New Sim Card, can I delay the activation?

united4ever

I am getting made redundant at work and for years had the benefit of being allowed to use my work mobile for personal use.

My garden leave ends in first week of June. I have a PAC code which expires in a couple of weeks and want to keep my number. It was a pain to get the PAC code because I had to get it from the named account responsible in my very large company so I cannot easily just contact EE to get another one after the 30 days have passed.

Ideally I want to keep using the company sim and phone as long as possible. If I get a new sim today, using that PAC code, can I activate it weeks later? Guess I will be getting charged from day 1 even though it's not activated.

Also, I mainly use the phone at home on Wifi, the odd call when I am outside and usually run Life360 location app for example. Is 4 or 5gb enough?

Sorry for the simple question, haven't done this for many years.

flaneurs_lobster

The bills for your phone usage to-date will give you a very accurate figure, do you have access to them? 5GB will probably be more than adequate for normal everyday use.

Getting a new SIM/service does not need your PAC code (but you will be paying for it). Often a good idea to get the service running before number transfer just to be sure that all is well with reception etc, particularly if you are changing mobile supplier.

It does mean that you are running two SIMS in parallel, needs two phones or a dual sim phone or a bit of SIM swapping. 

If getting another PAC code is problematic then I wouldn't leave it later than 7 days before the expiry to action the swap, it can sometimes only take 24 hours but there may be delays. 

eDicky

You can't delay activation of your new SIM until after you've ported your number to it, if that's what you mean, the SIM needs to be active for the PAC to be used.

matelodave

Is saving a couple of weeks worth the aggro of losing your phone number.

AFAIK a PAC code is valid for 30 days and then it expires and you'll have to get another one.  So as said above, I'd make sure that you dont leave it to the last day just in case it all goes horribly wrong.

The new sim has to be activated with its given number before you can transfer the PAC code to it so make sure you allow enough time