All my mobile eggs in the 1pmobile basket?

peterhjohnson

I recently swapped my mobile broadband from Three (spit!) to 1pmobile which uses the EE networks. Works fine :-)
I also have a mobile with an EE PAYG SIM which also works fine in important places (unlike 3 or O2). It doesn't do 5G (although the phone is capable) and is a bit pricey and especially so for roaming. 
So, I am minded to swap my mobile to 1pmobile too.

The downside I can see is that every year or two, my credit card gets randomly declined by my bank. It's a B**g*r to sort out because the bank always deny having declined my card while the merchant always insists that it is the bank at fault.

It would be even  more tricky if my payment to 1p mobile were affected leaving me entirely cut off and having no way to fix it???

So, I think what I need is a great cheap mobile service using EE but which is not 1pmobile?

Frozen_up_north

Be careful what you wish for… even though EE have reasonable coverage, it is very poor in places. For example, in Thorne (near Doncaster), there is no in-building coverage in the industrial area around McDonald’s/Aldi. In the same locations, my OH’s phone on GiffGaff (O2) works perfectly and my 1p mobile has nothing.

We haven’t found a location where there is EE coverage and none on O2, although there is a lot more 5G available on EE… Incidentally, don’t get too excited about 5G, neither of us have found speeds to be noticeably better than 4G, in theory it should be but it appears to be an add-on to existing infrastructure, and not purpose built for the theoretical speeds 5G is claimed to be capable of.

Emmia

Frozen_up_north said:

Be careful what you wish for… even though EE have reasonable coverage, it is very poor in places. For example, in Thorne (near Doncaster), there is no in-building coverage in the industrial area around McDonald’s/Aldi. In the same locations, my OH’s phone on GiffGaff (O2) works perfectly and my 1p mobile has nothing.

We haven’t found a location where there is EE coverage and none on O2, although there is a lot more 5G available on EE… Incidentally, don’t get too excited about 5G, neither of us have found speeds to be noticeably better than 4G, in theory it should be but it appears to be an add-on to existing infrastructure, and not purpose built for the theoretical speeds 5G is claimed to be capable of.

I'd agree with this, my husband is on Vodafone and I'm on EE - there are often times where one of us doesn't have data, so if they need data they hotspot off the others phone. This occurs at home in the UK and abroad

We've considered having a single contract with multiple handsets, but this means we'd be with the same provider.... so if one had no data, so would the other.

Mark_d

If you want to avoid 3 and O2, as I do - then why not try Lebara which runs on the Vodafone network.  It's cheap and has served me well for the past couple of years

Emmia

Frozen_up_north said:

Be careful what you wish for… even though EE have reasonable coverage, it is very poor in places. For example, in Thorne (near Doncaster), there is no in-building coverage in the industrial area around McDonald’s/Aldi. In the same locations, my OH’s phone on GiffGaff (O2) works perfectly and my 1p mobile has nothing.

We haven’t found a location where there is EE coverage and none on O2, although there is a lot more 5G available on EE… Incidentally, don’t get too excited about 5G, neither of us have found speeds to be noticeably better than 4G, in theory it should be but it appears to be an add-on to existing infrastructure, and not purpose built for the theoretical speeds 5G is claimed to be capable of.

In relation to your card being infrequently declined, I'd have moved card providers if there is no obvious reason for the decline. You could avoid impacts with 1p mobile (or multiple providers) by having the payments for different SIMs coming from different cards

zagfles

Solution is simple, just leave your 1pmobile SIM topped up enough so that even if a topup is declined by the bank, you have plenty of time to sort it. I usually keep it over £10 which will normally cover over 2 months and when it drops below £10 I top it up. Anyway do you not have a debit card you can use if your CC is declined? 

peterhjohnson

zagfles said:

Solution is simple, just leave your 1pmobile SIM topped up enough so that even if a topup is declined by the bank, you have plenty of time to sort it. I usually keep it over £10 which will normally cover over 2 months and when it drops below £10 I top it up. Anyway do you not have a debit card you can use if your CC is declined? 

I do have alternative cards but I'd have no way of contacting 1pmobile with the card details if both my mobile and broadband stopped because of the decline of the usual card!

zagfles

peterhjohnson said:

zagfles said:

Solution is simple, just leave your 1pmobile SIM topped up enough so that even if a topup is declined by the bank, you have plenty of time to sort it. I usually keep it over £10 which will normally cover over 2 months and when it drops below £10 I top it up. Anyway do you not have a debit card you can use if your CC is declined? 

I do have alternative cards but I'd have no way of contacting 1pmobile with the card details if both my mobile and broadband stopped because of the decline of the usual card!

Of course you would. Visit a pub, cafe or anywhere with wifi, or go round to a freind/neighbour's house, login to your account, and top up with your other card.  

Anyway they are unlikely to immediately chop you if a card transaction failed, they'd likely notify you and give you a chance to sort it before chopping your connection. 

You're overthinking it. It's unlikely to be a problem, and if it is, there's an easy solution.