Yes, he was being hilarious

The whole of South Oxfordshire (only about 10 miles from Vodafone HQ at Newbury) has a very good signal for CALLS - but EDGE only for data (except in towns).

If you need data in this area use 3 or EE!

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I struggled to get any reception on 3 on a recent holiday in North Devon. However my friends who were on other networks seemed to have similar problems.

What annoyed me was that I had a phone signal in places but couldn't use the internet. Is it not possible to use the 2G network for data anymore?

I did not think 3 have ever allowed any data on their (declining!) 2G fallback!

correct.
2G fallback was provided by another network, and i believe it has almost been phased out completely.

Oh... I thought It was funny.

It's still enabled across great swathes of the south in my experience. Still get it a lot after the train has been in a tunnel and the phone has assumed there is no 3 signal so it starts trying to roam.

I've had every sim going (almost) p. a. y. g. & Three ROCK my world perfectly

I think it used to work some years ago but got stopped.

I'm in rural Staffordshire and would need to drive several miles to get a hint of a 3G signal from either Vodafone or O2, its the same story in rural areas of Derbyshire and Cheshire either side of here also. No sign of any advances in coverage for years in these areas, and I suspect there will be two generations worth of family come and gone before 4G appears from either of these providers.

Fortunately, EE and Three both give good coverage and excellent speeds right into the Staffordshire Moorlands, I use '3' as my main broadband connection, (as do my closest neighbours), as its 10mbps download speeds are far better than the 512k - 1mbps speeds from BT landline ADSL.

You'd be unlucky if it turned out like that for you. O2's licence obligation for 98% indoor by the end of 2017 roughly equates to the same coverage as 2G voice plus any extra that comes from MIP.

O2's 4G coverage obligation is not actually a 4G coverage obligation at all

(a) The Licensee shall by no later than 31 December 2017 provide, and thereafter maintain, an electronic communications network that is capable of providing, with 90% confidence, a mobile telecommunications service with a sustained downlink speed of not less than 2 Mbps when that network is lightly loaded, to users

users:
(i) in an area within which at least:
a. 98% of the population of the United Kingdom lives, and
b. 95% of the population of each of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland lives; and
(ii) at indoor locations that meet the condition specified in paragraph 6(b)(ii) of this Schedule, which are within any residential premises within the area specified in paragraph 6(a)(i).

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1937180

Well that's made my day, seeing Chenks post a smiley, it must the first chink in his armour that he has a sense of humour after all

You'll note I resisted the urge to say first chenk in his armour, I don't want to push my luck.

I will refer you to my comment i made in post 4.

And i only said what i said because i dont exactly live in the sticks, i live in a small town, id expect at least a 2-3 bar 3G signal, not EDGE

Well you'd be wrong then.

OMG.. I nearly died when I read that!!. Thanks for brightening my (bloody awful) day!!

Hey, you're not an idiot... are you??
I thought you seemed like a thoroughly nice chap.
Well there you go, you go along thinking someone is a top bloke and it turns out he's an idiot!!
I learn so much from this forum.
Hahahahahahahahahaha

I'm a bit of an Apple fan boy.
I have a sense of humour.
I got the joke.
It was indeed very funny.
Keep em coming!

Are you sure you have sense of humour?

Yes I was wrong to put any faith in Voda lol

I'm sorry you had to find out this way.




If only there were more people like you around here Devonbloke.

Not in staffordshire and Shropshire it hasn't., it's alive and well and annoyingly strong in lots of places.. Wish they would just turn it off!!!
It's utterly useless now, your call won't seamlessly switch over to it, it's only on random cells so if your travelling and do call someone back on it then it's not very long before you break up and loose the call or bumble about on 1 bar of 2g which is useless, where as 1bar of 3G can still provide a decent conversation quality...
Plus there is no data whatsoever!

They most certainly did allow full data roaming when I was with them on a contract between 2007 & 2009. 3 only had a single cell site in Omagh at the time and there was no hope of me getting covered from it, so I had 2g fallback from both O2 and Orange which worked perfectly fine with GPRS & EDGE. With three networks to use in NI there were very few places where I had no coverage at all.

From memory they completely stopped data roaming on Orange 2g in 2012 and for a time before that, data was limited to Three's own services. Three's 2g fallback here still works not only on Orange, but also on the T-Mobile 2g cells that have recently appeared when an ex-Orange site has been fully integrated into MBNL and has 4g EE enabled.

As for coverage locally here in the wilds of western Tyrone, only O2 at my home gives solid 3g coverage but suffers from congestion due to so many people being on it. 3 & EE are OK outdoors but too spotty indoors. I'd seriously consider moving back to 3 if there was some way I could obtain a Three Home Signal from them.

Why not just set your phone to use 3g only? That should solve that problem.

Loose the 4g option if I do that. sadly