A Quarter of UK Mobile Users Embarrassed of Smaller Operators
A new Censuswide survey of 1,004 UK contract customers on Vodafone, O2 (VMO2), EE (BT) and Three UK, which was commissioned by Lyca Mobile, has found that 24% of respondents said they would be “embarrassed” to reveal that they get their mobile contract from an alternative operator.
The survey found that 52% of respondents cited price as their biggest priority when signing up for a new mobile contract deal, while 47% would be willing to pay more for a product simply because of its brand name or badge. This is despite 90% recognising that brands play on this loyalty and might overcharge for it, although the UK mobile sector is less about brand names and more about features, price and coverage etc.
Meanwhile, 63% of surveyed consumers with Vodafone, O2, EE and Three UK said they had experienced a price hike in the last six months, which is hardly surprising given that most will have been impacted by annual price hikes. But 72% said they would still consider switching to an alternative, smaller provider, if it was cheaper (there are quite a few operators that fit that description). In reality, the proportion who do swap every year tends to be smaller.
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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I went cheap and the network is an MVNO using o2 and will not be doing that again . Back to EE i go . Just cant beat them for performance and signal ….I guess you only get what you pay for
When I was moving back to EE from Three the woman I was speaking to noticed “this was an EE number at first”, asked me if I was coming back to them and then said it happens quite a lot
I’ve tried all and EE seems to always be the best, but I was very impressed with Vodafone being able to hang onto calls while driving in very rural areas
EE MVNOs exist, I’m currently using 1pmobile which uses EE. No real issues so far network wise compared to when I was on EE PAYG, although their website feels lacking in places e.g. data remaining is just a bar in their website.
EE/Three actually used to be the worst network where I lived until they built the new mast near where I live, prior to that it was Vodafone/O2.
Give 1p Mobile a go. I was in Bristol the other day and managed to get 1.2Gbit/s 5G speeds. Of course I could see the EE antenna…
Ridiculous way to think
I’m getting unlimited everything for £12 a month on Smarty, the speed blows EE and Vodaphine out of the water, it’s competing with my fake fibre gigabit speeds I get from Virgin
650 down and 60/110 uploa, not had a single issue with them, as my dad says “more money than sense”
I use Smarty, but they are not a small network, they are owned by three. I don’t get why people get embarrassed. Not only that, but I use what I want and don’t care what other people think.
You comment is conditional on there being 5G available on Three / Smarty, which geographically most places there is not… then you have to drop to their 4G or 3G speeds which are hardly amazing.
I hope three get there one day, but they’re defo not there yet.
Three is available to 99.8% of the population (4G), and the 5G now reaches more of the UK and is the faster than all other networks (see article below), geographical coverage is irrelevant to the majority of people that live in towns and cities and that’s really all that matters.
(https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/09/opensignal-name-best-4g-and-5g-uk-mobile-networks-for-q3-2022.html)
EE is a superior network in terms of 3G/4G but then it’s still got the legacy benefits of T-Mobile and Orange coverage which Three didn’t have.
All in all, Three is doing much better than the other “big” networks such as Vodafone and O2 which is horrendous nearly everywhere I have tested it.
I can get near Gigabit speeds on Smarty/Three, even moving out of town, I’ve been getting 200-300Mbps.
Three has an old reputation of being the smallest player and not very good, but my experience over the past 3 to 4 years has changed drastically.
yeh im on smarty who use the three network and never had an issue, £10/month for 30gb data and unlimited calls sounds good to me
If it’s any use to you, be sure to get them to switch you to the 60GB for £10 offer while it’s still available (for about another week).
Logically you’ll always prioritise the network with the best speeds and coverage for your personal circumstance, the point of this article is simply to show that almost half of British customers will pay more (like for like) to be with a big brand, essentially the sheep mentality. That’s at the root of rip off Britain, and applies in other markets, and in fixed line communications as well. As long as customers are daft enough to believe glossy marketing, and to pay more than they need to, the big suppliers will continue to do that.
I went to smarty because of the price, I already knew that three had a pretty good coverage around here. All the main networks have a pretty good coverage around here to be honest, 4G that is, Vodafone can be a bit hit-and-miss, but the others are ok. I certainly did not go for speed, as long as I can get a signal.
I’ve been through all the big name operators, and EE performs the best for my use case. 5G works great when I’m at work as there is coverage, works well when I am away at the weekends and I get what I feel is a competitive price. Tethering just works, have roaming as part of my deal, can’t fault them.
Crazy as many have same coverage as big operators. I was with SKY mobile for 6 years until recently only left because 02 network got so poor, congestion mainly. Switched to Lebara last year. They are fantastic and way cheaper than I can get direct from Vodafone. In my experience customer service is better from both Sky and Lebara than it is far the big guys too!
Like others I have been on most network operators and it is EE which delivers the best performance in most places for me, but for call performance I still think Vodafone is the best IMO.
