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Are Giff Gaff the kings here? And is the introduction of 4G killing the 3G signal? I'm on Virgin Mobile, 1Gb data, bazillion minutes/texts for just over £6 a month (discounted as I'm also a Virgin TV customer). The last six months though the 3G coverage has just got worse and worse and the last month I've virtually had no signal outside the house, just endlessly spinning animations and never-loaded web pages. It's pointless me owning a smart phone. I can't be arsed dealing with Virgin "support", I'd rather just vote with my wallet and go elsewhere, even if it costs a bit more. There's virtually no 4G where I live in Cheltenham so that's not needed, who are the best sim only contract companies these days? Tempted by Giff Gaff at £12/month for unlimited texts and data... except my partner is on O2 and the signal (that Giff Gaff piggy back) is a bit hit and miss too... |
SIM only contractuals...
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mothercruncher 19,474 posts
Seen 4 hours ago
Registered 15 years ago -
mal 29,326 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 20 years agoIf you need a bundle, I'm not aware of anything better than Giffgaff. If you're lower usage than that, Three's 1-2-3 payg deal is worth considering. -
zombielvis 138 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 11 years ago@mcmothercruncher
I'm on the £12 giffgaff bundle and it's decent as long as you are in a strong O2 area. Bear in mind they are changing the pricing of their bundles in the near future so the £12 bundle will only be for 3GB data. Not sure when it's changing but they sent emails around to members a little while ago. -
Giffgaff are the kings here, but a word of warning, if you have issues, you've not got a terrible hotline you can call.
It's all done by their commie workforce. Getting things sorted is even more of a crapshoot than the biggies. That's the only reason I left. -
Obviously if you're not so ridiculously attached to your phone like I am this is less of an issue. -
mal 29,326 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 20 years agoThat's true, and Giffgaff have had a bit of a time of it the past 18 months. Never been on Three yet (and I doubt I'd get 3G here anyway, so that'd just be Voda 2G, if they actually still support the 2G rollback - which they're being very quiet about on their website) -
mothercruncher 19,474 posts
Seen 4 hours ago
Registered 15 years agoThanks folks, very much appreciate the thoughts, it looks like Giff Gaff then. I'll probably go for the £10 jobby and see how the connectivity/speed is before stumping up the extra for unlimited data.
I always heard 3 were poop, will just check them out first I think. Suspect very much still poop. -
Dazimus 1,561 posts
Seen 5 days ago
Registered 15 years agoI've just got my PAC code from Virgin as well, their performance has been absolutely terrible for a few months now. Waiting for my GG sim to arrive and I'll see how they go. Also debating EE as they're coming out on top in surveys and tests.
Edited by Dazimus at 17:00:17 02-09-2014 -
I can't see past 3 myself. £15 a month gets you all you can eat 4G data. That shits on Giff Gaff.
As for them being shit, I don't think customer service is supposed to be all that, but in terms of network their 4G and 3G is as good as anyone, and below that they piggyback the EE network which is supposedly the best in the country. -
Aargh, 292 posts
Seen 6 years ago
Registered 10 years ago3 by a mile for me too. Giffgaff are fine but they break a lot. -
mothercruncher 19,474 posts
Seen 4 hours ago
Registered 15 years agoAre you folks in London?
My hesitation with 3 is/was all anecdotal. Except, if you look at their coverage checker, their coverage is still extremely patchy, even in some city centres. 4G even worse, though of course that's the case with most at the moment. I just want something predictable and stable. Perhaps I ought to invest in a really long ethernet cable... -
PearOfAnguish 7,573 posts
Seen 6 years ago
Registered 17 years agoThree are good. Cheap prices and excellent coverage. EE supposedly have the biggest network but the various reviews and info released studying the performance of the networks over the last few years have either EE or Three as the best so they're pretty much neck and neck (Vodafone and O2 are always behind).
I think Three's data connectivity is far superior though. When you can't get 4G you can still often get the upgraded 3G which can hit 20Mbps+ if your phone supports it, and even without that their standard 3G seems to be fast as well. Despite having a really good cheap deal from T-Mobile days I told EE to stuff it a while back because their data connectivity turned to dogshit after the launch of 4G, giving me constant dropouts and pathetic speeds.
Worst thing about Three is supposedly their support but as I've never had cause to contact them for anything other than minor customer service stuff I can't comment on that.
Wouldn't put too much stock in the coverage check tools btw. They're useful for a broad overview but no guarantee that you won't get bad service in an area that should be good, and vice versa.
