UKH

Giff Gaff / O2 - have I understood folk traveling and adventuring away from the main lines of communication in Scotland, the GG/O2 is currently the best for connectivity? I had nowt on the Corrour estate when covering a Silver DofE whilst my colleagues on Giff Gaff had text reception at least.  

I was on Three and changed to EE and have had much better reception in the hills 

Apparently Three and EE share a lot of antennas/infrastructure.  O2 and Vodafone have a similar agreement too.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecom_infrastructure_sharing#United_Kingdom

I'd imagine it'd be hard to conclusively say which network was best.  Seems lots of phones are dual sim these days so perhaps having a backup payg one from the other shared network is the answer.

Check here (use the map function):

https://checker.ofcom.org.uk/en-gb/mobile-coverage

They have agreements to share a lot of equipment and infrastructure so there are similarities in coverage between EE/H3G and O2/VF. A lot of sites are moving/have moved away from shared to unilateral equipment (with some splitting to completely separate sites) so the levels of coverage are diverging further all of the time.

The different networks also operate different frequencies which leads to more divergence.

That’s all well and good but the reality is somewhat different… my experience in Cornwall was a good example. In theory, super strong signal where we were. In reality very poor.

Thank you to your comments. I have researched and asked around away from here too and I have chosen to take a year with EE. Pricier but most comments about remote connection seem to be very good overall. 

Hope it's not too late for your to see this, but be sure to sign up through topcashback or Quidco or something. Was worth 25% off my last phone contract.

In some regions one company is better than another.  Move to another region and another company is better.  And it's not just regions, sometimes it comes down to specific small geographic areas.  I went with O2 because at the time their coverage at a regional level was good.  In my "region" my research said it was very good.  In my area i.e. home it's almost none existent.  You pay your money and you take your chances.

Al