[@NickyColman]

I'm not really a fan of Virgin Mobile but that's mostly due to having no experience with them. Anyway whilst browsing their website I noticed a new sim-only deal from them....

200 mins & unlimited texts for just £10 a month!! IMHO it's a fantastic deal! If you use the Internet a lot you can add on an 'unlimited' data bolt on for £5 which gives you a 1GB fair usage allowance. (not that I'll come anywhere near that.)

Alternatively you can go for the 30p per day option for unlimited usage. It'd work out at ~£9 per month but ideal if you don't use mobile web on the go or you mainly stick to wifi.

Virgin Mobile runs on the -T-Mobile/Orange/3 über network so if you get coverage on -T-Mobile then this is bound to be a good option for you!

Really considering getting one of these 'Liberty' sims!!

[@NickyColman]

BTW here is the link for the SIM deal mentioned;

http://www.virginmobile.com/vm/paymonthlySimOnly.do

[@NickyColman]

Ok - Ordered. :D

I could resist £10 for unlimited texts & 200 mins!!!

Bye Bye Vodafone!

[Ben]

Lmao! No way!

It's a good deal but I'd not leave Voda over it :D I'm on 600 mins/unlimited texts/unlimited data for £20 a month so when you add in the data it's similarly good value.

[@NickyColman]

Yes way!!

After being scammed for years by the networks paying £35 for 500 texts and 600 minutes with a £7.50 BoltOn for a couple of MB's worth of data its time for me to take my sweet revenge! HA!

It adds up to £15 per month for me, but its still a whole £5 cheaper than Vodafone! According to their website, Virgin Mobile have been voted Customer Service winner out of all the mobile networks for the past 9 years running - cant wait to see what im in for.

3 are running an almost identical deal, but with Virgin Mobile i get the benefit of UK call centres and -T-Mobile/Orange and even possibly 3 (lol) coverage.

I'm all about driving down prices this week!! I challenge anyone to find a cheaper deal!! :D

[Ben]

*Must encourage* Awesome deal to be sure, got to love unlimited texts on a £10/mo contract! If you've got the coverage then you're on to a winner! :D

[gorilla]

Is this 3G? Can you tie this into your tv deal?

[DBMandrake]

200 mins & unlimited texts for just £10 a month!! IMHO it's a fantastic deal! If you use the Internet a lot you can add on an 'unlimited' data bolt on for £5 which gives you a 1GB fair usage allowance. (not that I'll come anywhere near that.)

Having been with Virgin (with my iPhone) and then leaving them due to their poor data network I feel I should comment here.

Virgin can not (or will not) provide true HSDPA speeds on a mobile plan. Even if you see an HSDPA indicator on your phone, at best you will get around 350kbit/sec, which is standard 3G speed not HSDPA, as they throttle the bandwidth. You can get HSDPA speeds on a mobile broadband dongle from Virgin, but not on a data plan for a phone.

Before a dozen people jump in and say "but I get more than 350Kbit on Virgin", some older grandfathered plans may still have uncapped speeds, but currently selling ones do not.

I contacted technical support on more than one occasion regarding this and they were unable to do anything or offer any means of increasing the speeds above 350kbit, (even by paying more) and were unaware of what speeds I should be receiving in the first place, and had no idea whether 350kbit constituted an acceptable speed.

Secondly, Virgin put all web traffic through an image optimizer that dramatically compresses the images. While that may look acceptable on a 1 inch screen, and speed up page loads, it looks god awful on an iPhone screen, especially when zooming in, and there is NO way on a mobile phone to disable or bypass this image optimizer.

Both of these policies are in place because T-Mobile (whose network Virgin piggybacks on) also have these policies, except in T-Mobile's case you CAN pay more to get your speed uncapped (web 'n walk plus tethering addon) but you still cannot get the image optimizer disabled.

For these reasons (and others) I left Virgin and went to 3 and never looked back. No annoying image optimizer, and uncapped speeds which regularly exceed 1.2Mbit and go as high as 3Mbit in some locations, and far better 3G coverage to boot. No comparison if data is important to you as it is to me.



Virgin Mobile runs on the -T-Mobile/Orange/3 über network so if you get coverage on -T-Mobile then this is bound to be a good option for you!