Edited by PearOfAnguish at 18:32:06 02-09-2014 -
mothercruncher 19,474 posts
Seen 4 hours ago
Registered 15 years agoHmm, 3's own coverage map has them looking the worst, outside of very major cities anyway. Trouble is, you can't bloody find out without signing in blood and going through all the PAC code faff first.
"Despite having a really good cheap deal from T-Mobile days I told EE to stuff it a while back because their data connectivity turned to dogshit after the launch of 4G, giving me constant dropouts and pathetic speeds."
Exactly my situation with Virgin, pointless me having a phone at the moment. -
PearOfAnguish 7,573 posts
Seen 6 years ago
Registered 17 years ago
Virgin use EE.
Exactly my situation with Virgin, pointless me having a phone at the moment. -
I just joined a new network called The Peoples Operator (TPO), similar pricing to Giffgaff but 10% of your bill goes to a charity of your choice.
However they use EE so probably not any good to the Virgin problem areas (also EE). But if O2 for giffgaff is a problem they are a viable alternative to Virgin. -
StixxUK 8,755 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 19 years agoI'd go for three.
£13 a month for unlimited 4 data... Don't really need much in the way of minutes and texts these days! -
BurnoutJunkie 1,222 posts
Seen 3 days ago
Registered 16 years agoGiff Gaff is fucking shite, IMO. Slow 3G connection and seems to go down for long periods every few weeks. You never know though, you may get good service...so try it. I'm currently on Virgin (which uses EE) for £12/month. I'll be calling in within a few weeks to get that down to around £5/6 a month cause I already have another Virgin line that was brought down to this price. -
Aargh, 292 posts
Seen 6 years ago
Registered 10 years agoI've been over most of the country and of o2(giffgaff), what was orange and 3 I've had better coverage with 3 by some distance. -
Mageme 2,330 posts
Seen 2 weeks ago
Registered 15 years agoI left GG recently for Three, having been with them for a couple of years. The variable data speeds and random signal drop out really killed it for me. I tried their 4G service and more often than not, I'd get 2G speeds. Having said that, I did get 50 Mbps speed test result once. At least Three give me a stable signal. -
Another bump, this thread'll do.
I've just ordered a free, 321 pay and go sim card and one thing I question, whilst it's 1p per mb, do they round up the data usage? What I mean is, If I'm outdoors and only whatsapping, those messages, lines of text are mere kilobytes so, if I only used like 250kb for the entire day, would they still class it as a mb of usage?
Hope that made sense.
edit. Nothing here either hmmm
Edited by pacrifice at 21:09:20 03-02-2015
Edited by pacrifice at 21:09:43 03-02-2015 -
mal 29,326 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 20 years agoI don't know, but given a MB is a penny, do you have an issue with them rounding up to the nearest penny? Top up ten quid, and you'll be good to go for almost three years based on data usage alone if you use a few kB a day. -
@mal Actually, I didn't even think of it that way. Thanx, nice one dude. -
Dirtbox 92,595 posts
Seen 19 hours ago
Registered 19 years ago -
Found out today that even if it's so many kb of data, they round up to a mb. This is what they say which doesn't make it so good then when all you'll be doing are lines of text in whatsapp. A text convo can eat up your credit.
However, I'm hoping the operator I talked to got it wrong and their system automatically deducts from the credit when it's calculated, that the kb's have accrued to the amount of 1mb.
Here's hoping. -
mal 29,326 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 20 years agoDirtbox wrote:
GG have had a number of systemwide failures over the past couple of years. AFAIK recent failures aren't so dependent on where you are.
Never had any problem with GG, but it's entirely down to where you are.
That said, I evidently wasn't using my phone at those times, as I didn't notice most of them either. -
Ok, sorry to post again regarding the three 321 data thing but I came across this and so the deal is all good after all:
"Hi there, for 321 data usage we have not defined any minimum charge and the chargeable increment is set to 1 byte meaning it will round up to the nearest byte only. This means that you can be charged less than a penny and because we rate to 3 decimal places a customer in theory could be charged form £0.001 to £0.009 in increments of a tenth of a penny. Therefore you will not be charged 1p per every data session you use."
Great stuff! -
figgis 7,721 posts
Seen 1 year ago
Registered 16 years agoNo tethering with Giff Gaff, do it and you get banned for an hour. I've been with then for a few years, the rural coverage is pretty decent. -
Fucking hell, BT are buying EE. Time to move on. Saw this thread bumped, are Three really alright nowadays? -
brokenkey 11,128 posts
Seen 2 hours ago
Registered 20 years agoThree is fine. -
Aren't Three buying O2...so its basically going to be either Three or BT for network choice. Balls.
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