14 replies to this topic

[speedster2000]

Hi,

My company have been offered a very good deal from T-Mobile UK under their Business One Tariff and are considering moving to them from Orange.  I have had a few people mention that the signal coverage isn't as good with T-Mobile as the other networks - this concerns me a bit because we have a lot of field-based engineers roaming around the country so it is important for us to have good coverage.  Does anyone have any opinion on whether this is likely to be a concern, I'd be particularly interested in hearing from business users who travel around quite a bit with a T-Mobile handset e.g. someone working in field-service or sales etc.  We have also looked at O2 and Vodafone which are quite a bit more expensive (is it a case of you get what you pay for??).  

We have found Orange to be reasonable although we have been having a few problems with the antenna local to our office and also some problems with call drop-outs recently.

Thanks for your help

[Motty]

looking at SAKI yesterday, there are some faults with the network dropping calls (no region specific) there was no ETA

[sporkguy]

Tmobile for me has been excellent, especially from the Midlands and northwards - the best thing to check is the coverage database on tmobile's website and see whether the area your engineers visit most often are covered sufficiently.

If they stick to Cities and Large industrial areas, they're more than likely going to be able to get good reception.

[PaulOBrien]

BETTER than Orange for me everywhere i've been! (2G that is)

P

[tsutton]

I live in a small village/town and I usally get crap Orange signal.

Now switched to T-Mobile a month ago, always have full signal almost all the time and I am happy.

[martley]

speedster2000, on Jun 7 2006, 12:10, said:

Hi,

My company have been offered a very good deal from T-Mobile UK under their Business One Tariff and are considering moving to them from Orange.  I have had a few people mention that the signal coverage isn't as good with T-Mobile as the other networks - this concerns me a bit because we have a lot of field-based engineers roaming around the country so it is important for us to have good coverage.  Does anyone have any opinion on whether this is likely to be a concern, I'd be particularly interested in hearing from business users who travel around quite a bit with a T-Mobile handset e.g. someone working in field-service or sales etc.  We have also looked at O2 and Vodafone which are quite a bit more expensive (is it a case of you get what you pay for??).  

We have found Orange to be reasonable although we have been having a few problems with the antenna local to our office and also some problems with call drop-outs recently.

Thanks for your help

[martley]

Many people still beleive that T-Mobile have the same problems as when the network was part of the 0ne2One phone company.  There is nothing much different between any of the networks now.  T-Mobile have spent millions on upgrading the cell sites for a number of years now. Indeed in some areas Orange and others have less good coverage than T-Mobile, and also vice versa.  I would not worry.

[chucky.egg]

I've just been through the same thing, and we gave staff mobiles with each of the different SIM cards to test coverage where they work (not a particulalry big area).

We tested for 8 weeks, but the results are not even hard-and-fast for us, and would be meaningless for you.

You'll never get a definitive answer to this question.  The best you can do is some sampling and take a "best guess"

[kam_]

From my experiance i've found T-Mobile to have better reception than Orange.  I travel a fair bit around the UK and use different networks at different times.  I beleive its a myth that their network has poor reception, often its people asuming its the cheapest so it must have the worst reception OR that its the same old crumbling One2One network.

The 900 networks (O2 and Vodafone) by definition should have better reception than the 1800 netowkrs (T-Mobile and Orange) because the power required to transmit the same distance is 4 times less at 900Mhz than at 1800Mhz.  This means 1800 networks need more towers to cover the same area.  I think this is another reason why people think that 1800Mhz networks have poorer reception.

In fact to compensate for this 1800Mhz networks are alocated more frequencies than 900Mhz networks.  This means each tower can support more calls.  In the end it balances out quite well.

You could start being really pedantic about it all and talk about frequency propogation and how one frequency should work better indoors, but these days the signal levels are high enough thats not a problem.  You could also say that in rurual areas 900Mhz networks would be alot better, because you can be alot further from the closest tower and still get reception. You could then say 1800Mhz networks would be better in city areas because you would be less likely to get network congestion... BUT in reality micronodes/piconodes can be used to handle congested area - like high streets, and rural areas use macronodes with huge ranges.

If you are really worried about it, get test sims from T-Mobile and test it out, but i'd say don't worry about it too much.

[sporkguy]

Very well argued Kam

I was pleasantly surprised by Tmobile, as their signal for me is MUCH better than Orange's! GPRS seems faster too.

[m1.carson]

Well Peoples,
I'm in the proccess of trying just that, my and my wife's Orange signal has virtually died in the last two months, [Reading area UK], we're not using the same brand of phone either, so I've sent off to T-mobile [50p each] and Vodaphone [free ]for sim cards, as I type the T-Mob card has arrived and about to be unpacked, I ordered the Vodaphone one a day earlier, still waiting.
Will update you on the reception.
Max.
P.S. tried O2 last week, no better than Orange.

[kam_]

m1.carson, on Jun 16 2006, 09:17, said:

Well Peoples,
I'm in the proccess of trying just that, my and my wife's Orange signal has virtually died in the last two months, [Reading area UK], we're not using the same brand of phone either, so I've sent off to T-mobile [50p each] and Vodaphone [free ]for sim cards, as I type the T-Mob card has arrived and about to be unpacked, I ordered the Vodaphone one a day earlier, still waiting.
Will update you on the reception.
Max.
P.S. tried O2 last week, no better than Orange.

Strange O2 are in slough and should have very good coverage in reading as well.

[m1.carson]

Hi again,
I've tested five carriers at home this AM.

T-Mob-Vodafone and 3 have transmitters on the same building 1 kilometer away, Orange is approx. 100mtrs closer whilst O2 is about half a kilometer away.
This test was scientifically carried out using a place mat and wine glass as a jig to locate my MPx 200 eggxatley.

Orange.........2 bars
Vodafone......2 bars
T-Mobile.......1 bar
O2...............1 bar
3.................invalid sim [ I was lent it to try ! ]

Might as well stick with Orange, I've got money on the card and it saves the hassle of changing numbers.

Max.

[Confucious]

You would expect them to be all fairly similar given the proximity of the masts, moving a few feet will mak e bit of a differnce due to the wavelength. The issue comes when there are no masts near or different masts in different areas of the country - if you have all masts that close my only suprise is that you're only getting 2 bars max! I get full UMTS T-mob signal in Woking in my office, but then I believe I'd get full strength with all networks.

[speedster2000]

Thanks for all the feedback - much appeciated.  Very interesting to hear people's views on T-Mobile.