Dont get me wrong, for the first few months i was calling vodafone and complianing and basically just got fobbed off, or had reset instructions text through. They even said they would send an engineer out to the areas to do site tests, so i asked for a copy of the reports only to be told that they couldnt do that... Hmm...
I have been complaining a bit on the eforum and the closest mast was indeed out of action, and it must have been like it for a coule of years as they have now fixed it, and signal is marginly better, but not great by any means.
As for phones, at least 7 people i know of at work have iphones, most on orange and one or two on 3 or o2.
Two of my collegues have htc, one on vodafone who has problems, one on orange with no problems. So i dont think its a phone issue, just coverage.