T Mobile or 3?

[Unregistered]

Hey,
I'm looking for my next contract for my mobile. On my last contract I ended up wanting to use quite a bit of data but cause of my1GB limit I was wary of what to use. I tend to stream my music and such whilst out and I tend to travel a bit.
I've been looking for an unlimited deal so I wouldn't have to worry and the two ISP's that offer it are T-Mobile/3.
I'm coming off Virgin Media which is using Everything Everywhere and it was ok but music tended to not load very well in certain places.

Anyways to my main question is which of the two ISP's would you recommend? I'm generally in a St Albans (Hertfordshire) and aUxbridge (West London) area. Coverage I can check which I have, and seems to be fine in both but I can't check for average speeds and other problems! Thanks for helping and i've tried to research everything before posting but I can't find about other details.

Thanks!

[timeless]

ld go for three, their coverage is pretty good.. tho l have noticed from the few o2 phones with 3g that they can be flakey in some places.. and pretty slow.. tho l cant speak for my area orange just goes to prove than even in large towns it doesnt mean youll have good signal.. 3 however l was with them a few years back for mobile net but l couldnt fault them unless l needed to go on while they were doing network maintenance lol.

[Unregistered]

Thanks for your reply,
I went into carphone warehouse and asked the question.
They said Everything Everywhere had more coverage but 3 has the faster speeds generally.

[DTMark]

Have tried most of the networks and recently tried 3.

The main problem with 3 is that thanks to the frequencies used it doesn't penetrate buildings very well. So for instance it won't work at all in our house downstairs. It doesn't work at South Mimms Service station - a huge set of services on the north section of the M25. Or at least it didn't when I was there. I see "No network" far, far more often with 3 than any other provider and am abandoning that and going back to O2.

But, when it works, it's great. We use it for our home broadband with an antenna on the roof and it's capable of 11Mbps+. But that's in one place only.

If you're minded to try it, I'd suggest getting a free PAYG SIM first before going anywhere near a contract. And if it works, the All You Can Eat package (£15/mo I think) might suit you very well.

[Mark.J]

T-Mobile doesn't really offer unlimited usage, they offer a restricted "unlimited" that cuts your speed after 1-3GB (depending upon package) and limits you to basic web/email usage only. Meanwhile 3 only offer unlimited on their Smartphone/contract packages and not the dedicated USB Modem based Mobile Broadband service, although Tethering gets around that .

[Kyle]

Mark, that isn't entirely correct anymore as T-Mobile have their new Full Monty packages.

Kyle

[Mark.J]

Ah yes good point, I was thinking more of their USB Modem deals.