topic Re: Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now?? in Discussions & Feedback

Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now??

jimthing0 — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 20:45:25 GMT

So basically there's absolutely NOTHING good about being on O2 anymore, AFAICT?

- seemingly, EE has double UK data 4G speed.

- EU & intl data roaming is best on Three.

- most of the networks have cheap intl calling/texting bolt-ons.

The only thing no one seems good at, is local calls (e.g. while in US, calling a US landline/mobile).

Amirite?

I'm shopoing around and am leaning towards EE for my (London-based) UK speed usage. And then perhaps getting a Three sim for data while in the USA. Nothing on O2 seems worth buying into, as a current customer; the Travel bolt-ons are rubbish for data, and the other companies offer cheap intl call add-ons as well. So what on earth does O2 do best at...?

Re: Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now??

Bambino — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 20:54:04 GMT

@jimthing0 If there's nothing from O2 that appeals to you, you have the option to go where you think you'll get a better deal. We are all customers, so no one here will try talking you into or out of anything.

Re: Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now??

jimthing0 — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 21:12:42 GMT

Sure thing, lol!

I'm legitimately lost on why I should stay on the network, before I consider going through the mass faff around of changing to another.

I appreciate the phone and online staff are probably the best, but from a purely technical stand point on what they offer and how well they offer it, I can't see anything keeping me from going.

Unless someone has a great point on something O2 offers (however small or big) that's not available on other networks...?

Re: Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now??

MI5 — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 21:14:31 GMT

Ummmm, Priority

Re: Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now??

jonsie — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 21:16:10 GMT

Refresh....clutching at straws here, someone throw a lifebelt

Re: Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now??

Cleoriff — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 21:17:28 GMT

@jonsie wrote:
Refresh....clutching at straws here, someone throw a lifebelt

Out of lifebelts and ideas @jonsie

Re: Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now??

jonsie — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 21:36:24 GMT

@Cleoriff wrote:
@jonsie wrote:
Refresh....clutching at straws here, someone throw a lifebelt
Out of lifebelts and ideas @jonsie

We're all doomed Mr Mannering...

Looks we are all going down with the ship!

Re: Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now??

Bambino — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 22:23:05 GMT

@jimthing0 You have to go where you think your needs are served best. The prime criteria that should govern your decision is coverage. Any other offers with whipped cream and a cherry on top are useless if you don't get a good signal in the places you frequent most.

Re: Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now??

jimthing0 — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 07:20:53 GMT

Much as I'm impressed with 'Priority' (not very) and 'Refresh' (you wot? likely *******), I couldn't say these are "hold on a second, what am I thinking, how could I possibly consider changing network!" things.

And given I'm in London mostly, coverage on all networks is decent enough-ish, possibly maybe. 🙂

Well I'm off then, ta-ra everybody!

"Good bye Good bye, I'm leaving you tonight"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0u3NM8rd1U

Re: Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now??

jimthing0 — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 22:46:45 GMT

...well, erm, not quite tonight. Actually, I'm leaving next week, when I have time to sort various background shiz out first.

Re: Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now??

jonsie — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 23:05:26 GMT

Good luck @jimthing0 but don't forget your friends here. If ever you are feeling a little depressed....best not to sign in

Re: Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now??

HellDiverUK — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 08:16:22 GMT

I think you're making a mistake. For me, O2 has been great compared to EE. I was with EE for 5+ years, and while VoLTE and VoWiFi worked great, the latter was too often in use.

With O2, I've never had to use VoWiFi, because I get 4G signal pretty much everywhere. In the 4 or 5 months I've been with O2, I've not had a situation where I've needed VoWiFi.

My work SIM is on Vodafone, and it's terrible, much worse than both O2 and EE.

Re: Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now??

EmilieT — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 10:30:01 GMT

Good morning @jimthing0, and sorry to hear you're not happy with your current contract! Obviously as other members said above, you need to go with whatever fits your needs best

In case it helps, we have recapped some of the main reasons why you should consider staying with O2 here - I thought you might find this interesting!

Re: Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now??

jimthing0 — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 11:05:40 GMT

@EmilieT wrote:
Good morning @jimthing0, and sorry to hear you're not happy with your current contract! Obviously as other members said above, you need to go with whatever fits your needs best

In case it helps, we have recapped some of the main reasons why you should consider staying with O2 here - I thought you might find this interesting!

