Tesco £10 Monthly SIM and Iphones

jimafblack

My wife has an unlocked Iphone 3G with the £10 monthly SIM card that includes minutes, texts and unlimited Internet (ok we all know what that means).

She has had intermittent 3G connectivity and so she decided to go into the local tescos.

The person in the phone shop said she needed a sim card that was specific for the Iphone. This is wrong as the phone was previously used with a PAYG 02 sim with no problems and tesco mobile uses teh O2 network.

He then said that if she was receiving emails then the phone must be "searching" for data all the time and that she would be charged for this. Wrong again.

I know that when I installed the 02 SIM I had to make a few changes to the settings on the Iphone and wondered if I had to do the same with the Tesco SIM? I've scoured various message boards but no luck so far but knowing that there's a lot of smart people on moneysavingexpert I thought I'd post this.

I'm a bit annoyed because when we bought the SIM card we specifically asked if it would worked with an unlocked Iphone and was told that it would.

regards

Jim

cactusdust

Well the guy in the shop was speaking utter rubbish.

It might be that you have to insert manual internet details.. although, does the internet actually work on it at all?

jimafblack

The Phone connects via WiFi, and I when I have checked for coverage I've seen the E and 3G symbols so there is at least a mobuile data network connection. I reckon I need to change the APN settings in the network config which is what I had to do when I moved the phone from a T-Mobile contract SIM to the O2 PAYG SIM. Just can't find out the specific settings (though you would assume that if it's the O2 network then the settings woudl be the same).

Technology!

Jim

Chorlie

Try:

APN address : prepay.tesco-mobile.com
Username : tescowap
Password: password


I have been told that sometimes the Internet on Tesco is slower than O2, not sure if that's true.

sexyboy

http://www.selflearning.co.uk/tesco/iphone/

jimafblack

Thanks Chorley and Sexyboy! Took about 30 seconds to change the settings and would you believe it the Iphone now connects correctly. Isn't that a surprise!

Here's another few of the porkies the Tesco "mobile expert" told my wife:

"Well you see every mobile phone has a different SIM card - a Blackberry SIM is different from an Iphone SIM or a Nokia SIM. So you have the wrong SIM for an Iphone....."

"We are bringing out a SIM card that's designed to work with the Iphone next month."

Best of all, when I checked the settings for email, he had changed the email to check for email manually but had left push email switched on. Manuall conenction is only used when the email service doesn't support push. The default for most email services is push so if his nonsense about my wife's phone searching for data (whatever that means) and running up large bills (on an unlimited fair use tarrif) had been true, his expertise in configuring the phone would have made no difference.

The moral of the story - the experts on Martin's Money Tips know more about mobile phones that the "experts" in Tescos.

Wonder how many other customers have been told nonsense about Iphones etc. Would be nothing to do with wanting to sell rip-off Iphone contracts or am I jsut being cynical!

Regards

Jim