Well, my contract's up and I'm thinking about my next phone (it will have "Touch" in the name)...

I'm with Orange, and I'm fed up with the customer service. It's not the actual people in the call centres, it's the fact that they usually have an "unusually large volume of callers", and when I can speak to them, they never seem able to help me.

If I may, I'd like to steer away from individual horror stories; I have heard that generally T-mobile is the best...if you were suggesting a network to a friend, what would you suggest?

Avoiding individual horror stories with them aplenty, I still maintain T-Mobile is best...

But let me be open and honest - of late I've had a few of those horror tales you mention, suffice to say without elaborating however, each one resulted in a fight with T-Mo, but after a long slog, each one resulted in a favourable outcome on my part, each time, it must be said.

Customer Service with them seems a mixed bag (and please, I'm not biased because I live nearby - anyone in the know will tell you, that Geordies are actually rivals with 'macums').. Nevertheless, if I call CS and get Doxford Park (Sunderland, nearish to me), the CS seems to be great. If I get Greenock, or the other one they have though, its oft not so great - Scotland especially - and that's no reflection on Scots in general - it's my 2nd holiday destination.

All I do though is persist, or hang up and ring again.

Another consideration with T-Mo is that, away from WinMo devices, the range of handsets they have is very poor these last couple of years - by that I mean they are VERY slow to get the latest handsets to them, or some cases not take them up at all (you'll likely now never see an N82, or E90, on T-Mo), compared to O2 or Vodafone, but Orange too seem to have got worse here this last year too.

Coverage wise though, I have no issues.

Call quality, is also good.

And tariff wise, NOTHING can touch the deal I have, but in general all T-Mobile packages have lots going for them. They are also still the best for mobile Internet.

If you are considering Fixed line BB AND Mobile BB together though, O2 currently have a good package deal on - read more in the relevant thread on this site.

Hope this helps as a starter, and feel free to get back to me with any specific questions you might think of.

o2 in general have good customer services. However, they are VERY slow at taking new handsets... They still don't have the diamond which Orange and T do.

3 is terrible, from my experience. It's always an Indian call centre where if you have a difficult question they just don't know the answer.

Orange used to be ok, but hearing things recently it's not that great anymore.

Tmob is probably the best from what people post on here....

I echo other comments about T-Mobile - they're great and I have no problem with them when I contacted the customer services.

Just to reiterate again...

3 Win the WORST customer service award still.

I have tried numerous times to add credit today to test something and their system is not working. I even went downstairs and tried to use our credit card machine to print an e-voucher. It said "Top-Up Failed, Rejected, out of hours" at 2pm???

When you call cs, they claim there is not a problem and i'm doing it wrong!!

3 are AWFUL, but T-Mo are great for me. I love having CS by email, phone or even SMS too!

P

Is 3 really that bad in the UK? Here in Sweden i've got no problems with them. They are actually better then some of the other operators around here.

Right, T-mobile it is, then! All I have to do now is convince them to give me a Touch Diamond on the same tarriff as Orange offered me as an upgrade...

Is your 3 customer service locally based?

Here 3's customer service is mostly in India, where they tend to be given scripts to read so are unable to help with problems that are not written down...

It's locally based. Think it's based somewhere farther up the country, im in Gothenburg. Everytime I had to call in i've always had a swedish person at other end of the line.

Plus I got a great deal with them

The deals are good in the uk too, just a shame about the customer service....

I got 40 percent of at the flatrate subscription here in Sweden Instead of paying the usual 599 SEK, I pay 359 SEK

By SMS...?

I've missed that one before now - care to share Paul...?

T-Mobile signed me up to T-Mobile's SMS services for customer services as I am deaf, but I didn't know they are offering it to general public.

When I filled in a question online before, I'm sure I had the choice between contact via phone, mail or SMS?

Maybe it's changed now...

P

Does that mean then that T-mobile do sms and data packages only? Or do you still have to shell out for voice calls, which I can only assume if you are deaf are useless?

Cheers

Phill

I'm on the Flext package, so I can use up the whole credit without having to use any voice calls. However I still have to pay the £7.50 for 'net access.

Err yea forgot about that tarrif!

Cheers

Phill