You're misinformed here - there is no T-Mobile/Orange/3 uber network, T-Mobile and 3 have a site sharing agreement where they have agreed to consolidate their transmission sites, but this is a site sharing agreement only and not an equipment or network infrastructure sharing agreement, which means that although coverage footprint will eventually be the same between 3 and T-Mobile, speeds and functionality will not be the same, as different equipment is being used at the sites, and connecting to different networks.

Also it's still 15 months away from completion with sites only consolidated in some parts of the country.

Although Orange and T-Mobile are poised to merge, they do not currently share any infrastructure and it will be a good 18 months or more before there is any significant network sharing going on there.

Personally I would rate T-Mobile's 3G network a distant third place behind 3 and Orange, having tried 3, Orange, T-Mobile and O2.

[Ben]

You're misinformed here - there is no T-Mobile/Orange/3 uber network, T-Mobile and 3 have a site sharing agreement where they have agreed to consolidate their transmission sites, but this is a site sharing agreement only and not an equipment or network infrastructure sharing agreement, which means that although coverage footprint will eventually be the same between 3 and T-Mobile, speeds and functionality will not be the same, as different equipment is being used at the sites, and connecting to different networks.

Also it's still 15 months away from completion with sites only consolidated in some parts of the country.
Unless things have changed, I was under the impression that the network share was deeper than that - and that sharing is taking place at the RAN level: http://www.mobileeurope.co.uk/news_analysis/113467/3_UK_and_T-Mobile_to_share_3G_network_-_and_more%3F.html

But yes, speeds and functionality would still depend on network restrictions.

[@NickyColman]

Hi mandrake! Thanks for the advice !

I've never been with Virgin Mobile (or even an MVNO for that matter). I've never heard any reports re Virgin capping their Internet so you cant take advtange of HSDPA.

I've been with -T-Mobile before and used an iPhone 2G on their network but never experienced the image optimizer you mentioned. Perhaps it's a new policy? Who knows?

Can I ask - were you on a Pay & Go tarriff with Virgin or Pay Monthly? I'm trying to suss out what their game is if they are restricting 3G speeds.

I know not exactly the same situation, but I remember when O2 launched their 3G network you had to request and it was particularly difficult trying to get their CS to understand what it meany by getting it activated on your account or a new sim sent out.

[Hands0n]

Virgin have always intrigued me, but I've often thought their "deals" unattractive compared to what was available elsewhere.

That said, it seems you've found a rather tasty deal for talkers and texters - which is probably most people's kids these days :) If mine had not all grown up into 'needing' smartphones with data plans I'd have got one of these £10 deals for each of them.

[DBMandrake]

I've never been with Virgin Mobile (or even an MVNO for that matter). I've never heard any reports re Virgin capping their Internet so you cant take advtange of HSDPA.

I've been with -T-Mobile before and used an iPhone 2G on their network but never experienced the image optimizer you mentioned. Perhaps it's a new policy? Who knows?

From what I could find out, the speed caps on T-Mobile were put into place near the end of 2008 - existing customers were left on the higher speeds (for the most part, some had to complain to get their speed reinstated) while new signups since then default to the capped speed. It's possible the image optimizer came into effect then too.

The image optimizer (but not the speed cap) is in operation even on their mobile broadband dongles, but they inject some funky javascript into every page you load which lets you download the full quality version of an image with a keypress. (Naturally there is no way to do this on an iPhone)


Can I ask - were you on a Pay & Go tarriff with Virgin or Pay Monthly? I'm trying to suss out what their game is if they are restricting 3G speeds.

I was on Pay&Go, (with a SIM bought in store in July) and doing £20/month topups to get the "unlimited" internet. (1GB)

I also tried a Pay&Go T-Mobile sim and the speed was capped to the same speed. (approx 350kbit down, 45kbit up)

Although I didn't want to waste the money trying it, I believe that adding the Web 'n Walk plus tethering addon uncaps your speed (both on the phone and the tethered computer) for the duration of the addon, however the cheaper web 'n walk addon does not.

Since Virgin don't provide an equivalent to Web 'n Walk plus (at least not on Pay&Go) there is no way to get the speed uncapped.


I know not exactly the same situation, but I remember when O2 launched their 3G network you had to request and it was particularly difficult trying to get their CS to understand what it meany by getting it activated on your account or a new sim sent out.
I gave up trying to get Virgin customer support to understand what I was talking about, and I left with the very strong impression that data is not a priority of Virgin - especially when their roaming data rates are £5/MB to all destinations...and since I'm primarily a data user, I realised they weren't a good fit for me.

