Which provider for new contract ?

trigger2

Hi

My son is getting a new contract mobile phone for his birthday to replace his old pay monthly one. My husband, daughter and myself are all with orange but given their lack of service and various other issues regarding broadband we will be moving providers come the end of our contracts. So in short, we really don't want to tie my son into anything to do with orange.
He has an idea which phone he wants and we plan to go and see what bargains there are. However looking at reviews on the internet for carphone warehouse, phones 4 you, O2, vodafone etc, they all seem to be absolutely slated with regards to customer service and any back up service. I do appreciate that you often only see bad reviews about places and don't hear all the good ones.
I would welcome opinions on who people have found to give good service and seem trustworthy for want of a better word.

Thanks in anticipation

trigger

Guys_Dad

1. Reception differs for everybody, do where one network is great for some people, it is useless for others.

2. You need to consider the nature of a monthly contract. Who is going to be the contract holder - you or your son? If he runs up large bills, say through roaming by mistake, who pays? Or if it gets stolen and thief runs up £500 or more in calls? Read the forum - it happens.

3. It is always a bad idea to take responsibility for phone bills for others unless you can cap the bill and any overspend is down to the user. Obviously PAYG can deal with that, but Tesco gives capped contracts and possibly T-Mobile. Other members may be able to add other capped networks.

4. Buy the phone outright, put an Ovivo sim in it and your son will get 150 minutes, 250 texts and 500mb data per month free for ever and can top up for additional minutes.

VodafoneInsider

Put it this way, most people where I work are EE, O2 or maybe Virgin. Theres a few on Vodafone and they're only there for the staff discount. We're terrible and we know it. Three ive heard has also improved in recent years, although I don't know what there customrt service is like

Cycrow

if you have an unlocked phone, it might be worth picking up payg sims for each networks and trying them out to see which gives you the best signals.

bruno00

try giffgaff. for 7.50 you can get 250 min, unlimited txt & 250mb data + free to giffgaff

dealer_wins

bruno00 wrote: »

try giffgaff. for 7.50 you can get 250 min, unlimited txt & 250mb data + free to giffgaff

If the OP is going to slum it, your offer is nowhere near as good as Ovivo!

bruno00

free is always free. But Giffgaff gives you an opportunity to invite friends and for each friend you can get 5 pounds cashback (max 30 people per month means that you can get back up to 150 pounds per month). Not bad I have to say.

albionrovers

If you do go for Tesco, and I'm very happy with their service for my family of 4, remember to link all the accounts as and when each of you join up, rather than keep them separate. This entitles you to Family Perks, we all get 150 extra free minutes/month to any network. Think you can choose more than 150 Tesco minutes or extra data instead plus you can change your Perk from month to month.

Edit: I'm in Glasgow and coverage has always been good for 02, which is the network supplier for Tesco.

harrythebee

As someone else said, your signal will depend on your location. One network could have amazing signal in one place and awful signal in another. I used to be on Orange and never really had a problem with signal where I am. I am on O2 now and find the signal to be much better though, seems to be better coverage in more places. I have not had any problems with my contract so I don't know what their customer service is like. You could also try a smaller network like giff gaff which might offer much better value for money. plus consider that you might live in a place that has bad signal regardless of which network you are on.

pickoftheday

I would first test the network where you are with a PAYG sim and then ask what is required from the contract.

As far as customer service goes, all networks are perfectly capable of providing terrible customer service, it just happens to us all.

You might find this link useful:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4512417

DamePeggy

I know you said contract, but definitely do some sums on the cost of buying an unlocked phone – much more flexible that way.

Also I’ve had two phones from Dialaphone as they had good-looking cashback (via topcashback), but be careful and only treat this as a bonus as they only paid half the cashback on one of the contracts.

I’ve been having loads of trouble with Orange too – and would definitely avoid them now (their signal has got worse since they joined with T-mobile).