What Monthly Rolling Contract Sim Only Deal ?

[Ill_handle_it]

I've been on a rolling monthly contract with Virgin for the last few years. However,Virgin are 3g only,no plans to move to 4g anytime soon. So I'm looking to change. I have a spare mobile running Giffgaf but I can't be bothered with topping up and there's better deals on USwitch,at least on the face of it.

One such deal on USwitch is provided by iD mobile.

https://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/sim_only_deal/72841d4f1c6bc23764337279fa3debf62c370b80/?page=%2Fmobiles%2Fcompare%2Fsim_only_deals%2F&position=0

Anyone used these ? Not really looking for a nightmare with service or call centre morons. Thanks in advance.

[justthisbloke]

I've been on a rolling month contract with 3 for donkey's years. Seems fine.

PAYG would probably be cheaper - but like you I found topping up to be administratively burdensome. And I've avoided long term contracts as I dislike long term financial commitments.

[SpectrumFX]

I almost signed up with iD Mobile a few weeks back.

I'd been happily on three for years, until they sent me a letter saying that they were ending my tariff in order to "offer better value to customers" and would be putting me on a new tariff costing twice as much.

The deal with ID was essentially better than I'd had before (more data at a lower price) still with three, but with the carphone warehouse taking a cut.

I was surprised when I started the sign up process to find that they wanted to do a credit check. Now I think that's totally disproportionate for a rolling monthly contract with a value of £5, but I gritted my teeth and carried on filling in the online form. 5 minutes later I gave up on the basis that they were asking for SO MUCH personal information that they didn't need, and the only benefit I could see to them of having much of this data was the ability to sell it on.

I went with TPO in the end. 4G on the EE network £6.99 a month (with 10% of that going to a charity I nominated) for 500 minutes, unlimited texts and 2 GB of data. The downside is that they have almost no customer service, so setting up the data connection took about 3 hours of faffing.

In my experience the customer service of all telecoms providers is so poor that I've developed such a low expectation that I've just come to expect this sort of thing.

[longtomsilver]

I almost signed up with iD Mobile a few weeks back.

I'd been happily on three for years, until they sent me a letter saying that they were ending my tariff in order to "offer better value to customers" and would be putting me on a new tariff costing twice as much.

The deal with ID was essentially better than I'd had before (more data at a lower price) still with three, but with the carphone warehouse taking a cut.

I was surprised when I started the sign up process to find that they wanted to do a credit check. Now I think that's totally disproportionate for a rolling monthly contract with a value of £5, but I gritted my teeth and carried on filling in the online form. 5 minutes later I gave up on the basis that they were asking for SO MUCH personal information that they didn't need, and the only benefit I could see to them of having much of this data was the ability to sell it on.

I went with TPO in the end. 4G on the EE network £6.99 a month (with 10% of that going to a charity I nominated) for 500 minutes, unlimited texts and 2 GB of data. The downside is that they have almost no customer service, so setting up the data connection took about 3 hours of faffing.

In my experience the customer service of all telecoms providers is so poor that I've developed such a low expectation that I've just come to expect this sort of thing.

Same letter from 3 came to me - doubling the cost of my rolling monthly contract so I phoned them to terminate my account and they matched my old deal (but better as I couldn't use my allowance overseas before). The cost went up from what I was previously paying though by 20p

[SarahBell]

Giffgaff and get everyone you know on to giffgaff.

[19 year mortgage 8itch]

Giffgaff and get everyone you know on to giffgaff.

Because it's a pseudo-MLM scheme and the only way it's worth it nowadays is to go balls deep on being an affiliate?

What's your affiliate link Sarah?

(Don't post it, the mods will remove it )

[sPinwheel]

+1 giffgaff.

[spunko2010]

I can only get EE where I live, in a bit of a black spot. I miss Three and their unlimited data. I've just changed to the 4G EE £10 a month with unlimited texts (which I never use, prefer Whatsapp etc). Seems SIM only deals aren't what they used to be. All I wanted was an unlimited data plan with like 100 texts and 100 minutes but nobody seems to offer them.

