Hi, just got my Wildfire unlocked so now have the option of choosing network though realistically its gonna be Voda or O2 as TMobile and Orange are pants in my area. Can anyone advise which network would be better for 3G in South London SW12 8RH postcode? Is there somewhere online I can look at online not tied in to networks that gives a true idea of signal strength? Or any personal experience in South London?
Many thanks.

Get a free pay as you go sim for both and see what the signal strenth is on both in the areas you require.

Both sould be offering about the same coverage now as they reached an agreement to share transmission sites in all of the European countries both companies operate in. The mast sharing will save both companies a lot of money and put them in a similar position to T-Mobile/3/Orange who own one single company called Mobile Broadband UK which provides all of them with their transmission needs from shared sites.

All the networks still have separate networks (their own range of frequencies) but in the UK there should only be two distinct differences in coverage. 3/Orange/T-Mobile or Telefonica02/Vodafone.

Cracking idea

Had the Voda sim card in that came with it, and used to fluctuate a lot but most of the time was 0-1 bars. Just been and got an O2 sim and it seems to sit constantly on 2 bar. Guess that's my network sorted.

Top idea mrdeejay thanks for that.

Sites, not networks, both have different network equipment, different networks with different peering agreements, different backbones, different capacities, different terms and conditions on what they allow and don't allow and as far as I'm aware they never said they would share all sites, most are still separate from what I can tell.

It's just not that simple wavejockglw, for a start 1 has a lot more customers than the other and therefore needs more cell sites for capacity reasons.

If 1 network has 15 million customers and the other has 10 then the one that has 15 needs more cell sites to deliver the same capacity / quality of service.

My recommendation of out of the 2 would be Vodafone as they have a superior 3G network.

Vodafone also seem to have a better fallback when you go out of 3G coverage. Most of the time, I either have 3G or EDGE, and very rarely GPRS. When I was on O2's Giffgaff, I saw EDGE only once or twice, and was on slow old GPRS the vast majority of the time.

Most of the site sharing is now in place. Have a look at Mobile Broadband Ltd's website which confims the current status of the integration process.

On 3G networks 3 have the most bandwidth and the least customers so they should be the network of choice but the lack of a 2G network to seamlessley swich voice calls to is a big drawback. (Some of their MVNO customers are thinking of leaving them!)

I'm on Vodafone and find it pretty good. Data in big cities is lightning fast with up to 14.4Mb/s.

Out of your two choices, Vodafone all the way.

Both companies' 3G coverage is not particularly worth writing home about, but where Vodafone has 3G, it seems to be better than O2 in terms of speeds/reliability. Vodafone also has a better 2G network - the only one in the UK that appears to support incoming calls during an active data session.

Vodafone also has the advantage that they offer femtocells if your in-home coverage is not great.

You never get anywhere near 14.4 on any network. Prove it lol. The most you will get in reality is about 4 Mbps

Nonsense.... I have had 7Mbs in the UK and 10Mbs in Turkey on Vodafone using my Samsung Galaxy S tethered as a WiFi Access Point.

Checked using Speedtest.net.