So I was on the phone trying to tell my mum how to browse the net on her lumia 520, it was all going great until she said "it's got, no internet connection here", what? No internet? I just find it amazing how this day in age you can't get internet everywhere, even if it's slow it would be better than nothing.

And it's not her phone, my phone on three is the same, no service what so ever. I was telling her to go upstairs and try again lol.

I mean running around the house in 2014 trying to catch a signal for internet? Hmmm

I'm glad I'm in a 20mbps+ area, I'd go crazy with no net on my phone

I find it amazing that we're in 2014 and I still can't make a phone call in all parts of the Westfield shopping centre in Derby (O2).

Where can you actually make calls on O2 inside any building?

Sounds like she was on the 2G fallback which has data disabled.

Building penetration is hard for all networks, especially 3 who primarily operate on 2100mhz which performs poorly compared to Voda/O2 who have 900mhz.

But yes - it is amazing how many black spots there still are. Especially up here.

This is where MIP comes in but then that's a long project and it's still going to lead to blackspots around the country.

Also thankfully Wi-Fi has become more abundant throughout the country and is often free in many places.

She's (and dad) are on tmobile/EE, and it was showing "E" on the signal bar which is edge? All I know is that's a very slow speed, I didn't think data would be disabled for edge? It should still work right? All be it very slow.

Should still work. But yeh, slow.

My house

I bet you have a mast in your garden!

Not with Three - if on Three you are in a 2G fallback area (these areas are few and far between these days) you will only get Voice and SMS coverage from the 2G network, no data. Someone on EE will continue to enjoy EDGE, Three gets nothing.

I presume this is because Three don't especially want to be on the hook for loads of data use charges from EE in the areas where they've got 2G roaming enabled. However if it happens that you're often out of Three's 3G coverage area and still require any kind of data, you will need to buy service from a different network.