[StainlessSteelCat]

Also giffgaff - if you have good O2 reception as giffgaff's network sits on top of it. We even get sporadic 4G in parts in North Wales - although no signal at all is just as likely.

They do auto top ups if you want so you get your minutes/data etc every month - but can cancel/swap tariffs anytime.

[knock out johnny]

I can only get EE where I live, in a bit of a black spot. I miss Three and their unlimited data. I've just changed to the 4G EE £10 a month with unlimited texts (which I never use, prefer Whatsapp etc). Seems SIM only deals aren't what they used to be. All I wanted was an unlimited data plan with like 100 texts and 100 minutes but nobody seems to offer them.

Threes unlimited data 4g plan is very good, but it was £15 per month on payg at the beginning of the year and it's since been bumped up twice to £25 per month. Its still the only unlimited data plan I know of and the 4g is awesome, but that's one he'll of a price hike

[long time lurking]

Tesco they use o2 ? monthly basic contract 250min/5000 texts capped £7. 50 pcm then top up al la PAYG for extra data

or they do 500mins/5000 texts 500mb data for £10 pcm

[Ill_handle_it]

Thanks for the advice,the talkmobile £7.50 12 month contract seems hard to beat,which includes 2gb of data. Via uSwitch you also get a £30 voucher offer for Amazon (or some others).

https://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/sim_only_deal/f94b9af123fec98ab53a420161fbd8d7b9faf2f4?page=%2Fmobiles%2Fcompare%2Fsim_only_deals%2F&position=5&sorted_by=bestseller

[SpectrumFX]

Same letter from 3 came to me - doubling the cost of my rolling monthly contract so I phoned them to terminate my account and they matched my old deal (but better as I couldn't use my allowance overseas before). The cost went up from what I was previously paying though by 20p

They offered my a better deal on termination, but they wouldn't match the 2 GB data at a similar price to what I could get elsewhere.

[Saving For a Space Ship]

I almost signed up with iD Mobile a few weeks back.

I'd been happily on three for years, until they sent me a letter saying that they were ending my tariff in order to "offer better value to customers" and would be putting me on a new tariff costing twice as much.

The deal with ID was essentially better than I'd had before (more data at a lower price) still with three, but with the carphone warehouse taking a cut.

I was surprised when I started the sign up process to find that they wanted to do a credit check. Now I think that's totally disproportionate for a rolling monthly contract with a value of £5, but I gritted my teeth and carried on filling in the online form. 5 minutes later I gave up on the basis that they were asking for SO MUCH personal information that they didn't need, and the only benefit I could see to them of having much of this data was the ability to sell it on.

I went with TPO in the end. 4G on the EE network £6.99 a month (with 10% of that going to a charity I nominated) for 500 minutes, unlimited texts and 2 GB of data. The downside is that they have almost no customer service, so setting up the data connection took about 3 hours of faffing.

In my experience the customer service of all telecoms providers is so poor that I've developed such a low expectation that I've just come to expect this sort of thing.

Hows it going with TPO ? I read some bad reviews when considering them

[John51]

Because it's a pseudo-MLM scheme and the only way it's worth it nowadays is to go balls deep on being an affiliate?

What's your affiliate link Sarah?

(Don't post it, the mods will remove it )

The affiliate scheme seems to help regular users of giffgaff by keeping the costs down. I have a rolling contract of £5 per month. Gives me 100 minutes plus a minute for every minute of non giffgaff calls I receive. As well as the rolling contract, I put in £10 just in case I ever ran out of minutes. That was 4 years ago and I've got about £3.50 of it left.

With them not having a call canter, basic queries/problems are dealt with via their forum. Very fast replies. Lots of youngsters doing their best to answer you asap so that they can get some free minutes or a bit of cash. Replies tend to come quicker than it takes a call center to answer the phone.

