Well lets save a phone call and share my observations with everyone here.
Our first toe dip into the GSM pond wasn’t a particularly good experience. The networks back then were unreliable, prices were sky high and the amount of data available was very restricted and so for several years our recommendations were to steer clear of this technology and stick to conventional data. These days though it’s a whole different picture, with stable networks offering 100 times more data for a tenth of the cost and with equipment you can buy off the shelf from Asda one off for £32.
But back on the reliability issue though, personally I don’t think that any single network it’s quite as reliable as conventional data but on the other side of the coin, the additional benefits offered tend to balance things out. The key to the problem is having good backup plans in place to deal with the unexpected and this includes procedures as well as equipment.
Regarding which is the best network, well in my opinion that’s something that you just need to find out for yourself. We’ve had customers experiencing difficulties on say O2 and moving to Vodafone, while in other areas it’s exactly the opposite. So, it’s important when taking on a contract that you make it very clear that if the network proves to be unsuitable for your business then you have the option to move to another and not be contractually bound to that one network. Also take the network providers coverage maps with a huge pinch of salt because they only tell you where you should be able to get a good signal but they don’t show the capacity and this can be just as important.
Each provider (except 3) has two networks, 2G and 3G and most modern devices use both. The 2G network is the original mobile phone network and this gives the widest coverage and some would argue is the most reliable. The data rate is slower than on 3G but that’s academic as the amount of data being transferred is tiny (typical taxi use per month is about 12 megabytes). 3G is faster when say big map downloads are needed but it can give patchy coverage away from main towns. Both 2 and 3G networks should be independent but it is possible on rare occasions to loose both.
In short and to summarise, this is the future for communications technology in the taxi trade and you don’t really have any other choices if you want to keep up with the others.
Hope this helps and sorry if it’s a bit long winded.
Bill
PS Christmas and New Year is an old wife's tale. I've never seen any company suffer problems.
