The Orange brand celebrates its 20th birthday today, don't think they'll be much made of it in the UK due to EE's focus on 4G but it's still the main brand in most of the other countries they operate.

their network seems that old as well because it is so naff.

It's the biggest, fastest and best network in the UK so not sure how you work that one out @noise747!

Wait you forgot, According to Rootmetrics* (a company that EE pays to support)

Personally I don't believe this best and fastest network, etc thing, as my friends on EE are constantly getting dropped calls and the new thing is texts sending multiple times in fact one of my cousins I received the same text from her 4 times each about 3 minutes apart and this has happened on multiple occasions with different friends on EE.

I dont think the Orange brand in the UK has much life left in it!

Im in Glasgow too. I moved to Vodafone last October because of the dropped and silent call issue. Ive been more than happy with Vodafone within the populated areas. I do carry a mifi with 4g ee with me for data in more rural areas though. EE is great for data but useless for calls.

Not really celebrating though...

All a bit sad. If FT had just acquired T-Mob UK or DT/FT had worked something out a premium Orange brand doing 4G/high end with T-Mob doing more budget offerings could have worked really well. There was still plenty of value in the Orange brand in the UK despite FT's best efforts.

I think you'll find that is Tmobiles legacy network. The orange network is virtually dead.

it never was and still isn't, you're talking rubbish

"Biggest" is hard to define.

Well the 3G and 4G networks are still the largest in the UK.
They have the most customers in the UK.
They have the most transmitter sites, currently (obviously this will drop considerably!).
Voda has more 2G.

"Fastest" is even more dubious - depends where you are! Though if you did a proper, UK-wide geographic survey, it would probably win this on average, due to having 3G in more places than Voda/O2, and 4G in more places than 3.

and "Best" is subjective!

No - it isn't. In NI - it's all Orange. T-Mobile was switched off there ages ago.

EE's 2G only areas of the UK are also predominantly Orange.

Obligatory-
http://i481.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps75aca2bf.gif

But as Japaul said, Orange is all but dead in the UK really. Im just waiting for EE to fully kill off the brand name which will no doubt happen soon enough.

Says who?
I know a load of people on Orange/Tmobile/EE and i am forever telling to move to another network because the signal they get is so naff and they don't all live here.

thankfully 3 of the people I phone most have now moved to different networks, one to Giffgaff, one to Three, which i am goign to look at and one to vodafone.

Voice wise I find Vodafone great, which is my main means of contacting people anyway, 3g wise they are naff around here.

My friends have had no idea who EE were, when I have told them to check them out for an upgrade. I think they were silly to kill the well known brands for an unknown brand name.

Meh. Other networks have been rebranded successfully before.

Cellnet -> BT Cellnet -> O2
One2One -> T-Mobile

The EE rebrand was just not handled very well...

Mhm.... Mobile coverage varies between the operators. There are places where EE is best, believe it or not.


Can't see how moving from EE to 3 would improve coverage.
I just switched my tablet from GiffGaff to 3, as O2's 3G network needs some serious work.


Vodafone's 3G is terrible, for coverage, and data allowance/speeds.

As de525ma said; I'm yet to find anywhere were 3 offers a coverage improvement over EE. This is not to say they don't exist but I've certainly been in plenty of places were Orange 2G and 2G/3G masts fill in the gaps.

I don't disagree with you, all I am saying is that the people I chat to on the EE network always seems to have a awful signal, no matter where they are.
Saying that my brother was outside my house in his van and phoned me to see where I was and that was fine, so outside my house is fine for EE. but then outside my house is good for all networks.



i was told that 3 was awful, but seems to be ok around here.

again i do not disagree, but voice wise they are fine, whic is my main means of contact.

Seems to be better here than EE by all accounts.
i am going to get a 3 sim and stick it in my Nexus and stick my vodafone sim in my old phone and see how 3 does for a month or so.

The coverage should be the same. EE and 3 use the same masts for 3G*.

* Excluding the old Orange 3G masts which have not been decommissioned / refreshed. Three has no access to these.

Personally I would say EE top, closely followed by Three then O2 / voda bringing up the rear.

The network kpis by independent companies (not just rootmetrics) show this and EE / Three keep getting recognised & winning awards from industry / consumer publications.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoAeimRHnKg

Shame that the best years, pre-France Telecom, are no more.

Hans Snook 4lyf.

Good job Hutchison run a different UK network now.

I felt compelled to write a story about this today on my blog, as the launch of Orange was particularly important for me. It really got my phone business off the ground.

http://wp.me/pPUSM-hN

I feel a lot of others could add to this with their own experiences and filling in some gaps.