Do any mobiles ever work in the countryside?

walesrob

Here in the wilds of Ceredigon, I can drive for miles and have no mobile phone signal. Vodafone are the worse, they seem to have very little coverage once you leave Aberwristwatch, even just a mile outside of town on the main road to North Wales, whereas EE and 3 have best coverage. I work as a delivery driver and often, I'm in a middle of nowhere, and sometimes have to drive a few miles just to get a signal. The networks claim 96, 97 or 98% UK coverage but it seems that missing 2% is always in Wales.

My works phone is Vodafone, and its useless most of the time. I end up using my spare 3 mobile instead.

vet8

WellKnownSid wrote: »

And just to add - it's also damn frustrating that you could go on holiday just about anywhere in Europe from around ten years ago - walking across a field, hanging off a mountain, exploring a forest or negotiating a tricky desert pass - and you only had to lift your phone to see four or five bloody bars of 3 sodding G!!!

Our local shop owner is Indian and he says that you can go anywhere in India, to the smallest village in the back of beyond and there is always a good signal. As landlines do not exist in most of the country they have ensured that a mobile signal is good.

vet8

diamonds wrote: »

Were you Orange before you got access to TMob ? or vice versa ?

Yeah Orange base station closures were a joke, they should have merged all then took away excess, who'e EE backhaul merger was a joke and handled a mess. Kineto Wireless were shocked EE pulled a ready to launch dual network wifi calling app whilst it was about to embark on disconnecting Orange base stations causing signal issues.

Glad your coverage got better, some EE customers were the lucky ones. Others were held to ransom on contract terms with EE denying they knew why signal had gone. Again why Ofcom does not have a central info of such business decisions for consumers to access is beyond crazy and how poor Ofcom still is even with a new Chief.


Who knows how it will all pan out with Vo2 Cornerstone, as usual us consumers will be last to know and us who are stuck in contract. 4G ? from experience any signal is likely to degrade before 4G! #TRUE :rotfl:

I am with Orange and we used to get a poor signal most of the time, it was not good but at least you could usually get something. When they merged with Tmobile the signal vanished totally and now you might get a signal if you wander around the field for half an hour, but I reckon it works about 5% of the time at best.

absolutereturn

vet8 wrote: »

Our local shop owner is Indian and he says that you can go anywhere in India, to the smallest village in the back of beyond and there is always a good signal. As landlines do not exist in most of the country they have ensured that a mobile signal is good.

Funny you should say that, when I went to Croatia a couple of years ago, I found you could get a good signal even in the rather remote island of Vis, I was checking my emails on the ferry back from there, etc. while I consider myself lucky if I get one bar here at home! :mad:

On another occasion I was in Spain with some friends and we got lost in country roads in Alicante/Murcia. It was dark and the guy who was driving claimed to know the area but didn't have a clue. I activated data roaming on my phone and quickly found where we were using online maps. Fat chance of doing that round here! :mad:

I'm with Vodafone and around three years ago the guys at a shop in a nearby town said they'd be picking up the signal from another mobile network or something like that, the signal would improve in around 18 months. It never did. :(:(

I'm fond of country walking so I paid for the iOS version of the Ordnance Survey maps which are downloaded to your phone and/or iPad and are available offline, otherwise I'd still be trying to find my way back home from when I first set off with my phone and no paper maps five years ago!

bigfreddiel

My 15 yr old Nokia 1100, gets a great signal no matter where I am. Also it only needs charging once a week!

fj

diamonds

vet8 wrote: »

I am with Orange and we used to get a poor signal most of the time, it was not good but at least you could usually get something. When they merged with Tmobile the signal vanished totally and now you might get a signal if you wander around the field for half an hour, but I reckon it works about 5% of the time at best.

Is your network on Auto ?

Yes the Orange closures caused many issues, my Orange signal is still here and as poor as it was, unusable, I can sometimes use the old T-Mobile on 3G... meant to have fantastic 4G, NOPE!

Mrs_Ryan

I live in rural Leicestershire, quite high up and my iPhone 5S gets decent signal on EE, usually around 3 bars although I have WiFi calling. We went to Cornwall in the summer and I had a decent signal there too although bizarrely in the centre of Penzance I struggled to get 3G but on one stretch of the road going towards St Ives I would get 4G.
Where I live, there is no o2 coverage at all and Vodafone have big black spots. I get decent coverage on EE and I had good coverage on 3 as well.

RHemmings

I had dreadful problems getting a signal in Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire countryside yesterday. Are there any networks that have much better coverage than 3 in those areas?

JJ_Egan

RHemmings wrote: »

I had dreadful problems getting a signal in Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire countryside yesterday. Are there any networks that have much better coverage than 3 in those areas?

See post above yours .

RHemmings

JJ_Egan wrote: »

See post above yours .

The one above mine says that EE and 3 had good coverage. My experience is that 3 had poor coverage. Hence, I'll rephrase my question to make it clearer:

Are any of the other networks, e.g. O2 and Vodophone, better than EE and 3 in the Leicestershire countryside?

If there are no better suggestions, then putting an EE SIM into my dual-sim phone in addition to 3 may help, but I'm asking if anyone has better information than this.