[Ben]

Just a note, Vodafone also heavily compress images on Mobile Broadband, but as best I can tell there is no compression on the carrier settings iTunes installed for my iPhone - all looks good.

@NickyColman - why don't you call Vodafone, tell them what you've been offered, and see if they'll match it? For some reason I feel some sort of responsibility to get you to stay! LoL!

[DBMandrake]

I had heard that Vodafone also did image compression. (That, and the fact that I don't get any 3G signal from them at home at all was why I didn't try them out when switching away from Virgin...)

Do you happen to know what APN setting is applied in their iPhone carrier bundle, and what their "standard" APN data setting is ? My guess is they just have a custom APN for the iPhone that bypasses the image optimizer...

[Ben]

They're using wap.vodafone.co.uk

The image compression (corruption IMHO) is normally very detectable, so I'm pretty sure it's not being used.

[gorilla]

The vodafone PAYG card I used did not compress any images or at least I did not notice any difference to O2.

[@NickyColman]

Got my Virgin sim card about 20 minutes ago! (someone neglected to tell me i had some post today!! GRRR)

Anyway. Had a quick whirl on the sim testing internet speeds etc. I get full 3G coverage from home and the internet speeds dont seem slow to me. This could purely be down to interpretation mind!

As for the image compression - You're right, there is some. I can see its there, but its not horrific. Just a reminder I'm on a mobile. I think im prepared to sacrifice 100% image quality for a tenner in my pocket every month.

Gonna take the sim to work tomorrow to test out what Virgin coverage is like in the Black Hole. This really is going to be a test of its mettle.

WISH ME LUCK!

[Ben]

Oh good stuff! Hope you get coverage in the Black Hole. The only way I get coverage in my own personal Black Hole is with that Vodafone Access Gateway, and with only 512mbps as backhaul it's a one-at-a-time job! :(

[@NickyColman]

HOLA!

Just another update on my dealings with Virgin Mobile.

Bad news first - Although Virgin Mobile's website advertises a £5 mobile web add on, or a 30p per day option, only Pay & Go customers can buy the add on. Pay Monthly customers are restricted to the 30p per day option . :mad: This means that my tariff would be nearly £20 per month based on a £10 contract + 30p x 31 days of the month. So i'm not happy.

To remedy, I rang Virgin to vent and they said the best option is to 'up' my package to the £18 per month option which will give me;

800 anytime/any network minutes.
Unlimited texts
Unlimited internet
Unlimited Virgin - to - Virgin phone calls (This one is because I'm on a VirginMedia VIP customer package)

So still a good deal! And a whole £2 cheaper than Vodafone but still annoyed that they dont have a add on for their Pay Monthly customers. In true Twitter style #FAIL!

But the good news is, Virgin coverage is OUTSTANDING!!!!!!

As you may or may not know, where I work, there is a huge black hole that devours all mobile phone signal and then craps it out in the form of rubbish 2G signal. O2 & 3 have NO* signal, Vodafone manage a stable 2G signal with flickers of 3G but I've heard its just a rumour and I've yet to try Orange. But Virgin & -T-Mobile provide a FULL 5 bars of glorious 3G signal!

No dipping in signal, no black spots, no disconnects or 'No Service' - 100% coverage from the minute I left my front door to the minute I got home. My iPhone's battery certainly noticed the difference.

So considering they're gonna be a whole £3 more expensive per month, I'm happy to say I'm getting a FANTASTIC experience from Virgin.

Good bye Vodafone. It was short and sweet.






*by 'No' I mean no as in zilch, non, nada, 非, गैर, Нумары, sigara - NOTHING.

[DBMandrake]

Just another update on my dealings with Virgin Mobile.

Bad news first - Although Virgin Mobile's website advertises a £5 mobile web add on, or a 30p per day option, only Pay & Go customers can buy the add on.

Interesting, when I was with Virgin they didn't have the £5 mobile internet addon - to get unlimited internet I had to do a minimum of £20/month topups....one reason I left them.


But the good news is, Virgin coverage is OUTSTANDING!!!!!!

