What other network does 3 use now for areas not covered by themselves?

NDK49

I hope this makes sense. I heard a long time ago that 3 has only so many transmitters and for areas not covered by themselves they use another network. I also heard that the network they use changed a while back. I just wondered if this is still the case and what network they now use as Vodafone and O2 reception at my home is pathetic.

diamonds

well i roam on orange and o2 as well as 3 so i always have a signal

edna_clouds

I recently took out the half price line rental deal on three and I thought as it was a new contract I would be using orange as the piggy back provider but it is definitely o2 that I'm connecting to ..

gaahmad

How can you tell which network you're roaming on, when not on the '3' network?? I've been getting a really bad signal recently, although I'm in an excellent O2 area!

Anon

Three have used o2 in the UK since they set up. They recently announced that they are switching to Orange (this is starting now) and will be notifying customers.

Anon

Old_Gold

I am on orange and there are certain areas I do not receive a signal. My wife is on 3 so does that mean she will not get a signal there either.

Quentin

Not necessarily.

Your wife will only be switched away from 3 when there is no 3 signal available.

This is a better arrangement than your orange deal, as when there is no orange signal you have no alternative provided.

custos

gaahmad wrote:

How can you tell which network you're roaming on, when not on the '3' network?? I've been getting a really bad signal recently, although I'm in an excellent O2 area!

Using your 3 phone do a network search when you are in the service area of O2 and Orange. Either O2 or Orange will be listed as a 3 Domain and not as O2 or Orange. Either Orange or O2 will be shown as a 'Forbidden' Domain. Orange is displayed as 'Orange' on my phone T-Mobile as 'TMO UK' and Vodafone is 'VF UK' It sounds complicated I know but you should be able to work out which is available for your phone to use and which is not! If you don't understand what the phone reports post it here and I will try and work it out for you. Mine is still using O2 so 'O2 UK' is not shown.

diamonds

As custos says.....

I get 3 x "3" networks displayed when searching for networks in a unlocked N73 - 3, O2 & Orange - I can manually force my mobile to all 3 networks

gaahmad

I also get 3 x "3" networks displayed when searching for networks on my 6680. Evertime I do a manual search of the networks, they're not always listed in the same order, so I guess by trial and error I can connect to the different "3" networks to see which one is O2, as we get very bad Orange signal in our area, only 1 or two bars.

Thanks to the both of you.