Following the 3G switch off, my wife and I were getting very different performance (travelling around Berks and Dorset) even though we are the on the same Lebara contract. (Lebara is an MVNO for Vodafone.) On her iPhone 8, she almost always got 4G connections where I mainly got an unusable 2G.
Calls to Lebara said there was a problem in my area. I then tried her SIM in my phone (a 4-month old Samsung A14) and mainly got 2G. It's the phone!
After extensive Googling, I found an app "Force LTE Only (4G/5G)" that allows me to change the "Network mode" setting to "LTE only". I now find connections more intermittent than 2G. However, overall performance is much much better.
PS The app developer states "Some phone brands block opportunity to force switch network." Also no Apple app exists since Apple do not allow access to network settings.
