Best plan for parents (2 phones)? One uses data, one doesn't

kitchensinq

Parents (elderly) are currently on some ridiculous Vodafone contract where they pay more per month than my family of FOUR does, and one of them doesn't even have/use data. I've been looking around the internet...all the plans seem to assume you want data on your mobile, but my dad doesn't want or use data...just wants calls/texts.

Does anyone know of any providers that offer plans that are for calls only? I would imagine that if they exist they should be cheaper than plans that have data included. However, I am also starting to think that the only solution might be to sign them up for a "lowest data" plan (e.g 4GB) with some carrier, since non-data plans don't seem to exist. If anyone has any experience with this pls let me know.

Robin9

SMARTY 4gb for £5 - keeps the options open

1pMobile - £10 every 4 months

savergrant

Really depends on what you mean by "uses calls" and "uses data". 
1pmobile could be the start point, either pay £36 fir a year of unlimited calls and a "modest" 250mb pm. Or pay £30 for a year's service at 1p/1p/1p. 1pmobile are the strictest at disconnecting you if you don't topup but have a discretionary policy to allow you to sacrifice £10 of your credit to extend your service for 120 days.
https://www.1pmobile.com/

However I think for most users rwg give better value.
£20 for a year gives you 250 mins, 250 texts, and 2gb data per month, and outside of your bundle you pay 5p. However at the end of the year you just need to topup and make one call or
text every 90 days to keep your service.
https://www.rwgmobile.wales/rates-plans-eng-per/

£35 for same deal but for 2 years.

Both 1p and rwg use the ee network so check signal strength.

ProDave

1p mobile have an even better deal, £36 for 1 YEAR of unlimited calls and texts and 250mb of data each month.  This is what I have at the moment.  That would certainly do the "no data" phone at £3 per month.  How much data does the other phone actually use?  and is it really used much for truly mobile data (i.e when out and about) or is is used in the house where it should be linked to your wifi and using your broadband data not mobile data?

JGB1955

I've recently moved to Smarty.  Spent the weekend in London and was stressing about my data use.... less than 10% of my 4GB used in the past 16 days.  And all for £6 per month (roaming abroad included).

Neil_Jones

kitchensinq said:

Parents (elderly) are currently on some ridiculous Vodafone contract where they pay more per month than my family of FOUR does, and one of them doesn't even have/use data. I've been looking around the internet...all the plans seem to assume you want data on your mobile, but my dad doesn't want or use data...just wants calls/texts.

Does anyone know of any providers that offer plans that are for calls only? I would imagine that if they exist they should be cheaper than plans that have data included. However, I am also starting to think that the only solution might be to sign them up for a "lowest data" plan (e.g 4GB) with some carrier, since non-data plans don't seem to exist. If anyone has any experience with this pls let me know.

You can always turn data off on the phone, just because you get it doesn't mean you have to use it...

savergrant

ProDave said:

1p mobile have an even better deal, £36 for 1 YEAR of unlimited calls and texts and 250mb of data each month.  This is what I have at the moment.  That would certainly do the "no data" phone at £3 per month.  How much data does the other phone actually use?  and is it really used much for truly mobile data (i.e when out and about) or is is used in the house where it should be linked to your wifi and using your broadband data not mobile data?

It's only a better deal if you use more than 250 mins in a month, and I would be surprised if 250mb is enough data for someone who "uses data".
1pmobile £36 for ONE year unlimited calls, 250mb pm

Rwg £35 for TWO years
250 mins, 2gb pm

Take a look at the maths!

PHK

Just to add, it’s worthwhile having a small data allowance for two reasons. 

All phones you’ve been able to buy for years are capable of using data in some form. The risk of inadvertently turning on and using data seems to increase as you age. 

Most phones need a data connection for housekeeping tasks and or security updates. (Even feature phones with buttons)  Without these the phone operation will eventually degrade. 

As data is cheap nowadays for piece of mind, I’d recommend a lowish data allowance. 

Mellick

PHK said:

Just to add, it’s worthwhile having a small data allowance for two reasons. 

All phones you’ve been able to buy for years are capable of using data in some form. The risk of inadvertently turning on and using data seems to increase as you age. 

Most phones need a data connection for housekeeping tasks and or security updates. (Even feature phones with buttons)  Without these the phone operation will eventually degrade. 

As data is cheap nowadays for piece of mind, I’d recommend a lowish data allowance. 

If you had the £36 a year unlimited calls and texts with 250mb of data a month then you would  have data but could not use more than the 250mb unless you added credit to your account

Also !p mobile give you the option to disable data at network level if you don't want it, thereby solving the issue of accidental use. This can easily be enabled or disabled in online account area. 

ProDave

Re data use.  I find my phone is using on average 1MB per day for "housekeeping" stuff so 250MB per month is plenty for that with a little for the few times I might want to actually use it for something.

You can set most phones to "data saving" mode so it won't do things like system updates that might need a lot of data by using mobile data, instead it will wait until it has a broadband connection via wifi for data heavy tasks.

PHK

ProDave said:

Re data use.  I find my phone is using on average 1MB per day for "housekeeping" stuff so 250MB per month is plenty for that with a little for the few times I might want to actually use it for something.

You can set most phones to "data saving" mode so it won't do things like system updates that might need a lot of data by using mobile data, instead it will wait until it has a broadband connection via wifi for data heavy tasks.

I agree something small like 250Mb to 1Gb is ideal.