Which mobile phone network

Hi, i'm fed up with t-mobile and there poor reception, its been poor since i joined them in 97. The service has been great but phones are 3-6months behind everyone else.

So i was wondering which networks you chaps are on, especially those that off road. I have a log cabin in North wales which is where i'll be most.

I like the look of O2

Any thoughts experiences?

JInx

B'ham

Reply to
Jinx
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Orange have served us well for the last 10 years, but there have been some golden moments, including a wonderful incident when our "account holder" was on holiday and I had to call them for a new phone. As part-owner and Managing Director I wasn't allowed to change the name on the account, much less give them money for a new phone. Only the guy who was on holiday could do it. When I asked what would happen if he had died, the droid said that he would have to write to them! An amusing aside, which wasn't amusing at the time, especially as two successive "customer service managers" repeated the same bollocks.

BTW - there is a girl called Katy in the Orange shop at Meadowhall who is highly efficient, knows it all inside out and is also very attractive. :-). The shops are IME much more customer friendly than the call centres.

Our new O2 phones arrive this week, as they are lots cheaper and gave us lots of free stuff. My only reservation (I haven't organised this) is that the account is managed by The Link, who are owned by Dixons. I expect particularly piss-poor service and don't imagine I will be disappointed.

That said, we had no O2 coverage in our building (set into a hillside) until Siemens moved in, and their staff were more than slightly inconvenienced. A repeater was eventually installed, and I am sure that the fact that Siemens run thousands of O2 phones had nothing to do with it! Siemens have now moved out, but the phone coverage remains 5-bar....

Reply to
Tim Hobbs

in article bv490u$f69$ snipped-for-privacy@sparta.btinternet.com, Jinx at snipped-for-privacy@btinternet.com wrote on 26/1/04 11:48 pm:

Ours are on Vodafone. Been with them for quite a while now. Pretty good most of the time although there isn't much of a signal whilst sitting on the beach at Borth, but then that is what a holiday is for - to get away from phones etc.

We seem to have more of an issue with the make of phone and its durability and ability after a couple of drops on the floor, for being able to connect to the network. Mine is a Sony Ericson, battery lasts for ages, always a good signal, just too quiet when it rings and sounds like an ice-cream van. Been dropped loads of times and never had a problem with it. Bruce has a Nokia which is always going flat and you are lucky to get a signal above 2 bars. Very often mine can be on 5 and Bruce's have no signal at all.

Decided its time for a new phone. What are these picture phones like? Any recommendations on make at all?

Reply to
Nikki Cluley

IMO they are crap! I have a Motorola T something or other, which is Java-powered. It takes about a minute to switch on, reboots at will (usually during a call) and has a particularly irritating SMS interface. The saving grace is that I can get my email on it, but only the first 100kb of a message, no HTML and a very slow reader.

Then again I find Ericssons pretty awful in the SMS department, but otherwise indestructible. I still have my SH888 which has been abused over many years and it just doesn't stop.

If you want a camera, buy a camera. There are some very nice 2Mp cameras at about £100 which do a great job. A 300 x 400 ish photograph on a postage stamp sized screen is rubbish. The phone companies have been pulled up by the ASA over the way they simulate the quality of photos and video in the ads - the phones don't deliver anything like the quality they try to claim.

We are going back to Nokia, and have issued bluetooth hands-free to users plus full hands-free kits in the company cars. The 6310 is just a phone, and it works. Quick switch on, easy menus etc.

Reply to
Tim Hobbs

I'm on vodafone, have been for 10 years or so and never felt a reason to change. Always been happy with the call service.

The only grumble I had was about the call centre where it seems the staff were not trained very well, I often got conflicting answers to the same question. This seems to have been solved now.

I'd always been a Nokia owner until my last phone, I'm afraid the nokia's are just getting too small for me to comfortably use, add to that that most of them look so cheap and plasticy now that they look like they just popped out of a christmas cracker.

Latest phone is a sharp GX-10i - it has a camera thingy which I never use and all sorts of things I don't understand, but it opens up to a decent size, makes the clearest calls I've ever had and is generally comfortable to use. The screen is twice the size of any nokia I've previously owned and easier to read, it didn't cost a fortune, it was £40 as an upgrade on my existing contract....I won't pay loads for one of these things as I tend to wreck them within a year.

Alan Mudd

Reply to
Alan Mudd

Twas Mon, 26 Jan 2004 23:48:46 +0000 (UTC) when "Jinx" put finger to keyboard producing:

I have used Orange for a few years, their coverage is good all over Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor where I spend alot of time. I currently use a little Motorolla phone, works fine for me.

-- Regards. Mark.(AKA, Mr.Nice.) ___________________________________________________________ "To know the character of a man, give him anonymity" - Mr.Nice.

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mrniceATmrnice.me.uk
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110 CSW 2.5(na)D___________________________________________________________

Reply to
Mr.Nice.

They don't work (ever again) after being dropped in a glass of blackcurrant and apple juice. Don't ask me how I know.