Do people actually go around showing off their network operator on their phones? If a cheapo operator works for your setup and budget who cares, why be ashamed? I’d be more embarrassed paying over the odds for a service I could get cheaper elsewhere.
some people do, like their expensive phones that cost stupid amounts of money. Got one at work that love to show off their latest Samsung phone. I tell them I am happy with my £130 phon, another lad at work takes out his phone and say you should have one of these, a basic Nokia., £25 🙂 if it does what he wants, then fine, not everyone wants a smartphone.
It made me laugh when at work the managers say about putting certain apps on our phone and he pulls out this nokia and say try putting your apps on that. I don’t have any work apps on my phone.
At the end of the day if you get the service you want at the price you want then great.
I am going to try and get a lower price broadband as my contract runs out soon,
I’m the opposite. I’d be embarrassed to say I’m overpaying for something, did I not do any research, am I lazy? Goes for buying a branded item from Waitrose Vs Lidl. It’s the same thing, why over pay?
Ee are great no doubt but by far the most expensive. iD which uses 3s network have great offers and also roaming pity their customer service is attrocious. Any mvno using o2 is on a lose lose. Congestion and over capacity mainly.
ID Mobile (Three Network) here, been paying £7 a month for 30GB and unlimited everything else for the past 4 years, never had an issue nor a price hike.
I’ve been with ID Mobile since Three removed their free roaming. Before that I’d been with Three for maybe 15 years.
We often spend months outside the UK and ID have a well documented fair use policy. Very worst case they revert to £2.50 per Gig until you return to the UK although this has never happened to us. As long as they’re still making a profit from you they don’t seem to care.
The only major downside is zero coverage options in some countries outside Europe but we use esims for coverage in those places and we use esims to supplement our data when we need more that the ID fair use allows.
1P Mobile @ £5.00 a month, it shows EE on my phone, no mention its 1P mobile but I wouldn’t care if it did. Still supports all the same features like Wi-Fi calling and VoLTE, I was with EE and apart from a huge saving each month I’ve noticed no difference at all.
Interesting, I didn’t know it showed on the phone as EE. Do you get the EE default voicemail greeting as well? I take it visual voicemail is not available?
Think that’s good mine shows Smarty 1P & EE for some reason
Got two iPhones and an iPad, one on Plusnet, one on smarty and one on lebara. It means when we are out walking in rural areas chances are at least one of the devices will have a signal. All can tether to each other.
Another vote for 1p Mobile on EE Infrastructure. Only buy data boosts when I’m away from home WiFi for more than a few days, dirt cheap and never had a problem with coverage, speed or service. Free (capped) EU roaming as well. As per standard advice, pick the underlying provider with the best local coverage and then find the MVNO or sub-brand (Voxi, Smarty, GiffGaff etc.) with the best deal. Baffled why anyone would do anything else!
Switched from ee to o2, worst mistake ever, no 5g in Blackpool only any good in cities, the 4g is slow and you can’t even get it in the town centre plus the o2 network is over subscribed with the likes of virgin and tesco using the masts, will go back to ee when contract is up
I had exactly the same problem. Went into a 12 month contract with O2 from EE, signal was horrendous, even in the middle of the 2nd biggest city in the UK. I came out of my contract with them, as they weren’t providing the service they’d offered. Worth trying it. Now on 1p Mobile which runs on EE, never been happier. Great price too.
I.e Generation Z will be that 24%….But It was the same when I was at school and would wear Hi-Tec trainers and get extensively ribbed on that they were not Nike. Brand awareness in teens and early twentysomethings is off the scale regardless of when you grow up.
Hi-Tec were most comfortable shoes I had in 90s. This 24% are mostly bodgers living on shoestring.
Switched from Vodafone to Lebara over a year ago. Same network, half the price and still have free EU roaming
Everyone Wittersham on about how cheap they have things.
There are no cheap SIM only deals with UNLIMITED everything.
£28pcm with EE is about the cheapest.
3 is useless as a network.
Just too many users.
It will be interesting to see how the merger affects network coverage.
I use about 450gb per month on my new unlimited EE contract.
I do not intend to have nor do I need a fixed broadband service.
3 used to do unlimited everything for £16pm.
Should bring those old free phones contracts every 12 months also if everyone stopped buying new phone contracts they would know what happen they would go out of business and the more competitions the better.
Also for the records if you buy direct from the shops you can’t cancel the contracts and if you bought on line you have cooling of periods which they don’t tell you they must only know after you are stung . some networks need to give better offers thanks
I’ve recently started using A&A SIP2SIM. I reckon that might get me some ‘street cred’ on a forum like this, but would average people even know who Andrews & Arnold are?
To be honest, most of the major players have what (to me) looks like awfully complex pricing. With A&A you may get charged £0.0002643 plus VAT if you accidentally fart whilst on the phone, but at least it will be clearly listed on the price list and itemised on the bill :).