Length of a PAYG top-up

applegrass

I'm thinking of getting a mobile phone for incoming calls only ie number of minutes, texts etc. is relatively immaterial.

Which mobile phone network offers a PAYG/SIM card with the longest period between top-ups? ie does (x) network let you keep a phone number for 30 days before you have to top-up again to retain your connection to the network?

Economising and all that

HappyMJ

Ovivo. Costs £10 for the SIM. You never need to top up if you never exceed the free monthly allowance. Just make a quick call every now and again to keep the line live. It's free.

Herongull

You certainly don't need to topup anything like once per month.

Most topups will last around a year (unless you buy a bundle - bundles typically only last 30 days).

If you haven't made any calls for a certain period - typically 3 months to 6 months, then the account will be suspended.

So for most PAYG networks, just make a call every 3 months and you should be fine (but check the fine print for whatever one you are thinking of getting).

Herongull

HappyMJ wrote: »

Ovivo. Costs £10 for the SIM. You never need to top up if you never exceed the free monthly allowance. Just make a quick call every now and again to keep the line live. It's free.

You will lose the £10 after a year if you've not used it up. Not sure whether or not you need to retain a positive balance due the the free monthly bundles, but worth checking the fine print.

You will need to make one free call every 3 months to stop the account being suspended.

applegrass

Ovivo looks interesting - do they spam your phone with text/voicemail adverts to fund it?

MikeWhite

Definitely not, in my experience.
Mike

HappyMJ

applegrass wrote: »

Ovivo looks interesting - do they spam your phone with text/voicemail adverts to fund it?

No they do spam your email account though so sign up with an alternative but used email account so the spam goes there instead. The Ovivo email comes no more than once a day and to me I just read the title and if it's interesting I'll open it such as the recent notification email that data allowances have been increased to 300MB per month.

grumbler

Herongull wrote: »

Most topups will last around a year (unless you buy a bundle - bundles typically only last 30 days).

In fact most topups last indefinitely if you make a chargeable call or send a text once every 180 days. At Orange incoming calls or texts suffice to keep the sim alive and the credit untouched.

Herongull

HappyMJ wrote: »

No they do spam your email account though so sign up with an alternative but used email account so the spam goes there instead. The Ovivo email comes no more than once a day and to me I just read the title and if it's interesting I'll open it such as the recent notification email that data allowances have been increased to 300MB per month.

The Ovivo emails are not a problem. You get 2 or 3 a week with "special offers", and the only other time they email you if there is a change to Ovivo.

If you don't like them, you can set up a email filter to automatically move out of your inbox to a folder or to the waste basket.

Much less frequent than emails from Amazon anyway....

Never had spam texts or calls, and their CEX said at the start that they wouldn't do that.

MS1950

applegrass wrote: »

I'm thinking of getting a mobile phone for incoming calls only ie number of minutes, texts etc. is relatively immaterial.

Which mobile phone network offers a PAYG/SIM card with the longest period between top-ups? ie does (x) network let you keep a phone number for 30 days before you have to top-up again to retain your connection to the network?

Economising and all that

Family Mobile (teamed up with IKEA) used to have credit that lasted indefinitely when I was with them - as well as cheap call prices:

http://www.yourfamilymobile.co.uk/

diamonds

Old 3 sims credit never expired nor were you disconnected, I never used mine for four/five years as was a globebox sim and topped up ONLY 4 months ago. It was on Wepay plan but they moved it to the next least oldest plan 3Pay no minimum top up or use remains CREDIT NEVER EXPIRES.

The other Flat12 sim is the same, handy for a bundle of 700 mins & unlimited texts for £25 add £5 for 2GB data and for £1 a day payg its a bargain.

3Pay http://support.three.co.uk/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBISAPI.DLL?Command=New,Kb=Mobile,Ts=Mobile,T=Article,varset_cat=payasyougo,varset_subcat=4124,Case=obj(4100)

Flat12 http://support.three.co.uk/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBISAPI.DLL?Command=New,Kb=Mobile,Ts=Mobile,T=Article,varset_cat=payasyougo,varset_subcat=4124,Case=obj(4099)