Virgin Mobile

Jessiepig

Hi I do not know anyone on Vrigin or T- mobile so trying a sim is a trifle difficult.
The deal is sony ericsson K750i 200 incl mins 300 texts 10 mth free the £30 12 mth contract. Works out at £6.00 a mth after cash back.

laurajayne

The only advantage o2 and vodafone have over t-mobile and orange is their signals.

O2 + Vod use the GSM 900 mHz frequency

T-mobile + Ora use the GSM 1800 mHz frequency.

900 carries better and twice as far as 1800, because of the wavelengths. This means T mob and orange need twice as many masts to do the same thing - and the signal still won't be quite as robust as 900 signals are.

Saying that...it's all much of a muchness now

So, now I've confused everyone...my work here is done :rotfl:

gaming_guy

virgin and easymobile use t-mobile
they basically buy airtime/minutes/messages etc off of tmobile

BexTech

The plus side is that T-Mobile is able to carry more calls, closely followed by Orange. Also the audio on T-Mobile/Virgin, Orange and the virtuals using 1800MHz is of higher quality, though you have to remember when calling an O2 or Vodafone mobile the audio quality will drop to the lower O2 / Vodafone quality.

rwgibson98

Edinburghlass wrote:

......try a PAYG sim in whatever network before you commit to a contract...

If you want to try the Virgin (or T-Mobile) network before committing, why not try a Free T-Mobile PAYG Sim Card from the T-Mobile website?

laurajayne wrote:

...... 900 carries better and twice as far as 1800, because of the wavelengths. This means T mob and orange need twice as many masts to do the same thing - and the signal still won't be quite as robust as 900 signals are....

That's not true: don't confuse the frequency of the radio wave with its amplitude (or power). 1800MHz waves are regarded by some as superior to 900MHz because there's less interference from other sources (even ones that aren't supposed to interfere with that part of the radio spectrum).

Parchester

I've been with Virgin for years. I find them easily the cheapest for PAYG use - in fact until recently that's all they did (no contracts), even though you can pay for it via monthly DD. The phones are reasonably priced, you can pick up SIM cards at most Virgin record shops, and if you order online the phone comes by courier the next day.

Customer service is friendly and good. BUT - the question is - how long will that last now they are being taken over by NTL of all people?!

My only problem with them is that they use the T-Mobile network and coverage in parts of Berks (including my house) is lousy. I would switch to the best network around here, Vodaphone, if they offered anything that gets close to the average £10 per month I'm paying now, but alas...

skybluesaver

You also have to bear in mind that Networks handsets that use the 900mhz wavelength (O2 & Vodafone) emit twice as much radiation as they emit double the wattage of the 1800 Mhz (Orange, TMobile) handsets. I had this confirmed by my friend who works for Marconi when i noticed my O2 handset caused far more interference with surrounding objects (TV, radio) than my Orange handset. I've also found that Orange has excellent coverage.

rwgibson98

skybluesaver wrote:

....You also have to bear in mind that Networks handsets that use the 900mhz wavelength (O2 & Vodafone) emit twice as much radiation as they emit double the wattage of the 1800 Mhz (Orange, TMobile) handsets....

That's not true, for the same reason as I posted earlier. If it were, no-one would use O2 or Vodafone. (Although if laurajayne's theory about numbers of transmitters were true, their calls would only be half the cost of T-Mobile's and Orange's, since the cost of the 1800MHz infrastructure would be twice that of the 900MHz systems.)

That's not to say that you didn't have two handsets, one of which had twice the SAR rating of another; just that any difference was independent of the frequency of the communication. To take this to its logical conclusion, you're suggesting that a dual-band handset could have a safe SAR value when on 1800MHz, but an "unsafe" (i.e. the wrong side of the threshold) one when on 900MHz? Have you heard of any handset being banned from operating on 900MHz for this reason? Me neither.

Stompa

Jessiepig wrote:

The deal is sony ericsson K750i 200 incl mins 300 texts 10 mth free the £30 12 mth contract. Works out at £6.00 a mth after cash back.

By my reckoning that's a total cost of £60, so £5 per month. However, I ordered one of these myself last week and used QuidCo to get a further £30 off, so that gets it down to £2.50 per month.

paulow

Isn't Virgin Mobile going to be absorbed within NTL/Telewest as part of their "three play" idea? (and then the whole thing is being rebranded Virgin) not sure when this happens, but it may affect the network that is used.