T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

I can see a VM customer SIM only deal that would suit me but the coverage map for T-Mobile which appears to be the default Virgin network is very patchy near my home which is where it would mostly be used. Orange looks to be better although I never trust any of the mobile coverage maps as I've found all of them to be optimistic.

My question is will the phone (plain old 2G one my wife mainly uses for texting) be likely to seamlessly switch over to Orange if the signal is poor rather than non-existent or would I do better digging deeper into my pocket and getting something O2/Vodafone based which both do work well here.

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

yep ... if there is no t-mobile signal available the phone should automatically switch to orange ..... you can see the difference on your phones screen as when on t-mobile signal it will show Virgin (capital V) whilst if on an orange signal it will show virgin (lowercase v)

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

It was the "non-existent" bit in the blurb that bothered me - there probably would be a T-Mobile signal but at Norman Collier quality level. For those too young or too cultured to know what I mean by that - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYpQyJ_bTiw

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

I think it's cleverer than that now i.e. it'll use the best quality signal available

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

It seamlessly switches between the 2 networks without a hiccup the only way you can tell if it has switched is by looking at the screen.

I never know which network my phone is on unless I look.;)

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

I can manually select Orange, while using a Virgin Sim, tieing it to Orange though, with no chance to select Virgin (the T-mobile side).
In auto, it will prefer Virgin (T-mob) when available, but how poor it has to be before it will step over to Orange, I'm not sure, so YMMV - if you force Orange as a manual network selection, then you will ONLY get Orange coverage, so it will not hunt back to Virgin

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

I can received both orange and T Mobile and it seamlessly switches to the strongest signal at the time.

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

Thank folks - I'll give it a spin - as it's only a 30 day contract the loss is negligible if it proves to be poor.

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

My wife is on that contract and it is good value.

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

I find this. I'm on Orange and there is a Orange 3G signal by me, although the T-Mobile 3G signal is stronger. I find around 99% of time I am using the T-Mobile signal.

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

Well it seems to be working just fine - I'm sure I'll be the first to hear if there are any hiccups...

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

I wish mine switched seamlessly.
I use a iPhone 4 and when it's on Orange I can't send any text. A real pain.

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

I now spend more time on the Orange(virgin) network as the signal seems to be stronger where I am. Even when I go in and manually select the T-Mobile(Virgin) network, it still switches over to virgin from Virgin.

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

My wife opted out of her contract a few years ago & it cost half of the contract that was left which was £60'ish IIRC but the savings on the new contract outweighed the buyout by another £20. This was with Voda in 07.

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

The signal is crap! even with the addition of Orange, Virgin mobile signal for me is total rubbish, i'll be switching to o2 as soon as the new iphone is available.

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

Don't know your location but if you were on Campus at Kent Uni you would find the complete opposite O2 is total rubbish as you put it. I'm on T-Mobile / Orange and it works for me in my area and Kent Uni, Im on a sim only deal @ £10.50 per month that gives me 300 min to any mobile 300 text and 1Gb of data which includes tethering plus the free bolt-on of unlimited Landline calls which is a good deal. Regarding the switching when on Orange 3G its not as fast as the T-mobile network. I'm always looking for the beter deal but there is always a spanner in the works ie on the 3 network the Natwest App does not work, they may of fixed it now....

G4 Mobile
 

Orange and T-mobile has been given the go-ahead to launch superfast 4G mobile access. Will this mean Virgin mobile will get it aswell? Can't wait just need a G4 Mobile

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

Sorry to bump this old thread. Does anyone know if this has been fixed or anyone else has had the same problem?

Mine has been doing it the last few weeks - texts go fine on Virgin, fail when on Orange.

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

Surely it would always say Virgin now as T-Mobile & Orange have fully merged so Virgin is just like every other MVNO.

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

They haven't full merged though, the mast networks are still technically separate as far as I know.

All that's changed is EE now have put 'EE' across the network for their own customers so no-one sees any difference.

Virgin customers still see the big / little 'v'

Re: T-Mobile / Orange switching
 

Each network still broadcasts its own network code - 234-30 for T-Mobile and 234-33 for Orange. Indeed, the new 4G EE network uses T-Mobile's 234-30 code.

Phones come shipped with a lookup table that maps these codes to network names. The phone can also read this data from the SIM card, thus overriding (but not updating) it's internal data. EE have updated their SIM cards to map both 234-30 and 234-33 to the name "EE", Virgin Mobile have been mapping 234-30 to "Virgin" for a decade, and may now include 234-33 as well, though whether existing customers see that depend on whether their SIM cards are remotely reprogrammable.