Spat erupts over whose network is best for iPhone

Rating: Vodafone’s, Orange’s or 3’s? Probably not O2’s

Despite sterling efforts to obtain the actual evidence, GoMo News learns that Vodafone UK intends to pump up its own iPhone offering by claiming that its network is better. That depends where you are, of course. If you’re waiting for a plane at London Heathrow airport this might be true.
The claim is taken from a mail-shot which Vodafone carried out recently for those who had bothered to express an interest here in purchasing the iPhone from Vodafone in the UK. Only Pocket-lint appears to have the actual message here.

It says that Vodafone’s engineers have been out and about across the UK testing the iPhone on their network and for watching a ten minute YouTube video, Vodafone says,  it downloads the fastest.

Such a claim is going to be very hard to prove but very easy to dispute. For starters, it depends on how you understand the phrase “across the UK”, for example. In certain high profile locations – such as airports like Heathrow - Vodafone has installed the latest 3G infrastructure.

Plus, Vodafone could well have a high speed link to YouTube from its own network which would make that connection faster than its rivals. So the claim would be true but might not apply to all video downloading.

There’s already a big public spat between 3 UK and Orange UK over who has the better 3G network. Orange says that its claim, “Is based on 3’s latest figures showing that it covered 91 per cent of the population, compared with the 93.4 per cent of Orange.”

Fair enough, you might think but 3 has retaliated that,  “If it [3 UK] applied a different measure used elsewhere in the industry to calculate coverage, it would be able to claim to cover 95 per cent of the population without reaching a single extra customer.”

Personally, GoMo News thinks that the fact that Orange has only circa 7,500 3G masts compared to 3’s 9,192 is a bit of a clue. Some of those masts could be badly located but surely not around 1,500 of them?

The implication is clever, however. The one area where O2 is weak is in 3G coverage. Look on the bright side. O2 says it will legally unlock existing iPhone but you’re still stuck with the contract period. of course.