Well that list is rather pointless. Most items are irrelevant marketing filler items, to fill out their offering. No way near what's ACTUALLY important to the majority of users: network (should be a given, really), but in this day & age international usage is the next big one (which O2's is rubbish compared to competion, with tiny 150MB/day data cap that's throttled and hardly ever works anyway before you even hit it, so forget it).

EE has the best network in cities across the UK, and Three does the best intl stuff (though EE/Voda have okay options as well). However a local sim is still basically required, as no UK network gives affordable calls to local (in my recent case, USA) numbers while there, and even on tourist holidays, try dealing with an issue that can't be dealt with online and you'll often end-up in a 20-40 min on-hold situation (at £2.00 a min on O2 the most expensive in the UK! that's an expensive £40-80 call!).

So sorry, but bye O2.

Re: Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now??

Mi-Amigo — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 11:04:44 GMT

@jimthing0

Whilst I can see the reasons why you are considering moving to another provider, I do not share your view that O2 "seem bad at everything".

For years I was on contract with T-Mobile then it got taken over by EE. I experienced problems accessing websites, received no help from calls to their customer services, got fobbed off on their forum. Not only that but when I had problem with sim in the EE dongle to access the internet I visited the local EE store and the staff were, quite frankly, rude and unhelpful.

In desperation, I visited the local O2 store and even though the sim and gongle were not O2 the O2 staff did their utmost to correct the error - but without success. Before I left the O2 shop I enquired about O2 sim and gongle.

I came home and checked the info. I was amazed to find that O2 offered a package which was cheaper and better than EE. So I visited the O2 store and signed up for a monthly contarct with O2 sim and dongle.

In the time, I have been with O2 I have had a few issues - for which I have received help and advice from members of the O2 Community, which is one of the best forums I have ever been a member of [and I`ve been a member of many over the years]. Not only that but when an issue could not be readily solved, it has been dealt with effectively by the Community Managers who have escalated the problem on my behalf and on each and every occasion have been resolved to my complete satisfaction.

I am proud and pleased to be a member of this Community.

I appreciate that any decision is down to the individual and personal requirements. That said, I would seriously ask anyone who is considering moving to another provider whether the another provider will provide an equal or better service. In my opinion, it is highly doubtful.

Re: Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now??

jimthing0 — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 11:16:39 GMT

@Mi-Amigo wrote:
@jimthing0
Whilst I can see the reasons why you are considering moving to another provider, I do not share your view that O2 "seem bad at everything".
For years I was on contract with T-Mobile then it got taken over by EE. I experienced problems accessing websites, received no help from calls to their customer services, got fobbed off on their forum. Not only that but when I had problem with sim in the EE dongle to access the internet I visited the local EE store and the staff were, quite frankly, rude and unhelpful.
In desperation, I visited the local O2 store and even though the sim and gongle were not O2 the O2 staff did their utmost to correct the error - but without success. Before I left the O2 shop I enquired about O2 sim and gongle.
I came home and checked the info. I was amazed to find that O2 offered a package which was cheaper and better than EE. So I visited the O2 store and signed up for a monthly contarct with O2 sim and dongle.
In the time, I have been with O2 I have had a few issues - for which I have received help and advice from members of the O2 Community, which is one of the best forums I have ever been a member of [and I`ve been a member of many over the years]. Not only that but when an issue could not be readily solved, it has been dealt with effectively by the Community Managers who have escalated the problem on my behalf and on each and every occasion have been resolved to my complete satisfaction.
I am proud and pleased to be a member of this Community.

I appreciate that any decision is down to the individual and personal requirements. That said, I would seriously ask anyone who is considering moving to another provider whether the another provider will provide an equal or better service. In my opinion, it is highly doubtful.

Yes, I previously stated I commend the O2 support. But when things are up and running, you hardly ever need to speak to anyone, so really as a reason to stay it isn't a big enough one (and I suspect O2 realise this if they have any sense of their current non-support shortcomings).

I used to be a regular on here when in the early days of modern smartphones (iPhone 3G got released), but soon enough didn't really need to, as it's just a phone line and some data, and there's little else worth discussing on a regular basis. I buy all iPhones outright each year, like a great many people do directly from Apple, so don't need discussion on best buys, or other stuff: just buy new phone; Ebay old phone; move sim; get on with my life.

Sorry to be curt, but that's it. 😕

Re: Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now??

