giffgaff mobile network

parallax_20

If I could get a reliable 3G service from O2, I'll let you know. I only seems to get Edge at best. Speeds aren't the best in general, quite slow compared to Three or T-Mobile. Good thing I only use Opera Mini, otherwise I would be tearing my hair out. I do very little streaming so that's not a problem, I can live with Edge. But I'm still considering GiffGaff for other reasons other than the data. i.e. free 080 calls, etc.. As you could save massively going via something like 18185 for your calls abroad or even UK. I don't think you can get anywhere close to 1p per min to Landlines (connection is something like 5p the last time I looked), so thats still 1/8th of the cost of GiffGaff at 8p.

The only problem is, I'm not much of a talker so wouldnt' really benefit from the low cost calls. I'm more of a casual data user, and their PAYG rates aren't great and I don't really want to be shelling out £10 for a goodbag for included minutes I won't use, or for the 30day restriction where I may not utilise the internet on a daily basis. As you could get internet for £5 on T-Mobile, but their call rates are high.

The only other viable option for someone in a similar boat is O2 Text & Web PAYG tariff which seems to be a reasonable compromise as you still have your £10 credit for calls. Anyone know of any similar tariffs to this or GiffGaff that gives a good balance?

parallax_20

malky39 wrote: »

Is this fact where in the terms and conditions does it say this, if it is truly unlimited this is better than any networks tariffs

Have a look here. They do claim to be unlimited, but with O2 introducing their recent data caps and Tesco's also having a limit as they use O2's network. It will only be a matter of time before all Virtual Mobile Networks that utilise the O2 infrastructure will be restricted. I had this conversation with someone from O2 CS and I believed in some of the things he said. Like why would O2 limit their own customers whilst allowing virtual networks to provide an unlimited service? It doesn't make good business sense as all they will be doing is pushing their data hungry customers to places like GiffGaff, who offer better value, yet the net effect on their bandwidth won't change or compensated for. O2 will eventually put their foot down at some point. So enjoy it whilst it lasts is what I say. Obviously this probably means everyone on GiffGaff is going to start hammering the bandwidth now

ivinsp

latest update on unlimited date from Giffgaff blog

http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Blog/The-end-for-unlimited-data-bundles/bc-p/30803#M777

Yesterday, O2 announced that it would stop selling unlimited mobile internet bundles for its smartphone tariffs – it follows on from a similar announcement made by AT&T in the US last week.

Before I answer the obvious question of “will giffgaff follow suit” its worth reflecting on how these companies, and indeed the whole mobile industry, ended up causing such a stir with what, at the end of the day, was a fairly banal announcement.

Not so long ago browsing the web on a phone was a very niche activity – there were lots of reasons for this: - small screens on phones, lack of content on WAP sites, poor browsers etc.

But the biggest reason was that customers didn’t know how much it was going to cost them. Around £3 per MB was the rate back then but customers didn’t value mobile internet in MB. Typically they valued reading an email, viewing a picture and watching a Youtube clip about as much as each other – but the problem was that the data consumed differed a thousand fold between them so nasty bill shocks followed and customers became very wary of going online at all.

So along comes the iPhone and with it, a big problem. How to price for data for a massively data hungry device? The networks concluded, rightly, that unlimited data plans were the way forward.

The rest is history of course, the iPhone and latterly other smartphones have led to a revolution in mobile data usage – and out of nowhere a massive need for more data capacity was born - which the networks had to play catch-up in building.

AT&T and O2, being at the vanguard of this demand due to their exclusive iPhone deals have invested massively in their networks . They’ve also learnt more than anyone about how data is used by their customers and have found that on their networks there is a small number of customers who consume vast amount of data – the result is that whilst these customers get a great deal everyone else has to put up with a slower network and the uncomfortable fact that they are subsidising the “data hogs”.

So whilst it’s true that only a very small minority of customers will be affected by the removal of unlimited, for many others the doubt about how much data they have used and how much they’ll get charged will be re-introduced. Is this customer angst a price worth paying for O2 and others? If the flip side is a less congested network and more money to invest in it then maybe it is.

