Thanks for the comments everyone. I ended up going with O2! We have our broadband with Virgin and as they have now teamed up with O2 I got a deal where if you are with both, you get double data with O2 and then Virgin double your broadband speed. It seemed like a good deal as we were thinking about increasing our broadband speed anyway. So far the signal has been great but then, Liverpool usually has a good signal from all networks. The real proof will be when we start touring again in February.
I thought I would update you on my phone situation. As I said above, I decided to go with O2 as they were offering lots of perks if you had Virgin broadband which we do. We live in Liverpool and there are 3 O2 masts close to us so we were expecting a good strong signal. When I put the SIM in my phone it was immediately showing 4 bars of 4G which seemed great and I was able to make phone calls and send texts without any problems. I don’t use data in the house as I connect the phone to the broadband so didn’t notice anything about the data until I went into town a few days later. The phone was still showing 4 bars of 4G but when I went to look something up on the internet the speed of the data was ridiculously slow. I did a speed test and it was showing as 0.5mbps. My husband who is with Virgin on the EE network also did a speed test beside me and he was getting 35mbps! I went into the O2 shop to ask what was going on as I had 4 bars of 4G and the guy informed me that I was indeed getting 4 bars of 4G but that doesn’t control the data speed, just the strength of the connection. The data speed is affected by the number of people trying to use it at any one time! We went home and over the next few days I tested the data speed in several locations at different times of the day and never got above 1mbps whereas my husband was regularly getting speeds in excess of 40mbps.
Needless to say I cancelled my contract with O2 in the 14 day cooling off period and I have now gone to Plusnet which seems to be giving me consistently fast data speeds. I originally didn’t want to go on the EE network through Plusnet as my husband was already on it through Virgin and we like to have 2 different networks for when we are touring in the caravan but apparently Virgin are transferring all their customers who are still on EE to the Vodafone network early in the new year so we will still have 2 different networks for when we head off again in the spring.
Quote: Originally posted by Pixie_Hez on 10/12/2021
apparently Virgin are transferring all their customers who are still on EE to the Vodafone network early in the new year so we will still have 2 different networks for when we head off again in the spring.
Hi Pixie, where did you find that out please, as my wife and I are both on Virgin/EE and we haven't heard anything about it.
Quote: Originally posted by Pixie_Hez on 10/12/2021
apparently Virgin are transferring all their customers who are still on EE to the Vodafone network early in the new year so we will still have 2 different networks for when we head off again in the spring.
Hi Pixie, where did you find that out please, as my wife and I are both on Virgin/EE and we haven't heard anything about it.
Hi Colin, the first we heard was when we heard of someone being moved over a while back so my husband investigated and found a lot of articles online that talked about Virgin signing with Vodafone and then we saw the article mentioned above which gave an idea of timeframe.
Quote: Originally posted by Pixie_Hez on 10/12/2021
Hi Colin, the first we heard was when we heard of someone being moved over a while back so my husband investigated and found a lot of articles online that talked about Virgin signing with Vodafone and then we saw the article mentioned above which gave an idea of timeframe.
Thanks Pixie, I'll have to check out that link. I'm rather surprised Virgin haven't contacted us though. Not very good PR on their part in my opinion.