Vodafone historically have always had the best coverage and site equipment. They were always ahead of the others.
O2 have gone downhill, now owned by telefonica from spain VF were known to to be good but not cheap, the only british network in the uk T-mobile and O-range have merged and will be launching as "everything anywhere" soon, so they should have good coverage because of the combined networks three are still growing
I believe under the terms of the operators licences, every network should automatically roam to an other network if there's no signal, but we know that doesn't happen. Cross charges. When it all gets scrapped the orange installations will be the most valuable. All engineered by a man who never left the office to see what he's designed. The O2 stuff is fuddy-duddy ex BT engineered "we know best" stylee. Vodafones gear was always 1/10th the size and worked just as well. Their engineers were always young graduates, mainly women, and everything was always straightforward. I never worked directly for them, but they were the company to join and "get on".
I was with O2 for ages but their customer service gradually went down the pan so I left, with the added bonus that T Mobile has much better reception in this area. O2 used to be great to deal with, but no more. What is it with the Spanish - Santander has the same kind of reputation as well.
