topic Re: Connecting to Vodafone in Network

Connecting to Vodafone

daveabes — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 16:38:46 GMT

I was recently in a town which had poor coverage and connectivity on my 3 phone. My wife is on Vodafone and had a much better signal. I went into my phones settings to see why my signal was so bad. What I found was that for the Vodafone frequencies it said 'network forbidden' under each band...

I thought that as a 3 customer I would be getting automatic access to the Vodafone network where 3 was poor or non-existent... So why forbidden? Do I need a new sim card? My phone is unlocked..

Re: Connecting to Vodafone

MichaelP — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 10:46:14 GMT

Hi there @daveabes,

Welcome to the Three Community, and I'm sorry to hear you were experiencing a drop in coverage.

The enabling of using both networks is still being rolled out across the UK, with this work ongoing.

The merger and automatic connection takes place without you needing to manually change anything.

Your provider will also appear as the same, so no further action is required to benefit from this. It may be that this wasn't available in that particular town at this time, but we appreciate patience as this is a work in progress.

Thanks,
Michael

Re: Connecting to Vodafone

Clever-Trevor — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 17:13:31 GMT

Also,

no SA on Three despite merger. On VF will use SA……

Re: Connecting to Vodafone

AJ147 — Sat, 18 Oct 2025 18:55:35 GMT

I tried the exact same thing in the Blackpool lancs area and got the same result, I dont trust 3 anymore, been with them over 20 years and recently tested an EE sim, bit more expensive but 1000% better than 3

Re: Connecting to Vodafone

Intrakota — Sun, 18 Jan 2026 18:02:55 GMT

I joined them on 05/11/2003, I only stay with them because of the cheap price but I wouldn’t recommend trust or promote them, they live with there heads in the sand. Why don’t you move I hear you say, well the simple answer is that all UK networks are as bad as each other.

I recently went to the ombudsman with multiple issues, got some compensation and the usual line of how wonderful we are, you’ve heard it all before. I’ll pay whatever to get 4/5G from the likes of Starlink, Amazon and AST Space Mobile which already has antiquated land based systems worried as demand for D2D and D2C satellite capable handsets booms according to the GSMCA. Your complacency will be your downfall.