Tesco Mobile reliability

PukkaStukka

Back in 2012, my wife and I were with Tesco Mobile and eventually left after about 6 months due the appalling reliability issues we experienced. Then, their data was often non-existent and very slow if it was. The voice network suffered frequent outages with calls not able to be received or made, and texts messaging was plagued with all kinds of similarly weird and wonderful issues.

That was three years ago, and I would be very keen to hear what their network performs like now. Is it more reliable on all fronts or are there still issues. TM's pricing is very attractive but I would not be prepared to suffer the same issues previously no matter now good or otherwise their tarrifs are.

Comments and opinions are welcome.

booklova

it's ok, but can vary depending on location as they use three (o2), the coverage is allright

MBSnr

Generally I find it fine for the low price - I pay very little on one of their promo deals - so am reluctant to move. There are times at my house that the signal drops and then takes a while to come back but I am 7Km from an O2 2G mast, so I think it hunts around for another at times. Be nice if TM used Three masts as there's a 3G one much closer...They tell me that they will. I don't tend to find any problems in cities with voice/3G.

I also have a work phone with Vodafone and their coverage is far superior with 4G at my house! TM and 4G will not be really an option. Three's 4G network outside of the cities isn't great by all accounts and it'll be years before they get around to upgrading their own masts to 4G, let alone the original 2G O2 ones....But then if I moved I'd pay 3 times the amount that I do on TM. All depends on what you do and whether you judge the compromise is ok.

Tesco have been fine for a while now. Their 2Mb/s downstream cap was lifted about a year ago and they haven't had any major outages of late that were their fault. They did go down on Easter Monday but this was the O2 network as a whole and not specifically Tesco's problem.

As MBSnr points out, it really depends on what you want to do with your device. If you need 4G, stay away because there's no ETA for this. If, on the other hand, you want a decent amount of data but don't require the high speed, then they'd be just fine.

I also have the benefit that the former O2 network gives me the best coverage at home and in work. All of the others have coverage issues in at least one of these locations.

PukkaStukka

Thanks for the replies. 4G is not needed, just a decent reliable service. I'm with eMobile and my wife is with Meteor at the mo and cannot fault their reliability or data performance. Both of us are just out of contract with decent phones and are looking at SIM Only to reign in the costs. Tesco does offer better value than either in this regard but still the memories of what happened before with Tesco bring on panic attacks, nightmares, PTSD... you get the drift

It might be a case of better the devil you know and stay were we are for the mo.