Are Virtual Mobile phone Networks 'second-class citizens?'

Mach1000

It has been suggested to me that anyone buying Sim-only deals from any of the various virtual phone networks are actually given a second-class service by the network and therefore they will have lower performance and reliability than customers directly with EE, O2, Vodafone or Three.  Is this actually true?

I note that in our area only Vodafone and EE have good reliable network coverage, and also see that the best (ie cheapest ) Sim-only deals are always with the smaller virtual networks.  I am certainly up for saving money, as we are currently paying over the odds for our mobiles with Vodafone - but I do not want to go through the aggravation of changing supplier (we want to keep our existing phone numbers) if we are likely to find that we get a poorer signal/reception.

al3xp

Sometimes that can be the case, but it does depend on the MVNO, this is a useful resource for comparing features and network priority/access:

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/threads/network-spec-spreadsheet.40566/

Sarahspangles

As I understand it, this is partly correct. We use giffgaff which is on the O2 network.

Signal - Giffgaff and O2 coverage are the same, the signal strengths are no different.

Bandwidth - Giffgaff data speeds are (potentially) slower than O2 as the bandwidth can be limited by O2.

I can see the O2 mast from here (or rather the patch of woodland) so the signal is the best I will get from any provider, and I rarely download over the mobile network so I'm not affected by the bandwidth issue.

Kim_13

There is very little difference. Pay Monthly customers can also be prioritised over Pay As You Go on the same network, but it's certainly not worth paying a premium for the negligible differences.

Murmansk

For what it's worth, it's my understanding from a website called Sim Sherpa that 1pMobile,who use the EE network, give their customers the same service that EE customers get when dealing direct 

https://www.simsherpa.com/networks/1p-mobile/review-and-guide?src=nav