Rich

Reply to
Richard Brookman

Orange have reasonable service (all I can speak for) but I reckon the main reason to choose is coverage where you are likely to be using it most. My local Carphone Warehouse (Haverfordwest) seem to know the coverage of various networks in the area down to postcode level and advised me against changing network on that basis. All the networks still seem to have great gaping holes in their coverage, but you don't want your chosen provider to have one in the square mile surrounding your house.

Rich

Reply to
Richard Brookman

I'd echo Tim's comments - but as to the "size" issue, I've just changed to a Nokia 6310i which is slightly bigger than whatever Nokia I ahd before, largely on the basis that I prefer the larger keys and bigger physical size. I can't be bothered with the photo/camera stuff and the thought of trying to read a web page on a 1in screen leaves me cold.

(Funny isn't it, how mobiles are the only thing blokes boast about "having the smallest!")

As to network, I think a lot depends on where you are (or need to be). I had Orange when I lived in Glasgow and got fantastic service from them, especailly if a replacment phone was needed. Their coverage on the West coast wasn't good though (in fact, outside of the main inhabited areas it seems generally poor) so I switched to Vodaphone when I came down to rural Dumfrishire.

Much better coverage. I dont find their c/s as good though.

Mike.

Reply to
Mike Buckley

Vodafone - never let me down.

(This is a personal opinion even though I'm slightly biased, as they're customers of ours).

Martyn

Reply to
Mother

I used to use Orange and now Vodafone. It was a corporate change and I'd have stuck with Orange given the choice. But there's nothing wrong with Vodafone.

Orange's customer service were very good, and they had some very good technological touches like Wildfire, their voice-activated voicemail, and Answer Fax, which gives you a mobile fax number which you can forward to your nearest fax machine. Their insurance was also excellent - I had many new phones off them (for free) over several years of accidents and damage.

But I can't really gripe about Vodafone, apart from the lack of any real technical excitement, and the fact that it's hard to find out which part of their organisation should take responsibility if you have any problems. Most of the time I don't have to worry about this though.

Orange's GPRS service was fast, but very patchy and dropped out all the time. Vodafone's has good coverage, but is slow as anything (they seem to have a 300 baud modem somewhere in there). So you can't really win with packet-switched wireless wide area networking.

But if I ever buy another mobile I'll be buying Orange.

David

Reply to
David French

I use a Sony GX10 on Vodafone, but then all of my mates are on Vodafone so it doesn't us much to to ring each other, especially with free same network calls after 7pm.

I gave up with Nokias about 3 years ago to see if my headaches would stop, and they did, so now I try get phones with external aerials because I dont get headaches with that sort of phone.

Interestingly, the duty phone for work is a Nokia, and when I use it, I get an instant headache if the call is longer than about 3 minutes.....

-- Simon Isaacs

Peterborough 4x4 Club Chairman and Webmaster

3.5V8 100" Hybrid Part owner of 1976 S3 LWT, currently under restoration Suzuki SJ410 (ex-Girlfriend, at the moment......) Series 3 88" Rolling chassis...what to do next Pug 106 (offroaded once!!)
Reply to
Simon Isaacs

I find that Vodafone and O2 seem to be better in the countryside, 02 a bit more so than Vodafone. Orange/T-Mobile just don't have the coverage outside of the metropolis. However, Vodafone seem to have more blackspots in towns.

Alex

Reply to
Alex

Reply to
StaffBull

I'm firmly of the opinion that Ericsson should still be making the SH888, as I don't think it's ever been topped as a purely functional device. And, as you say, they just keep going.

Reply to
QrizB

I've only ever been with Orange, and still have my original Bosch handset which (apart for a replacement battery) has given me almost five years of trouble-free service.

Reply to
QrizB

Orange is goodfor ages here on exmoor (and most of the SW) - Vodaphone has greatly improved - forget the rest

Reply to
Denis F

I'd agree vodafone for Snowdonia, they just get a sms signal at Rhyd Ddu (opposite side of Snowdon from LLanberis) everything else seems to have dropped by about Snowdon Ranger. Also appear to be the first to come back down the other side.

AIUI only Voda and O2 use any 900MHz (although I have been told that the cut out tends to be on the time delay on the MUX)

Alistair

Reply to
Alistair

If possible, do a network search when you're at your "log cabin" My luxembourg phone finds all the providers in the area with a strong signal. Then chose the strongest (or only existing).

I didn't do this before buying a virgin pay-as-you-go, for when I was over in the UK (surrey countryside)and the poor old virgin phone gets no signal at all.

However, I did buy a top-up card for it from Sainsburys and found out that although they charged only 20 quid, I had two 20 quid-ers stuck together! Which was nice, (for London).

Guy

Reply to
Guy Lux

i like the 6310i as well

as you say it's just a phone, admitedly just a phone with blue tooth and infra red

but it's quick , got good capacity for sms, email etc

and quite niftily can record phone calls for later (mis)use

Reply to
Martyn Hodson

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