Poll: 'best' network?

[The_Dark_Side]

I've been with all of the providers at one point or another and personally I think that Orange can't be beaten. Sure they're a little bit more expensive and may not give you the cheapest upgrades but you get what you pay for IMO.

indeed you do.
in my case about 100 minutes and 500 texts/month more with O2 than Orange were willing to give me.
400 mins/1000 texts for £30/month

overall i feel O2 is the better network.
Orange has by far the best customer service system in place...best coverage is between O2 and Vodafone (who are,in my opinion,DIRE)
O2 are the best of the bunch when it comes to price and i found Orange to be inflexible in this area.

 

[Tunney]

I was fairly happy with my O2 contract until it came to upgrade time. After threatening to leave, they offered me 200 mins/500 texts for £9.50pm and either a new phone or £100 off my bill if I signed a new 12 month contract. Now I'm very happy with them.

As already mentioned, e-mail support is dire but over the phone I've yet to be disappointed.

Best of all, their contract phones are generally unlocked and unbranded. I hate how operators ruin perfectly good phones with slow and over-powering custom software and it's nice to see that they're finally listening to their customers.

 

[Gavin]

Thanks

And by the way i think it will be between o2 and orange contracts, although o2 might top it with the silly deals they were giving away before there merger...

 

[samuel]

Been with Voda for 5 years now, and never had a problem.

 

[Tute]

Orange PAYG, no problems at all, had phones blocked/replaced etc. All fine. Can't fault them.

My only foray was onto contract with Vodafone, a 'friend' of mine ran up a £260 bill on my phone behind my back then ran off abroad like the ******* he was when I cornered him about it.
Vodafone weren't massively understanding about it, insisted I pay the bill immediatly or they'd blacklist me. Wasn't too chuffed tbh as I didn't have that kinda money lying around.
Not totally Voda's fault I guess but it soured the whole 'contract' experience.

 

[Aspect]

Vodafone, Contract. Never had any problems.

 

[Flibster]

Vodaphone - 3 years - poor coverage and generally incompetent staff

3 - 2 1/2 years - Not a single problem at all over that time, even managed to get a signal in wales when no one else at the omgwtfbbq didn't.

o2 - 3 months - fine - staff in stores are alright when you can eventually get their attention - phone staff seem fine as well.

So....3

Simon/~Flibster

 

[Sanchez]

Vodafone are awful.

1) They brand their phones, usually removing the beautiful GUI and replacing it with red crap. They also shove their horrible logo all over the phone.
2) They may offer good prices on a new handset, but when it comes to upgrades, they are hell. I had to threaten an O2 move in order to get the handset I wanted, and I still paid much more than it would to have closed my contract and opened a new one.

On the other hand, Vodafone's GPRS homepage is quite useful, especially for sports scores and news.

To be honest what you've just said there is as true for Voda as it is for Orange. But Voda are possibly the worst company at billing I have even encounted! Orange on the other hand bill quite well, although their orders sometimes take a while to get through (web orders anyway). I was with o2 for quite a while a few years ago and found them to be good with the exception of CS which was dire.

From my experience all of the main mobile operators are bad at one thing and that's different for each provide. Voda can't bill, Orange can't deliver, o2 have crap CS and T-Mobile have poor tarrifs.

 

[tzang]

In order of "best" to worst" from my experience:

Vodafone - Good reception in most places including international roaming, reasonable packages (especially GPRS, which I use often) plus good range of phones (and if you avoid buying from them directly, you can get unbranded ones, which is the better choice). Rather poor customer retention.

Orange - Would have topped my list for best network but their poor range of phones put me off everytime I look at their network... this is then followed by Orange branding. Their customer services is fantastic though (in my experience).

O2 - Bad in the past, starting to improve but their customer services have been poor for a number of years. Good coverage and tariffs, especially for students.

T-Mobile - Poor coverage, poor range of phones and as of my last upgrade with them, they don't seem bothered with existing customers AFAIK. Still using an old tariff with them since their new tariffs are rather poor.

