Bottom line – if you have a poor signal or pay more than £8 a month you should look at switching to GiffGaff
You will need a friend/relative/neighbour/self who can change a SIM card
There are three cell tower networks in the UK, now that Three and Vodafone are merging
– EE (1p/EE/BT/Lyca/Spusu/UtilityWarehouse)
– O2 (Giffgaff/Tesco/Sky)
– Three/Vodafone (Smarty/Voxi/Talk/Lebara/Asda/iD/Vodafone/Three/Honest)
Each network has a choice of suppliers, I have listed them above in order of Which? magazine’s latest recommendations.
https://www.which.co.uk/…/best-mobile-networks-overview…
I have tried many service providers, and currently have giffgaff (O2 network) working well and 1p (EE network) working poorly in the middle of Rectory Lane.
In my experience we now have pretty good service on O2 network in our villages, spotty in some areas. EE has poor to fair coverage depending where you live,
and Three and Vodafone have large blank regions in our community area.
You can check coverage at your address here (but I have found the EE values to be significantly inflated)
https://checker.ofcom.org.uk/en-gb/mobile-coverage
Coverage areas have shrunk recently, mostly affecting rural areas as 2G and now 3G services end.
Broadly speaking 4G and 5G services have larger bandwidth, so tend to use higher frequencies and consequently do not reach as far.
Please comment with your own signal strength/supplier/location in the comments