Pay as You go sim/rates

HOLsale

i've just cancelled my bt mobile contract as since our 12 month agreement ended our phone bills have gone up by about £15 a month for very low useage (about 150 minutes/month) :eek:

i'm going to give dh my phone that's still on contract and i'll take his (the bt phone) and put a pay as you go sim in it

the question is, which one is cheapest?

i don't make a lot of calls anymore, less than 100 minutes per month, probably closer to 50

i rarely ever text, i find it annoying to be honest if i do 2 a month it's amazing

tesco has a sim that costs £3.49 then you pay 5p/text and 15p/min to other phones and landline phones that seems fairly reasonable to me their service is provided by 02

as far as i can tell there is no minimum top up either which is good because i suspect i won't be using enough to make that worth my while

soooo does anyone do this cheaper?

i'd liked the idea of orange wednesdays but upon looking at the free sim i have it's all free calls to other orange customers (i really only call dh and he's on tmobile) and free 1000 texts/month if i top up with £10 a month...uh, no thankyou!

so any ideas?

trinnylilac

I use O2 as if you top up by £10 each month you get 100 free anytime cross network minutes. It is called the Talkalot package . I find that is more than plenty for me for the whole month. You also get by 10% back of what you have topped up every 3 months. I have been on loads of PAYG and this one works out the cheapest for me.
By the way you don't have to top up with the £10 each month but you will only get the free calls for the months that you do.

crossleydd42

Tesco do two PAYG tariffs, one is Tesco value,which I think you've noticed, but you can't use it abroad. They do another tariff, 20p for calls and 10p for texts (but 10p and 5p respectively, for three favourites, which can be changed) which you CAN use abroad. If you top-up in-store, you get double points (once instore and once through the phone being registered at opening).Tesco use o2's network, so cover is very good. Also, if you have an 02 phone now, you shouldn't need to unlock it.

Fresh (Carphone Warehouse) are similar with charges, but don't do points and I'm not sure about coverage. You can have roaming for £100 deposit.

Easymobile are similar, but penalise you for low usage.

Tesco looks best.

HOLsale

i just cancelled my contract with bt, do they automatically unlock my phone or do i have to get that done somehow

crossleydd42

If you go to another provider, the chances are that you'll have to get it unlocked, but if it's a Nokia, there are websites which offer to do it free or you may well be able to do it yourself. Other makes usually need a cable and it's best to go to your loacl open market mobile stall and get it done for £10.
However, as I said in my earlier post, if you use Tesco, the simcard will probably work, as they piggyback off the o2 network. Mine did.

NellieA

I switched from 02 to Tesco and didn't need my Nokia unlocking. Kept my original 02 number although you have to get a code from 02 which is free to do this. Got the sim with 3 favourites. I text about once or twice a day (to favourites) and maybe a couple of minutes calling most days (mainly favourites) and I top up with a tenner every 8-9 weeks.

HOLsale

it's a Sony Erricsson T610 and it was previously BT piggybacking on Tmobile

i think i'll go for the Tesco sim then, would rather pay £3.49 for a sim and save money in the long run than use a free sim that doesn't meet my needs and still charges me for the privelege

i'll just pop the sim in first to see if that works, if not there's a shop within walking distance that does it for £5 everything i've found so far suggest that sony erricsson's need a cable to unlock

thanks for your help :xmassmile