Difference between signal on contract and payg

[Anonymous]

Just wanting to know of this is normal, or even allowed.
I have with me 3 different phones, One a o2 contract phone, and two pay and go o2 phones, one of which is brand new (got today). The signal currently on the contract phone is 2 bars with 4g active. No signal on either of the pay and go phones. I swop the SIM cards between the contract phone and pay and go phones and the signal strength swops with them, telling me that the phones are ok.
Can anybody shed some light on this ?
Cheers

[MI5]

Does the signal improve if you switch the phone to 2g only or is that what they've refarmed in your area to get 4g ?

[Anonymous]

There is no longer 2g here, I think they have removed that to squeeze in 4g. I have tried manually setting the phones to 3g, but it makes no difference sadly.
I wouldn't have thought anymore about it if all three phones had always bad signal , due to the area we are in, but it does just seem odd that the PAYG phones are more negatively affected.

[anticpated]

Rural areas don't always the best reception in my experience. 4g has improved this in a lot of ways. Other networks have varying support where I live.

[Julian_93]

We are in 2023 and it is the same sh!7 everywhere I've been with O2, Vodafone and and EE. As soon my contract ended i switch to pay monthly same phone same sim the signal suddenly dropped down.

I don't know if this practice is legal. But somehow they limit your signal and priorities the sim cards on contract.

[madasaf1sh]

@Julian_93 

Not sure why you posted to a nearly 6 year old thread.. 

But yes prioritisation by all networks, and has been since day 1 and is legal, and unfortunately PAYG is at the bottom of that list, and to be fair consumer pay monthly is not much higher... 

The only customers who get any SLA's and service guarantee's etc are the companies who pay in the 7 figures each year to the networks, and also government and the likes of the NHS and the emergency services..
And remember these customers cross subsidise and and pay for some of the infrastructure, and that is on top of the 7 figure contracts...
Same with Internet Access, if I pay for dark fibre and a POP, then I should and will get a better service than someone who pays for 10Mb Broadband...

[Enlli]

My wife's pay monthly on Vodafone Voxi gives exactly the same readings as my contract Vodafone.

Often PAYG does not have the bells and whistles like VoLTE and WiFi Calling but I've never noticed a difference in signal.

There are some EE MVNO networks like PlusNet which do not have access to 800MHz 4G and that does make a difference