To be fair to O2, they have always been very clear and upfront about data bundles on the iPhone – unlimited has meant unlimited and now that a cap has been introduced they’ve clearly announced the fact. That’s more that can be said about other networks – looking at Orange’s web site this afternoon I can see them selling “unlimited*” mobile internet on their iPhone tariffs where “unlimited*” actually means up to 750MB, i.e. not unlimited at all. On T-mobile and Virgin “Unlimited*” is actually limited to 1GB per month.

We know just how frustrating being “economic with the truth” can be for customers – when we designed our goodybags our members told us time and time again that they wanted honesty and for us not to call something unlimited unless it truly was.
Its why, when we introduce data pricing ourselves, 50p will buy up to 30MB per day - not the “unlimited*” amount that other networks call their (often smaller) allowances.

So will we change the unlimited data allowance in our goodybags? The answer is we might, but not because O2 have just done so or because they are our ultimate owners. The announcement yesterday about ending unlimited iPhone data was a surprise to me and no one from O2 has called today to suggest that we should follow suit. And that’s exactly the way it should be because giffgaff was set up specifically to be able to act independently to O2.

Our members behaviour will be different from other networks so what we will do is look at the usage patterns and economics of what our members are doing and make a decision from there.

At the moment we don’t have any plans to change anything but at the same time we can never say never. All we can do is promise that if we do need to change anything then we’ll give our members plenty of notice, be fair and clear about the way we price our products and try to deliver the best value we can.

parallax_20

I read that sometime ago. I do believe they would attempt to keep it unlimited as long as possible. I don't know what agreements GiffGaff have in place with O2, but the fact that they have extended the Unlimited internet until the 1 October, sort of suggests something is going to change around that period when the caps come into force.

I also don't believe they would be able to override whatever O2 says to them if they want to keep running as a business, unless they take a hit elsewhere to cover the costs of providing the unlimited access somehow. i.e. tackle the small minority of heavy users that affects the network for everyone else. Who knows...we'll have to wait and see if there are any new announcements come October.

I do hope they keep it unlimited as I was considering moving to them at the end of the month.

geoffW

I don't bother with the goodybags, just use the free internet, 100 MB per day is allowed and I don't get anywhere near that.
Regards to 3G, I tend to only use 2G,it's fast enough if you use Mini opera as your browser.
I believe O2 are moving to 4G and that is the reason why giffgaff are keeping the free internet until Oct,while O2 upgrade.

frankie1star

I am trying to get my head around this payg service, I am currently on a contract (always have been) paying £23 pm for 500 xnet with 100 texts. Which about suits me, perhaps could do with a few more texts.

I have been studying the community on GG, (but I think its because I am not used to payg), it is right you can only call another gg for free, and any other mobile/landline is chargeable, thus reducing your balance?

Freephone Nos. are FREE, so could one use a low cost telephone calling service that cost 1p or less per minute?

redux

Calls to other giffgaff users are free if you've topped up in the past 3 months. Thus for groups of people who call each other quite a bit, such as families, it can be very worthwhile all moving to giffgaff

Other than that, you have the choice of just the rates as you go, or adding one of the monthly so-called goodybag bundles. Unfortunately there is something of a gap between the £15 and £35 options, just where you'd like one, though you may have seen people asking for another to be introduced

Access calls, I've noticed people mention only from time to time, but I don't know how much is actually going on, and there's no advantage for calls to mobiles anyway. I would imagine that the network might reserve the right to bar some, but I haven't heard anything.

zanityman

You can go the pure PAYG route, or the 'goodybag' route.

payg - put £10 on your phone to active the sim card, then it's 8pence per minute to any land line or mobile, 4p per text and free internet until the end of September. (after which, for a low user it'll be under 20p a day - but if you don't use internet at all, that's not an issue!)

goodybags - these are currently half price for July. The £10 goodybag (currently £5!) costs you £10, then for this £10 you get 100 minutes to any network, unlimited texts and unlimited internet use (which is TRULY unlimited.) For £15 (currently £7.50!) you get 300 minutes and unlimited internet and texts.

You can port your number in and out as you see fit, so there's no long term commitments. Also, just by chatting in their forum, asking questions etc you earn money you can get as payback (either as 'cash' to paypal or as credit.) By doing a small amount, I've earned in the region of £25 per month!

zanityman

Inactive wrote: »

Any links to substantiate that?

It says it on the bottom of their site

frankie1star

I am debating whether to buy an iphone outright, then stick it on giff gaff, or whether to hook myself up to 18 month contract,