As you may or may not know, where I work, there is a huge black hole that devours all mobile phone signal and then craps it out in the form of rubbish 2G signal. O2 & 3 have NO* signal, Vodafone manage a stable 2G signal with flickers of 3G but I've heard its just a rumour and I've yet to try Orange. But Virgin & -T-Mobile provide a FULL 5 bars of glorious 3G signal!

I agree T-Mobile have a lot better 3G coverage than either O2 or Vodafone, but it's a shame you didn't try Orange before deciding, as I find their 3G coverage far better than T-Mobile/Virgin, also faster. All the networks have black spots - for example in the local ASDA here I can't get a reliable signal from anyone but O2 or 3 who both give full 3G, while T-Mobile and Orange both give very weak 2G signals... (or none at deeper inside the building) And yet at another location, the roles can reverse.

So we can expect another switching network message from you in another month or two ? :D Having an unlocked iPhone myself, it is just too tempting to go trying all the networks in case the grass is greener elsewhere ;)

[chagle]

Having an unlocked iPhone myself, it is just too tempting to go trying all the networks in case the grass is greener elsewhere ;)

That's what I did! Got a bunch of PAYG SIMS and found my preferred Network, TMOB the best for 3G. Although someone in this forum did point out that I probably had a 2G Orange sim! Grr..

But in the end I got a good deal on a TMOB Solo/30 day contract.

[DBMandrake]

That's what happened to me - bought an Orange PayG sim over the counter, put it in and only got 2G, got all the way home and never saw 3G and started to become suspicious, and found out through another forum that it was probably a 2G sim - which is what Orange sell by default :mad:

After replacing it with a 3G sim I get 3G in more places than any of the other networks other than 3. (Although 3 do have a few black spots of their own..)

Orange's 2G sim's are orange in colour with a narrow chip at the bottom, while the 3G ones are green in colour with a much wider chip at the bottom. (More like the O2 3G sim's)

Yes I have Pay&Go sim's with all the providers, the only one I haven't bothered to do any testing with (apart from checking the signal level) is Vodafone - as all I get at home is 1-2 bars of GPRS from them with no sign of 3G, (making them a non-starter for me) but I'm now wondering if it's possible my Vodafone sim (ordered on the website) is a 2G only one as well ?

Indoors at home I get the following results:

3 - 5 bars 3G, stays on 3G all the time, excellent call quality.
Orange - 5 bars 3G, stays on 3G nearly all the time, sometimes drops to Edge during a call, excellent call quality.
T-Mobile 3-5 bars 3G, stays on 3G most of the time, sometimes drops to GPRS during a call, good call quality.
O2 - 1-2 bars 3G, usually drops back to GPRS - seldom stays on 3G in actual use, and spends a lot of time hunting between GPRS and 3G and back again, mediocre call quality.
Vodafone - 1-2 bars GPRS, no sign of 3G even held at a window, mediocre call quality.

[Hands0n]

With Vodafone, unless it is a really old SIM, you are issued with 3G capable SIMs on both contract and PAYT.

It is odd for such a large company, but their network coverage can be a bit sparse in just the places you wouldn't expect. But where they do have coverage it is usually very good, and rarely marginal.

[chagle]

3 - 5 bars 3G, stays on 3G all the time, excellent call quality.
Orange - 5 bars 3G, stays on 3G nearly all the time, sometimes drops to Edge during a call, excellent call quality.
T-Mobile 3-5 bars 3G, stays on 3G most of the time, sometimes drops to GPRS during a call, good call quality.
O2 - 1-2 bars 3G, usually drops back to GPRS - seldom stays on 3G in actual use, and spends a lot of time hunting between GPRS and 3G and back again, mediocre call quality.
Vodafone - 1-2 bars GPRS, no sign of 3G even held at a window, mediocre call quality.

Actually you're spot on! They are more or less the results I got. Apart from Orange where by the looks of it I was sent a 2G Sim therefore never got a 3G signal. O2 I can never get a 3G signal at home and usually 1-3 bars..

I was shocked really that 3 was really the best of the bunch. I almost considered going with their pay monthly sim deal until I get a freebie add-on from TMOB.

[@NickyColman]

UPDATE

I've ditched Virgin.

Why? Well, they have p*ssed me right off. Firstly, I switched to an £18 as mentioned above.

However, when January's bill came, they had neglected to move me to the correct tariff including unlimited web access. This resulted in £14 worth of internet charges being added to my bill. So I rang, waited in a call queue for around 45 mins to speak to someone who quickly & confidently amended my tariff.

