[MrBriz]

Hi All,

I was just wondering if anyone had any experance with any other network.

I've been with O2 so long now that I don't know what the other 4 are like.

I think I will be switching to another network when the iPhone 4 comes out, but I'd like to know what the service is like.

Can you guys/gals that are on other networks tell me what they are like so I can try and make an informed dicision.

I want about 600 minutes, 500 texts, unlimited data (I don't actually use that much, but I don't want a cap lower than 2gb just in case!)

Also anyone in Milton Keynes that is on a network other than O2, what is the coverage like?

[Ben]

To be honest it's all much of a muchness these days. I went back to Vodafone, partly because I know their signal is better around here than O2's, partly because I 'believe' that they have the best network and some good tariffs, and partly because they have Sure Signal for when things get sticky.

Once all of the networks release their iPhone 4 tariffs then you should be able to make a decision after checking your key locations on their coverage checkers.

I miss Visual Voicemail, which only O2 have AFAIK, but for me staying on O2 was not an option.

[Hands0n]

I hated every single minute of the experience of an iPhone on O2's network across the 2-odd years that I had the 2G, 3G and then the 3GS.

Moving the 3GS away from O2 and on to Vodafone's network was a dramatic and very welcome improvement. It is difficult to describe how different the two networks operate in terms of quality.

With O2 I would frequently get the "off-net" syndrome whereby it takes ages for a call to set up after dialling and pressing the 'send' button. This is because the handset has essentially been "forgotten" by the network. When you press send the handset has to re-register itself onto the network before the call can be set up. Thats that big 60+ seconds gap between hitting send and hearing ring tone.

Then with O2 I would very infrequently get 3G, and then when I did it was heavily oversubscribed and sub-megabit speeds were the order of the day. I'd be lucky to see much above 600Kbps even standing directly in front of the nearest transmitter to my home, some 1km and half a hill away. At home forget it, no 3 at all, not even EDGE. Travelling about North Kent and East London there was barely any 3G signal to be had, and that which was could be terrible.

Over to Vodafone then and all of that is a thing of the past. I'm getting consistently high megabit speeds, mostly around the 3 - 4 Mbps and HSUPA at that! Call set up and quality are flawless. No calls hitting voicemail while the handset is sitting at 3 - 5 bars signal strength. Browsing speeds insanely fast by comparison to O2.

Really, I would rather do without any smartphone at all than use O2 ever again. In fact, I'd probably not even want the most basic handset on O2, ever!.