[SpectrumFX]

Hows it going with TPO ? I read some bad reviews when considering them

They're just an admin front reselling EE's network. Everything is working fine as far as the network is concerned.

The issue with them is underfunded customer support. I've only had to ring them to port the number but it took a few attempts to get through. If something does go wrong and I need proper support I'll just bail (it's a rolling monthly contract).

The one thing that may put you off is that I can't make calls from abroad. To do so would require some arduous faff involving deposits and ID. It gets easier once you've been with them for a few months, but is still some sort of faffathon. That wasn't an issue for me as I've got a young family and no plans to go abroad for a couple of years, but if I was planning to travel abroad it would have put me right off.

[Rave]

I was put off signing up to TPO as apparently they plan to migrate from EE to 3 at some point this year, and obviously 3's 4g network ain't as widespread or as fast. But it may still be perfectly acceptable. In true HPC tightwad style I continue to pay £2.50 a month for 1g of internet on PAYG EE 3g and I just use whatsapp and occasionally email.

[SpectrumFX]

I was put off signing up to TPO as apparently they plan to migrate from EE to 3 at some point this year, and obviously 3's 4g network ain't as widespread or as fast. But it may still be perfectly acceptable. In true HPC tightwad style I continue to pay £2.50 a month for 1g of internet on PAYG EE 3g and I just use whatsapp and occasionally email.

I was on three previously and had no problems, so that wasn't an issue for me, but now that I'm on the EE network it does feel faster

[Guest eight]

I was put off signing up to TPO as apparently they plan to migrate from EE to 3 at some point this year, and obviously 3's 4g network ain't as widespread or as fast. But it may still be perfectly acceptable. In true HPC tightwad style I continue to pay £2.50 a month for 1g of internet on PAYG EE 3g and I just use whatsapp and occasionally email.

Just out of interest what are people doing that makes 4G a consideration?

[spacedin]

I found with Virgin that once I'd taken out a rolling monthly contract with them they immediately offered me a discount if if I signed up for 12 months instead. If you're worried about the commitment, it's best in my opinion if possible to put 12 months line rental into a savings account and just take the hit if you need to cancel. The discount they offered me was worth about one and a half months line rental so seemed worth it and was obviously therefore more like a ten and a half month contract rather than a twelve.

[Rave]

Just out of interest what are people doing that makes 4G a consideration?

That was sort of my thinking- if I had super fast mobile data I'd just be tempted to burn through it more quickly, as it is I tend to hit the 1gb limit with a few days of the month left to run, at which point they stop me streaming over the network (but browsing etc. still works). However there are applications where speed is of the essence, apparently there's good money to be made sitting in bookies and making arbitrage bets when they put out price boosts, but you need to get to the correct market on betfair double quick to lay them off before the price drifts...

[StainlessSteelCat]

Just out of interest what are people doing that makes 4G a consideration?

Faster is always better, isn't it? Even surreptitiously checking a map on your phone in a new (perhaps dodgy) area is better on 4G. Plus I do a lot of tethering on the train - and often the connection only really works in the station/selected bits of the rail network. If I can pull down everything I need in a couple of minutes (emails/docs/browser windows) rather than 10 mins that a decent win in terms of productivity for the dead parts of the network.

I do agree with Rave though - I always seem to finish the month short now by a couple of days since I've had a 4G compatible phone. Recently moved from the £10/month 1GB data tariff to the £12/month 2GB data tariff on giffgaff. I've turned off auto renewal though as I tend to only use it to call my parents once a week and for when I'm out and about so I will now only renew when I need to.

[bendy]

Really depends where and how you use your phone.

With 3 myself on PAYG just top-up 5er at a time to get the 120meg internet and it's only 1p per meg anyway. Ofc if I was downloading like I do at home this wouldn't be practical as it'd cost £80-£150 on average for 1 1080p movie. General browsing, a few calls and texts and it's fine for me though.

All circumstance.