Cellphone coverage - Scottish Highlands

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MartynK

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Can anyone suggest which cellphone network offers decent coverage in the Skye/Fort William and Inverness areas? My daughter and a friend from SA are visiting next month, and want to get SIMs for July only. Someone mentioned Giff Gaff, but I don't know much about the UK networks and I haven't a clue what to tell them. I assume any of the networks will be okay in London and Edinburgh?
 
Ricardodaforce said:
Have you checked out their coverage checkers?
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Nope, because I don't trust them. Vodafone and O2 are the only networks offering service where my wife lives, and both claim decent coverage, but you're lucky to get a weak 2G signal most of the time. I was hoping for some advice from people who actually live in these areas?
 
Asked my brother who lived in fort William and he used three, which I believe use the o2 network, so given the post before mine, o2 seem like the best bet, but don't expect great things ;)
 
We were on holiday in Oban and travelled about quite a bit, we got good coverage with EE in many of the places. Don't know if,that's any help.
 
MartynK said:
Nope, because I don't trust them. Vodafone and O2 are the only networks offering service where my wife lives, and both claim decent coverage, but you're lucky to get a weak 2G signal most of the time. I was hoping for some advice from people who actually live in these areas?
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Giffgaff is on O2 (it's actually just another trading name for Telefonica UK) so if O2 gives you coverage so will Giffgaff.
 
Three without a doubt and they DO NOT use the O2 network thankfully.

I had been with O2/GiffGaff for years and the signal was 'ok' in most populated places, HSDPA in the bigger towns and cities with 3g elsewhere dropping to edge and gprs anywhere outside a town.

A couple of weeks ago, after doing a lot of research involving buying payg sims and travelling around testing I decided to move to Three and I'm happy that I did. Not tried Ft William but from Inverness up to Wick and Thurso and across to Aberdeen so far I've not had less than HSDPA anywhere I've tried it, including some places that the O2 network is non existent.

My Work phone/data system is on Vodaphone and it's just about as bad as O2 but in different places.
 
I'd probably get more than one sim. Most are 99p. Check out coverage then get another of the best. Or find two deals with cheap cross network charges so if everyone is out together there's a better chance at least one person has signal.

I'd be surprised if three were any good. I'm with them and there are tons of places I get no signal including built up areas. Three used to piggy back on orange but I think they're on their own now. Hence crap coverage.
 
Don't get Vodafone, it was woeful in much of the area around Fort William (aside from the town itself) and less than non-existent on most of Skye, Inverness was better.
My wife however is on O2 and always seemed to have better coverage than me albeit sometimes only 2G for calls/texts but that's just part of being in the Highlands!
 
Steep said:
Three without a doubt and they DO NOT use the O2 network thankfully.

I had been with O2/GiffGaff for years and the signal was 'ok' in most populated places, HSDPA in the bigger towns and cities with 3g elsewhere dropping to edge and gprs anywhere outside a town.

A couple of weeks ago, after doing a lot of research involving buying payg sims and travelling around testing I decided to move to Three and I'm happy that I did. Not tried Ft William but from Inverness up to Wick and Thurso and across to Aberdeen so far I've not had less than HSDPA anywhere I've tried it, including some places that the O2 network is non existent.

My Work phone/data system is on Vodaphone and it's just about as bad as O2 but in different places.
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I'm three. In certain places around Glencoe and Fort william you do you get some connectivity OK. However stray out from the localised hotspots and you're out in the wild. As you go north, Eilean Donan and Broadford are the last spots with any connectivity. Portree and anything north are total not-spots. It's not even funny how unreliable this network is outside of major cities in my experience.
 
Vodafone.

I work for a Scottish national company and have guys in the field from the borders to Shetland.

We dropped Vodafone for a cheaper deal for 3000 users Scotland wide but you live and learn - for the highland users we're back on Vodafone.
 
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spartagates said:
Asked my brother who lived in fort William and he used three, which I believe use the o2 network, so given the post before mine, o2 seem like the best bet, but don't expect great things ;)
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Three is not a virtual network. They are buying 02 from Telefónica, which maybe is what you were thinking of.
 
daugirdas said:
I'm three. In certain places around Glencoe and Fort william you do you get some connectivity OK. However stray out from the localised hotspots and you're out in the wild. As you go north, Eilean Donan and Broadford are the last spots with any connectivity. Portree and anything north are total not-spots. It's not even funny how unreliable this network is outside of major cities in my experience.
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To be fair, no provider has good coverage/signal on Skye, Three still come out better than the others according to residents though.

http://www.lochalsh.com/mobile_phone_coverage.html from a couple of years back.