Cleoriff — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 12:26:56 GMT

It's all down to personal needs @jimthing0

I don't travel out of the UK now, though when I did and it was only in Europe, my phone worked as well as it did at home. (Even better in fact, as family who were also on O2, could call me free of charge...those were the days!!)

Now, when I travel within the UK my network coverage is as good as anyone else in our group.

I am sim only as I own my Note 8 outright and can honestly say I have no problem. There again, I do use my PC a lot and where I go, it comes with me. I have a 3 sim on a dongle for using that, although I generally use Wifi when that's available.

Re: Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now??

jimthing0 — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 12:38:28 GMT

@Cleoriff wrote:
It's all down to personal needs @jimthing0
I don't travel out of the UK now, though when I did and it was only in Europe, my phone worked as well as it did at home. (Even better in fact, as family who were also on O2, could call me free of charge...those were the days!!)

Now, when I travel within the UK my network coverage is as good as anyone else in our group.

I am sim only as I own my Note 8 outright and can honestly say I have no problem. There again, I do use my PC a lot and where I go, it comes with me. I have a 3 sim on a dongle for using that, although I generally use Wifi when that's available.

Sure I get that. But when you're on the street abroad, and really need to use things like Google Maps to get around (but O2's throttling then makes it unusable, if you read the forums recently!), also wanting to book or sort-out various things over the phone (when it frequently can't be done via online/email), therefore people need both decent usable data AND call/text use, rather then a simple want.

Re: Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now??

Cleoriff — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 12:43:42 GMT

@jimthing0

I totally agree. If my circumstances were different and I was travelling constantly all over the world, I suspect I would have changed networks before now.

Re: Why stay on O2... they seem bad at everything now??

jimthing0 — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 14:11:19 GMT

@Cleoriff wrote:
@jimthing0
I totally agree. If my circumstances were different and I was travelling constantly all over the world, I suspect I would have changed networks before now.

But even if only travelling occasionally to non-UK/EU places, you're still STUFFED. Don't you see.

I'm going to the NYC for a week with partner also on O2, and O2's offering is so weak as to make it unusable for anything but the most essential use.

An example of our costs as a couple:

- Call/text each other, or do the same via cell data (Whatsapp, FaceTime, etc.):

I call her fee kicks-in to call, her fee also kicks-in to receive call: EACH £4.99/day as the Travel bolt-on's kick-in. As soon as you use data this fee kicks in as well, so you may as well just call/text each other for quick issues just as much as using other apps [120 mins make/recieve per day, 120MB badly throttled largely unusable data].

- We'll need some REAL data and perhaps local calls (i.e. beyond the tiny 150MB throttled most of the time under the Travel bolt-on):

I'll get a local ATT 8GB+unlim. calls/texts $50/£40 eSim as the 2nd iPhone XS Max line, which we can both tether iPads to if WiFi unavailable/bad. And I can call/text US#'s to sort bookings or issues while there (on O2, the only option is to pay £2.00/min, thus the classic issue we all face daily talking to companies is the "waiting on hold" issue; so 20mins hold, that's a nice £40+ charge! No thanks.).

So min costs are for a week:

- My O2 phone Travel £4.99/day: £35.

- Her O2 phone Travel £4.99/day: £35.

- My local ATT 30 day eSim: £40.

= £110 TOTAL for a week – nearly £16/DAY!

While not extortionate it's hardly cheap, and the double payment on my phone for O2 and ATT sims, is annoyingly wasteful and hard to avoid.

I may be able to skim my £4.99 O2 Travel days down by having us connect to each other via app and my ATT data (if it works), so okay might save a day or two on my Travel days data, but then any voicemail or calls from UK and it'll kick-in anyway.

__________

Even if you're a regular traveller, you're hit with the £4.99/day Travel fee for most countries outside the Travel Inclusive zone, it's unavoidable unless you don't use your domestic O2 at all. And then you still need PROPER few-GB's of data in the countries you visit ON TOP of this.

Sure there are some weird and wonderful ways of cutting this a bit (Google Voice if US, and some others), but they're all cumbersome and technical issues galore are the last thing you want when you're away from home, in a place where quick decisions need to be made, and you don't want the hassle of things failing.

Sure I get it, 'intl data/calls/text are expensive, get over it', lol. But in this day & age, I thought I may be able to mitigate these costs better, so unless there's something I don't know about, that pretty much isn't possible. 😕