so I am considering moving back to giffgaff in September.
What annoys me is that all four UK network operates claim 99% of UK population coverage, yet they tend to ignore that fact that their geographical coverage is pretty rubbish.
The only network I've ever used with good voice/text coverage is Vodafone, yet EE and Three bang on about how great their coverage is at every given opportunity - It's a hard fact that they need to learn that their coverage really is not all that great.
New MVNO "1p Mobile" is supposed to launch in September. If/when this new network does get off the ground I'll consider trying them out, but this depends very much on what network they'll be piggybacking on.
I suspect that it'll be EE, because so many MVNOs use EE's network, so this might be a non-starter.
It's been a year since I last used giffgaff as my main network, so I hope that I'm not disappointed this time around.