I should clarify that most of my mobile needs are for 3g and upwards, 2g is pretty well covered by most companies.
 
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Ricardodaforce said:
Three is not a virtual network. They are buying 02 from Telefónica, which maybe is what you were thinking of.
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Didn't know that, it should give 'us' better coverage though as long as they don't start closing down too many relays.
 
chrism_scotland said:
Don't get Vodafone, it was woeful in much of the area around Fort William (aside from the town itself) and less than non-existent on most of Skye, Inverness was better.
My wife however is on O2 and always seemed to have better coverage than me albeit sometimes only 2G for calls/texts but that's just part of being in the Highlands!
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This pretty much, in the towns you are ok, out of town, xzip.
I currently live in Kilmacolm west of Glasgow and that is barely in the boonies and no 4G but good EE 3G
 
My mobile uses Tesco (which uses the O2 network). I can't comment on Fort William or Skye but around Inverness (ie the town and east towards Forres and north towards Alness and up to Thurso) it works with no problem.

Dave
 
Tringa said:
My mobile uses Tesco (which uses the O2 network). I can't comment on Fort William or Skye but around Inverness (ie the town and east towards Forres and north towards Alness and up to Thurso) it works with no problem.

Dave
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What Dave said, but be aware that there seems to be little agreement on the west coast. I go to Lochinver on holiday every year and Orange was giving the best signal, my Vodaphone work moby was fair and my Tesco moby hopeless. There is a place at the breakwater with clear line of sight to the phone mast and you still can't get a signal at times, and you can forget 3G. OTOH, I was in Portree recently and was getting a signal on Tesco when Vodaphone and others were struggling.
 
Thanks everyone, that's great and just what I wanted. I'll pass it on to my daughter now, and suggest that they get SIMs for different networks too.
 
They should be aware that some operators don't allow data use on payg sims, just in case they want to do something other than make phone calls/texts.
 
Thanks Hugh, I'll tell them to check this. Don't really know if either of them will want data use, but it's obviously better for them to know about possible restrictions.
 
Steep said:
They should be aware that some operators don't allow data use on payg sims, just in case they want to do something other than make phone calls/texts.
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I've never heard of that, which network were you thinking of?
 
Three specifically, though it might have had something to do with the device, my old phone is sometimes picked up as a tablet.
 
Steep said:
Three specifically, though it might have had something to do with the device, my old phone is sometimes picked up as a tablet.
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Three allow data on all sims, but a handset sim can only be used in a handset, did you try and tether at any stage? As that is not allowed on Three PAYG.

There have been a small number of 6" or larger screen handsets from smaller Chinese makers that have been categorised as tablets by Three, but it shouldn't happen with any mainstream handset up to 5.5".

if you are using a tablet or tablet phone then Three do a different data sim for tablets, for tethering and the odd super sized phone.
 
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Steep said:
2g is pretty well covered by most companies
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Three doesn't support 2g so that would have some pretty huge implications if you need to place a regular phone call.
 
Dave1 said:
Three allow data on all sims, but a handset sim can only be used in a handset, did you try and tether at any stage? As that is not allowed on Three PAYG.

There have been a small number of 6" or larger screen handsets from smaller Chinese makers that have been categorised as tablets by Three, but it shouldn't happen with any mainstream handset up to 5.5".

if you are using a tablet or tablet phone then Three do a different data sim for tablets, for tethering and the odd super sized phone.
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It was a Dell Streak 5 which is a phone but identifies itself as a tablet.
 
Steep said:
It was a Dell Streak 5 which is a phone but identifies itself as a tablet.
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That figures, even Dell marketed the Streak 5 as a tablet.

Dell Streak Tablet Entices People to Watch, Surf, Connect, Listen, and Play on 5-inches of Power and Portability

Today, Dell released plans for Streak, a 5-inch Android™-based Tablet designed to provide people the best “on-the-go” entertainment, social connection, and navigation experience.

Early this June the Dell Streak will be available across the UK at O2 stores, O2.co.uk, The Carphone Warehouse, and later in the month at Dell.co.uk. Pricing and data plans for the UK will be announced by O2 ahead of availability. Later this summer, Dell plans to make Streak available in the U.S.
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http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/usc...ak?c=us&l=en&s=corp&cs=uscorp1&delphi:gr=true
 
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