iPhone 3G - Orange vs O2 on Pay as You Go

M4RKM

if you want to go the PAYG route, you could have a look on the wonder that is ebay... some people might be selling the actual iphone PAYG sims, that give you the 12 months free internet.


I once used a contract Orange sim in an iphone, and just for work e-mail and calendar usage, i racked up my company a nice £70 bill in a month.... (i think it was £6 a mb as it was totally out of any contract package!), so you gotta be careful really if you go with an unsupported provider..

M

Idonex

Regarding reception: O2 are dreadful. I don't know if it's the phone or O2 but the 3G reception is non-existant, probably get it 30% of the time, usually only GPRS or EDGE. On Orange, 3 and Vodaphone i got 3G and 5 bars pretty much everywhere i went in the UK or elsewhere including my flat. On the iPhone there are areas in my flat where i get no service at all. Never experience reception this bad since the days of One2One.

I live in Central London (Zone 2) and according to O2's reception checker pretty much all of London should be full on 5 bars 3G.

Even when you get 3G on O2 it's barely useable internet wise.. Wish i'd got the iPhone on PAYG then i would have unlocked it and stuck my Orange SIM with 500Mb data bundle in.

Love the iPhone, shame about O2. Even next to me right now..got a SE K800i which has 5 bars and 3G, a cheapo 3 Skypephone which has 5 bars and HSDPA and the iPhone which has 1 bar and GPRS. If this is what its like in central london god help anyone in the countryside.

Any

That is very interesting Idonex - did you check with people around you what they say about their reception? Maybe it is the phone?

My friends are saying the exact opposite to me (different area??) - get onto O2 there is fantastic coverage all over. My sister and my husband both have O2 (my sister the Iphone, my OH HTC) and they are more happy then ever..

Any

blizeH wrote: »

Awesome, thanks guys - the 12 month contract SIM sounds great - so basically £140 (£11.67 p/m) for the year after after Quidco for the free calls, text and internet... sounds ideal really!

My only problem, if I used Quidco, surely I can't get my number changed over using the PAC?

Quidco only connects you to the O2 website - so you will use the O2 website like you would otherwise. You just have to get there via Quidco.

Just been there and noticed the deal for £100 cashback is on only till Monday!!

blizeH

Crap! Thanks Any... not sure what to do now, as I wanted to give my phone a test run on Orange for a week or so before switching, arghh!

I think I'm going to phone Orange tomorrow, see if they can do me a deal before I switch!

M4RKM

I travel around the UK a lot for my job, and can honestly say that i've had totally the opposite experience to Idonex.

3g signal is much better on o2 than any signal on my works orange phone... i always seem to get dropped calls with orange, and none with o2... it's an oddity..

maybe give the phone a full restore, up to the latest version of software, could be little glitch that is causing it not to have 3g...
if all else fails, take it to an apple store, and see if they can test/swap it for you (if it is still in warranty)


M

blizeH

Seems the switch to O2 could be a winner then, although not sure if I'd go with that contract or a regular SIM... guess the contract one would make sense!

I guess after the 12 months I can downgrade to PAYG?

blizeH

Hang on, just had a thought, based on current usage...

12 month contract total costs: (£19.56 * 12) - £100 = £134.72
PAYG free internet - top up every other month (if that) like I do now = ~£60

... of course that all depends on whether I suddenly start making loads of phone calls, but I'm not sure I would personally.

Think I may register the SIM I get with the iPhone, get the 12 months free internet with that, and just occasionally top up to get the 300 free texts.

robbies_gal

in london the signal is crap on any phone my husband works in the city and cant get a signal on any network

it depends wot area and wot the surrounding buildings are like

ACDeag

I ignore all coverage comments, coverage is very personal depending upon where in the country, building type etc.

In my house Vodafone is best, followed by O2 and at the bottom is T-mobile, at my mum's O2 is best and Vodafone is so bad that there is no signal outside in the street (even though their web site predicts coverage), and the rest are pretty awful.