I know over the past year they've tried to remove the unlimited text bolt on. . . they've taken away unlimited internet. . . .they're tried to take away MMS' being worth 4 of your included texts. . .and they've removed automatic text storage from BlueBook (ie its only useful feature). . but o2 just sent me an MMS with a link to iTunes to redeem a voucher for 3 songs of my choice.

That's nice.

How much has it cost o2 to offer all their millions of customers 3 iTunes songs? Isn't that like the government buying every British citizen a Mars Bar? I would much rather have cheaper calls/taxes.

o2 = bad government

giffgaff = good

The cynic in me thinks that's just O2 and Apple doing cross promotion and that it costs O2 nothing, it's to get people to sign up to itunes and get using itunes. A bit like how you can get a free week of Spotify or a free trial of lovefilm. Apple is probably doing this for O2 for free for promotional reasons.

I've just left 02 because of their recent shoddy service and when I rung Customer Services to request the code to keep my number she didn't have a clue what I was on about, got rather p****d after 20mins of trying to explain to her and asked to speak to someone who actually knew what they were on about, Shame they've got so bad!!

I'm so annoyed that they're getting rid of 1471. I would leave them again, if I hadn't already.

I'm with giffgaff now, which is kind of like o2's friendly twin.

A bit of cold weather this evening in NI (NO SNOW THOUGH!) and the o2 network has been down since 5pm on and off. They're a joke.

Roll on June and iPhone 5 on 3G.

Over 5 years of me being a customer - but it's awful now. . absolutely awful.

Who can you go to now, Soundburst? I guess it's a matter of asking friends and consulting the coverage maps? Personally, I've never had a problem with Orange but then again I live in the SW of England and there's generally good network coverage here.

On a more general level, I've noticed that all the networks seem to be getting more stingy in what they offer and include within the monthly limits.

I'm going to move to 3.

Looking at their tariffs they are cheap, and have great coverage.

O2 are a shadow of their former selves and I think a lot of iPhone 3G/S owners will be moving elsewhere just like me.

A year ago I'd have said "I'm never leaving o2 they're great!" but it's woeful now. Truly awful.

Good for you! If more people did that then perhaps the worst networks might get the message that they need to do better.

Reminds me of the three scumbag energy companies who are now putting up their gas prices and I hope all three of them lose hundreds of thousands of customers too.

From what I've read on DS recently I have my work cut out getting my phone unlocked and my PUK code from o2 in order to keep my number

Giff gaff is an O2 company.

It is amusing to read this as O2 have just been voted to have the best customer services out of all the operators..

giffgaff isn't owned by 02

You probably will have problems keeping your number if you ask them for a PUK code to do it

More seriously though, have you had a look at the 3 coverage map in NI? You might be disappointed.

Yes it is! From Giff Gaff's "About Us" page...

we are a fully independent company but we are part of the overall Telefonica O2 family, and we run our service on the O2 network.

I had sooo many problems with 02 the past few months! They're awful. My contract was coming to an end, they offered me no deal at all to upgrade. I told them Vodafone were offering the same deals for £10 to new customers and O2 told me to just go to Vodafone! I wasn't being unreasonable asking if they could match Vidafone prices because when I went on contract with )2 18 months ago they said you build up loyalty points and it gets you discounts and better deals when it's time to upgrade. They told me on the phone that no longer applies!

Then they tried charging for £40 to put my sim onto a pay as you go because I want to keep that number! Took me 55 minutes on the phone to get that cleared up!!!

I used to LOVE them. Now they're just awful awful awful!

exactly, "run on 02 network"

Did you conveniently forget to read the first bit of the post?

From Wiki:

Clearer for you now?

no coz wiki isn't reliable is it? I could FJ change that

You could but behind wikipedia are moderators and reviewers who will revert back edits, they only allow 'encyclopedic information that can be verified by external sources'. The external sources are in the references section at the bottom.

For the 16 people reference there is a post by the board manager at GiffGaff that is referenced, where he states they only have 16 staff here

Even GiffGaff's about us page tells you about who owns them.

Take a look at companies house (the legally registered address for every company operating in the UK), see the head office address of each here:

http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/00...essCompanyInfo

They are both exactly the same.GiffGaff not only 'runs on the o2 network' it's 'run' by the O2 network!, the reason why it's only got 16 staff is because the HR, finance, accounts, IT, and many other roles are all carried out by O2. GiffGaff is just a set of tables on one of the floors of the O2 office!

Not a lot of people know this, but Telefonica which owns O2 and GiffGaff also owns 50% of Tesco mobile too, Tesco mobile doesn't just 'use' O2, it's half owned by them too!

Out an about in pubs, and In the city I get mostly Edge, with some 3G. My friends ALWAYS have 4 bars of 3G on the 3 network.

Some places I get "no service" or GPRS where my friends on 3 have 3/4 bars of 3G.

O2 are awful and the sooner people leave en-mass the better!

Apparently newspapers are also okay. So, you vandalise a Wikipedia page, hope that a tabloid used it for information and then publishes it, then you can re-vandalise using that story as a reference.

That's not likely given that they have the lowest churn of any of the UK mobile networks.

Wasn't one of those "scumbag" energy companies that absorbed a price increase a few months ago? I trust that it was an equally "scumbag"-like thing to do.

Off topic, but just because Centrica makes billions of pounds in profit, that does not mean British Gas did or that profit from other parts of the business should prop up or subsidise it.