As bunder tells, make sure the 3G is turned off. There should be a place on the phone to chose JUST GSM (old mobile network, probally the best netcover/area compared to 3G) network, if it stands on dual mode or 3G or some other fancy stuff, it will drain battery. Most new phones also "prefer" to use crappy 3G net instead of full signal GSM.
Also, if your between a 3G net transmitter and a GSM transmitter / radiosingal tower (what is the name?) , you can experience some big problems with the net. It will jump back and forth from GSM-3G-GSM etc etc, this makes your connection much unstable and people that might call you will get errors / out of reach messages when calling. Not to mention the battery drain.
On my phone I used to have crappy net, turned off 3G and all the places I have been the latest weeks there have been close to or full net, aswell that my battery can last for almost a week compared to two days as it were before