Back in September of last year I posted an entry asking if 3 was better than 2. After testing with a MiFi since then I decided that Three probably was better than O2 so took the plunge and moved my iPhone number to them.

Rather than put myself into a long term contract I selected the £15 per month Sim Only option which more than covers my needs.

• 300 any network minutes

• 3000 texts

• 1GB internet

• 1 month rolling contract

I have to say that out and about the service was great, internet tethering was fantastic and download speeds were pretty much not far off my broadband speed 😮 I was very happy indeed.

However, the signal I got at home (where I spend a lot of time) was far from ideal. One bar was pretty much all I was provided with and the phone frequently went from 1 bar to No Service. A tweet about it resulted in a tweet from Three who tried to help me out, ultimately I needed to call customer services in order to discuss the issue.

Customer services immediately put me through to the “iPhone team” who advised me restore the phone  to factory defaults – well I did that but it made no difference at all. The customer service team then advised me to test the connection in several other locations and that if that still failed then I would have to take it to Apple as it would be a handset fault!.

Again, out and about it was great but indoors it was diabolical. Now to be fair to Three, the locations I tested O2 don’t always have a 3G connection but if they don’t it will go to an Edge or GPRS signal so at least I won’t lose signal and be unable to make calls. This is where Three fails to hit the mark for me.

The last straw for me was when my wife tried to call me when I was visiting relatives. My daughter was badly hurt but even though I had one bar it failed to connect the call and she had to call me via my brothers mobile.

After checking out alternatives I decided to go with Giff Gaff (Referral Link). As it runs on the O2 network, I know it’s coverage so can be assured that, apart from when being at the Stadium of Light, I will get a signal when I need to. I am only a couple of weeks using Giff Gaff but so far it’s been great  and it’s also incredibly priced £10 per month gives me 250 minutes, unlimited texts and unlimited internet usage! (though does need to be set up for Internet and MMS usage – more on that on my next post).

Although I have lost tethering I still have a Three MiFi which I will use from time to time when I don’t have a 3G connection on Giff Gaff or when I need to connect my laptop to the internet when out and about.

Thinking about joining Giff Gaff? Click this referral link, you will get a free sim with free £5 credit and I will get some referral points 😉