What are my cellular options in London
In the US, we have 4 options for cellular plans (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile & Sprint).
To get a comparison, who are the top 3-4 companies that I have to choose from in London? and which one has the largest coverage outside of London i.e. Verizon has the largest coverage in the US?
Best Answer
There are four real mobile networks with significant coverage in the UK* EE (formed by the merger of Orange UK with T-Mobile UK), O2, Vodafone and Three. On top of this there are a bunch of Virtual networks reselling the services of the four real networks.
In major UK cities all four of them will have good coverage, If you are thinking about more rural or small-town locations though it can pay to check the coverage maps of each provider.
Personally for pay as you go service I like EE's "£1 data pack". It's about the cheapest option I could find for keeping data active all the time with a usable (though not huge) allowance and it only gets better with time as free-boosts build up (tip: they don't encourage you to restart your pack early, but it's possible to do it and it's a much better deal than buying the add-ons). Importantly for me it doesn't seem to have any restrictions on tethering.
I tried three a few years ago, their advertised PAYG data pricing looked great, but I found they would not allow use of regular PAYG data for tethering which was a deal-breaker for me.
All UK networks use SIM cards and the GSM/WCDMA/LTE family of standards (three only have WCDMA/LTE). Different networks do use different frequency bands though, if you are using a lower end foreign phone it may pay to check which networks have the most frequency band overlap with what your phone supports.
Paradoxically you often get better coverage if you roam in on a foreign SIM. The UK networks don't have any roaming arrangements with each other but it's not unlikely your foreign provider will have roaming agreements with all of them. The downside of that of course is cost, unless you are from the EU your foreign carrier is likely to charge you a premium for roaming.
* IIRC there are also some local upstarts in some rural corners of the UK, but they are not relavent here.
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What is the best mobile coverage in London?
According to RootMetrics, EE is the provider of the best mobile coverage across the UK. Vodafone is the second-best option, while Three is third in Wales and England followed by O2, and vice versa for Northern Ireland and Scotland.Can I use my cell phone in London?
But the good news is that your phone is most likely going to work in the UK! In fact, if you've got a network unlocked iPhone it will work in the UK. And if you've got a network unlocked Smartphone (eg a Samsung, HTC, Android, Google etc) then it'll probably also work.Which network works best in London?
By some margin, EE offers the UK's widest and fastest 4G coverage. At the time of writing, its standard 4G network covered 99% of the UK population. In select locations, EE offers a faster 4G services but these are largely limited to cities and larger towns.How do I get phone service in London?
How to Use Your US Phone in London (or any phone really)HOW TO USE YOUR PHONE IN EUROPE: cheap phone plans and SIM cards for your trip to the UK and EU
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Answer 2
It is critical that you check which frequencies your cell phone operates on, as those in London are generally different to those in the US, in particular for our 4G service.
If you want to check the frequencies used on 2G, 3G and 4G in London see this link: http://www.broadbandlondon.com/jargon-buster/4g-3g-london-coverage/
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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