Overseas coverage

solidus_2

I've travelled all over the world and found BT Cellnet/o2 had great coverage for SMS. I changed to Virgin and recently, in India, discovered their coverage is diabolical. Does anyone know what UK network Virgin uses and why it's so much worse than o2?

Also, will a Tesco mobile have as good overseas coverage as an o2 mobile, since they both use the same o2 network?

jnm21

You may find that manually selecting the roaming network would solve the problem. Basically if network A has great but patchy cover & your phone happens to automatically search in an area where it is strong, it may ignore network B which has good all over coverage.

BexTech

Overseas coverage is dependant on the network you are roaming on overseas.

http://www.virginmobile.com/vm/callCosts.do?isoCountryCode=in&paymentPlan=payMonthly

For example doesn't matter who your UK phone network is, if when in France you are roaming on Orange France, then you will need to check Orange France coverage, as when you are outside the UK you are no longer using your home network.

BexTech

jnm21 wrote:

You may find that manually selecting the roaming network would solve the problem. Basically if network A has great but patchy cover & your phone happens to automatically search in an area where it is strong, it may ignore network B which has good all over coverage.

Yeah, sometimes your phone might log on to a strong signal, but move a few hundred metres down the road and the signal might be ropey, but as the phone has locked onto one network and still has signal albeit not a great one, it will stay on there until it loses signal for that network and then looks for the strongest available again.

I often switch to manual, chose the network I want, once registered on that network, then switch to automatic, but keep an eye on the reception from time to time. As I find it handy it switching to another network when I lose signal from the other.

digp

o2 switches itself I think?
I found the same thing, with "o2" performing well.
voda on the other hand were diabolical, the theiving bar studs.

BexTech

digp wrote:

o2 switches itself I think?
I found the same thing, with "o2" performing well.
voda on the other hand were diabolical, the theiving bar studs.

It's your phone settings which states whether the switch is automatic or manual, you can switch to and from automatic and manual.

Check the O2 website for which networks you can roam on, then check the Vodafone website for which networks you can roam on, do the same for the others.


Look at Spain for example.

On Vodafone you can roam on:
Vodafone Spain, Orange(Amena), Telefonica(Movistar).

On O2 you can roam on:
Vodafone Spain, Orange(Amena), Telefonica(Movistar).

On Virgin you can roam on:
Vodafone Spain, Orange(Amena), Telefonica(Movistar).

On T-Mobile you can roam on:
Vodafone Spain, Orange(Amena), Telefonica(Movistar).

On Orange you can roam on:
Vodafone Spain, Orange(Amena), Telefonica(Movistar).

On Three you can roam on:
Orange(Amena), Telefonica(Movistar).

For the four main networks there is very little in it, as for the vast majority of countries they all roam on all the available networks in that country, so it doesn't matter if your home network is O2 or Vodafone, your coverage abroad will be the same, as you are using the same overseas network.

redux

Get a local SIM card anyway. In India you can call home for equivalent of a few pence, as opposed to arounf a quid for incoming and outgoing calls

solidus_2

Thanks for the advice. I'm not in India just now, but I think next time buying an Indian sim is probably the best answer. I'll also check my phone settings and try switching between manual and automatic.

redux

SIM info and network website links (click logo) at
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/en/india.html

local calls on all networks a couple of pence a minute; they have national roaming which means different tariffs outside the local area, eg http://hutch.in/roaming/prepaid_national_del.asp

Hutch has the cheapest calls to UK - about 9 pence a minute