I posted last week about getting limited 3G coverage, but one thing I have discovered is when I do get 3G on my phone its next to damn useless, more often or not you get messages like "can not connect to server" and that damn little spinning thing Anyone else get this? I am seriously thinking of ditching Orange for 3

My mate's been having this problem a lot.

Plus a number of people I know on orange have been getting calls that don't ring (eg it rings for the caller, but does not ring on the phone and goes to voicemail after a while).

I've been suffering this a lot lately.

Also, just today at 4.30pm the phone lost signal completely until 5.45pm. Luckily I was working at home so it wasn't a major problem but it's happening more and more often at my current location. If I want to use the phone without it cutting off I have to make calls from my bedroom!

Back to the OP, though, my 3G is all over the place at home, too. Contract is up in July, after 9 years it might finally be time to walk...

I used to be with Orange, then went to T-Mobile, but i have now switched to 3, their AYCE data on PAYG swayed me, and so far it has been excellent!

But about the Orange 3G, our two other Orange iPhones have no problems with it really, the 3G can be rather slow sometimes, coverage could be a bit better in some places...but otherwise it does have good 3G coverage here.

I they're doing some network work as I've had three separate issues in threes separate locations. I have tweeted Orangehelpers and they always replied saying something along the lines of "a transmitter in your area is degraded, it will be back in service on xx/xx/xx." to be fair, the helpers are pretty quick to reply, but you will only get an answer Monday-Friday 9-5:30 off them and you would need to call CS if you need more info outside of those times.

Were they using anything that is transmitting/receiving data, or something running in the background, and were they on 2G?

All of the networks (except Vodafone) have it set up to do this - if you are on 2G and something is actively using the data connection, incoming calls will go to voicemail instead of ringing the phone. Vodafone seems to have implemented whatever is necessary for things to work properly.

For at least one of them, I'd say not - it's a phone they use for phoning and calling, and that's it - no apps to check email etc.

I do take your point though with regard to 2G, and have heard this about o2 as well.

2G services are old now. GPRS was designed way back in the day before widgets, apps, facebook and twitter apps and smartphones were around.

It's 28Kbps too. The world has moved on, sadly Orange's 3G service isn't up to much compared to that of Three, Vodafone etc.

When it's integrated with Three / T-mobile things should improve and you should hardly ever fall back to 2G data.

And when is this integration supposed to take place?

Is it not all ready happening? , my phone picks up either Orange or Orange T Mobile automatically though I had to sign up.

>2G!<