3 - Oftel should consider getting rid of 3. Customer services doesn't exist with call centres based in India (apart from their Scotland branch, which is rather difficult to get to, if they still exist). Took me nearly an hour to retrieve a PAC code for my sister and was misinformed about the PAC code process by 3 different people who couldn't understand my fluent English (they try so hard to put an American accent on, why do they bother since it's so obvious ). Service isn't great, range of phones are starting to improve, tariffs are cheap but who would go for a network with such ridiculous customer services?

 

[Clarkey]

I would have gone on vodafone, they had a great online deal with 'stop the clock', but they didnt (and still dont) sell the razr v3i. T-mobile were the first to release this phone so I went with them, pretty much the same deal but much cheaper and without the 'stop the clock', turns out I havent nearly used all my minutes anyway and thats including some long calls. The contract suits me down to the ground as does the phone, never had a problem with CS but I havent been on long, I can't imagine ever having to contact them though tbh. In terms of coverage, I was on Orange for years, and I have found the t-mobile reception to be on par with that (well better tbh, my orange phone was terrible in my uni room (which btw is in central manchester) where its great on tmobile).

 

[Gavin]

I must admit im quite surprised by the amount of people of vodafone, i dont anyone personally who is with them apart from businesses and they all swear by the cs? Maybe they get a different service?

 

[The_Dark_Side]

@ Dolph

i was told that Orange's relatively poor selection of handsets was due to their testing procedures being considerably more rigorous than the other networks'...thereby generating more failures hence fewer handsets making the grade.
how true is this?

 

[csmager]

Orange Contract's been great. Customer Services generally good, coverage seems to be pretty decent - there's a few places in Lincs where only Orange get signal.

Plus I think they're the only people who do the answerphone properly - O2/Vodafone etc all phone you to say you've got a message, which seems utterly bizarre. Orange just light up the answerphone icon.

 

[Kappa]

but they didnt (and still dont) sell the razr v3i.

Vodafone do have the V3i, for about 3 weeks now.

Plus I think they're the only people who do the answerphone properly - O2/Vodafone etc all phone you to say you've got a message, which seems utterly bizarre. Orange just light up the answerphone icon.

??? Theres an option to change that to a text, and you still get the logo

 

[Clarkey]

No Kappa they dont, they sell the godawful V3x but not the i

 

[Yas786]

Hmmm been with o2 for quite some time before that i was with one2one now known as tmobile. Cant say that in the 4 yrs i have been with o2 ive had any major problems other than their upgrade line is absolutely useless. But usually because i spend so much on a monthly basis that they tend to give into most of my demands. But i dont think ive upgraded through them ie handset for some time now....usually buy my phones simfree...that way i dont have to deal with them screwing up the phone. Although they dont tamper with their phones like orange, tmobile, 3 or vodafone...those 4 are the worst when it comes to tampering with the phones software etc.

 

[Kappa]

No Kappa they dont, they sell the godawful V3x but not the i

They sell both and the V3x is miles better than the v3i IMO

 

[player]

Are there different networks for P&G customers and contract customers? My O2 P&G has a terrible reception in my house, albeit a cheap service. I want to move to a better network in my area, but they all boast excellet coverage here - which isn't the case.

 

[Aram]

One thing I've noticed from these boards is that most of the people with bad experiences, especially with upgrades / new contracts, are the ones with low (generally under £30) monthly bills.

Of course there's always abberations and every company cocks up now and again and send the wrong phone etc, etc - it happens. But the rubbish service, no help when you want to upgrade issues etc usually relate to the low spenders.

A surprise? No, it's bloody obvious you look after your biggest customers first. Shame tho...

 

[Nikolic]

Vodafone Contract for me - I did have an Samsung E710 which was branded from head to toe, have an W800i now and it's completely clean (apart from Vodafone live and the operator folder thing...)

Yes their upgrades are bad - but cancellations are wicked ;D