Anyone still doing proper "traditional" PAYG?

km1500

The answer is yes

You need to buy an EE sim with a renewable PAYG bundle I think these usually cost £10

Once you have got it then you text 'stop pack' to 150 that will switch it to normal pay as you go.

Emmia

crow22 said:

Emmia said:

crow22 said:

Emmia said:

The network you use to receive texts and potentially make a call on costs money to run and maintain, what you're essentially asking for is for other customers to subside your use... 

£1 a week isn't an unreasonable cost for what you get.

That works out about £52 a year which is like pouring money down the drain for the occasional call/text user.  £5 top up lasts me a long time and I have never use the data part anyway.

You've missed the point.

No I got your the point but I dont agree. however, My point remains that when your annual call/txt costs are £5 or less then £52 a year is a waste of money! Thats the whole point of having PAYG in the first place !

I see it as an insurance policy. You need to call someone in an emergency, you can. 

Personally that's worth ~£50 annually. 

Phones4Chris

Emmia said:

crow22 said:

Emmia said:

The network you use to receive texts and potentially make a call on costs money to run and maintain, what you're essentially asking for is for other customers to subside your use... 

£1 a week isn't an unreasonable cost for what you get.

That works out about £52 a year which is like pouring money down the drain for the occasional call/text user.  £5 top up lasts me a long time and I have never use the data part anyway.

You've missed the point.

You are the one missing the point. For anyone who only needs to make/receive the very occasional odd call or text, it IS a waste of money. Especially for example to anyone on a tight budget or basic state pension!
@ionh your existing phone should continue to work on 2G as long as you get a reasonable 2G signal in the places you need/want to use it.
@crow22 you should check which network gives you the best 2G signal if it's a plain old dumb phone as ID MObile uses the Three network which doesn't use 2G.
The 2G network isn't due to be switched off for a few years yet during which time things will no doubt change anyway.

Frozen_up_north

Phones4Chris said:

You are the one missing the point. For anyone who only needs to make/receive the very occasional odd call or text, it IS a waste of money. Especially for example to anyone on a tight budget or basic state pension!

The real issue for anyone expecting to top up a phone once a year (or less often), is that they expect their network to provide a service for almost free, hence why few networks continue to offer "traditional" PAYG.

The flip side is that mobile phones are much cheaper than land line phones, which is why many of us have ditched land lines. I don't know the cheapest rate for land line phones, but it is easy to spend well in excess of £20 each month. By comparison, GiffGaff offer a monthly "non contract" SIM with 2GB of data and unlimited calls to UK numbers for £6 per month, at the other end of the scale BT will give you a land line with unlimited calls to UK numbers for a staggering £48/month.

PHK

@Frozen_up_north I agree, also the time spent messing around to save a few pounds a month costs much more. No concern about whether a chargeable event has been made often enough or top-ups expiring. 

 A low user could be paying £2.50 a month (RWG) or as little as 99p with a MSE deal. 

crow22

Phones4Chris said:

@crow22 you should check which network gives you the best 2G signal if it's a plain old dumb phone as ID MObile uses the Three network which doesn't use 2G.
The 2G network isn't due to be switched off for a few years yet during which time things will no doubt change anyway.

My phones is modern enough although not fancy so i have no problem with the new  networks. Its just I dont make many calls in a given month. But I did send a couple of texts last week!!!

Watching these discussions with interest!

peroni1984

Three still do a PAYG

https://www.three.co.uk/pay-as-you-go/free-sim

just make a chargeable call/text every 180 days

you can add a data pack if you want but otherwise just top up 

ivinsp

I'd encourage you to stay exactly as you are and just set your phone to 2g 😊

flaneurs_lobster

ivinsp said:

I'd encourage you to stay exactly as you are and just set your phone to 2g 😊

I agree.

There's no date yet set for O2 to even start switching off their 2G signal - so it won't be this year nor probably next.

A peruse of the O2 Community site (far more use IMHO for this kind of query than the O2 site itself) suggests that O2 are likely to kill PAYG rather than upgrading the service to allow VoLTE, WiFi Calling etc.

Could be done by just turning it off and saying "Tough" to PAYG customers (and their credit balances) much like Virgin did with their PAYG customers, or maybe a migration to Giffgaff (which they own) which can still be used in PAYG mode and also supports VoLTE. WiFi Calling, 5G & eSIM.

B0bbyEwing

Emmia said:

crow22 said:

Emmia said:

The network you use to receive texts and potentially make a call on costs money to run and maintain, what you're essentially asking for is for other customers to subside your use... 

£1 a week isn't an unreasonable cost for what you get.

That works out about £52 a year which is like pouring money down the drain for the occasional call/text user.  £5 top up lasts me a long time and I have never use the data part anyway.

You've missed the point.

I think you've missed the point here, as have a few others too really. 

The point is OP is asking for help. 

Now their question should have a pretty black & white answer. It's either A or B. They'll either like it or they won't but the answer should be black & white & then everyone moves on. 

It's not really helpful to come in & preach opinions & just basically not answer the OP at all. 

And why am I here? Because I was about to ask the exact same question as OP but saw they'd already done it for me. 

So having a scan through this thread so far it seems Peroni is perhaps the only one who's provided a solution (that suits my needs anyway - as I don't have an old SIM to try & cut down). 

Also seems companies are advertising PAYG when they should call it something else because the requirement to even pay £5 a month is not paying as you go because I've not gone yet you're saying I now need to pay. 



And for what I need - 

Ideally a totally dumb phone. No Internet whatsoever. Just something that can send an SMS text message and take/make a call which would be once in a blue moon as I'd use it for if/when I need to contact my employer or for when they need to contact me, which may be a few times a year or no times at all. If its no time at all then I don't want to spend £5x12 for just in case purposes.