Today, I received this months bill. And to my surprise, they forgot to move me to the correct tariff AGAIN meaning I was charged around £13 for web access.

I rang them straight away and found myself speaking to an Indian call centre (strange as I didnt know Virgin used foreign call centres). I was forced to wait around 50 minutes whilst the advisor looked through my "notes". Bearing in mind I have only made 2 calls to Virgin, I cant imagine my notes to be that extensive. He returned to tell me what had happened.....

......I was on the wrong tarrif. :confused: Several "Yes, I am aware of that...." comments later, he put me back on hold to gain permission to refund and correct the error.

12 minutes later, my advisor returned to tell me he would refund the charges but that I would have to ring back to change to the correct tariff after my next bill as he couldnt do it?! WHAT?!??!

It was at that point I decided to save myself the bother of ringing back up and take advantage of 3's new offer of unlimited texts/internet/3-3 calls/Skype & 300 minutes for £15. Saving me a whopping £3.


This, ladies & gentlemen, was a cracking way to scare off a former happy customer.

Off to Three I go. . . . .

[Ben]

Gotta love choice, eh? The joys of not being locked into a contract! You suck? Bye bye!

Obviously you should've run straight back into the loving arms of Vodafone, but whatever floats yer boat! :D

[DBMandrake]

Hope all goes well with the move from Virgin to 3, (I did the same myself last October) but without wanting to sound negative, the types of customer service screw ups you describe seem to happen to at least a percentage of customers with all the networks and 3 are no exception, and are probably worse than Virgin in this regard. (At least statistically) It's easy to get annoyed after a bad experience though and move, and that's all part of having a competitive market and number portability.

In my 3 short months with Virgin I found their CS polite and easy to understand, but usually ineffectual in getting the issue actually solved. (All the issues I contacted them about were technical problems, not account related, and they seemed well intentioned but not well equipped to solve the issues)

I've had a mixed bag with 3's CS, sometimes rude and/or difficult to understand, sometimes polite, sometimes helpful and effective, sometimes hopeless, but I have noticed quite an improvement since October, and their success rate in actually fixing my reported issues is not too bad, as long as I'm persistent at getting the issue across. (Again, technical issues not account issues)

I do like the network, 3G coverage, and prices though, and for that reason I'm happy to stay with 3 for the foreseeable future, especially when they're rolling out a lot more coverage this year, and I've already seen first hand 3G coverage and speed improvement in my area since I switched in October.

[DBMandrake]

With Vodafone, unless it is a really old SIM, you are issued with 3G capable SIMs on both contract and PAYT.

It is odd for such a large company, but their network coverage can be a bit sparse in just the places you wouldn't expect. But where they do have coverage it is usually very good, and rarely marginal.
Since my last post in December I've had a chance to do some more testing with Vodafone in the Glasgow / Central Scotland area, and I'm not impressed. I do actually get 3G outdoors near home but not indoors. In most places I don't get 3G. There are large areas of Glasgow city even outdoors where I don't get 3G, so on average there is less 3G coverage here than even O2. (which is poor to begin with)

Compared to 3, Orange or even T-Mobile Vodafone's 3G coverage in this area is pitiful, so I won't bother with any further testing. In theory 2G coverage should be better due to 900Mhz GSM but in practice (on an iPhone at least) I don't really find much improvement over Orange's 2G coverage. (Which 3 shares) I haven't really found anywhere where I get no signal on Orange/3 where I get a signal on Vodafone.

As for speeds, Vodafone's speeds are ok but they're not anything special, in most locations I've tested 3 are significantly faster, and Orange are similar or faster as well. (Not to mention lots of locations 3 and Orange will give 3G speeds and Vodafone will give only GPRS speeds)

About all I could say for Vodafone is that they don't have the issue other networks have where an active 2G data session causes incoming incoming calls to go straight to voicemail, so thumbs up for that, but thumbs down in most other ways.

[@NickyColman]

@ Ben - ha! Been with Vodafone already so I'm not going back. Lol.

I've always used 3 on and off over the years and I've always found their coverage to be pretty much spot on. It'll be interesting to see how their signal does where I work. I get full -T-Mobile coverage as well as fairly stable Orange so hopefully 3 will manage it.