Lebara 100GB rolling plan – what can you actually do with it?

kah22

 Bit of a daft question, but I don’t want to look daft in front of a friend.

Friend is switching from O2 after a messy cancellation. Tried PAYG but kept topping up too much.

She’s now looking at Lebara’s 100GB rolling plan. International calls are nice, but data is the main thing – she can always use WhatsApp for calls.

Her worry: will 100GB let her watch YouTube or even EastEnders without issues? She lives in an old block of flats (ex-police station, thick walls) and there’s no WiFi. If she’s out and about with no WiFi, can she just use her data instead?

So, in practice – what can you actually do with 100GB of mobile data in a month? I’m not really sure.

Peter999_2

You could watch 33 hours of, say, Netflix (or youtube etc.) with the 100GB (at 1080p resolution).       What's app voice calls would give you 2000 hours. What's app video calls would give you about 125 hours.      100GB is very generous, but obviously you need to make sure you can get a good signal with vodafone (4G or 5G) before they got it.

On-the-coast

Not much use.  Ok as back up if she generally has WiFi, but only about an hour of YouTube video browsing at best (per month!)

goggle search says : 
YouTube data usage on a phone varies significantly based on video quality, ranging from around 90MB per hour for 144p to over 3GB per hour for 4K videos

d123

On-the-coast said:

Not much use.  Ok as back up if she generally has WiFi, but only about an hour of YouTube video browsing at best (per month!)

goggle search says : 
YouTube data usage on a phone varies significantly based on video quality, ranging from around 90MB per hour for 144p to over 3GB per hour for 4K videos

If you read the other posts, they are referring to GIGABYTES, not megabytes.

100GB not 100MB…

Mee

Just a word of warning.  I was with Three some years ago and I experienced far too many poor/no coverage/black spots and suspected at times it was part of Three managing 4G demand. I complained to Ofcom, got a near refund on the 12 month contract and left for Lebara (Vodafone network).
I wasn't best pleased when I read that Vodafone & Three had merged. I now find more instances of black spots etc as I did with Three and earlier in the year some customers were left with no network access for several hours for which Lebara did apologise.

Rodders53

She could 'suck it and see'.  It's a monthly rolling (actually only 30 days so slowly creeps earlier and earlier in the month as the years roll on) contract.

If 100GB at £12/mth is exceeded she'll lose internet access altogether (unless a top up - very expensive is bought)... and then may have to consider the Unlimited data at £25/mth.

Note there are others (without the initial MSE cheap months on Lebara) who may be cheaper / offer slightly more data than Lebara (often on same network) for similar price points.

NB2 Lebara users (so far) can only access the Vodafone masts/network  - Only Vodafone-Three owned services (Vodafone UK, Three UK, VOXI, Talkmobile and Smarty) can access both Vodafone and Three. How Vodafone and Three are sharing their mobile networks  but even that is going to be patchy and slow to happen.

kah22

At the moment I’m trying to guide her towards BT a she would qualify for the social tariff, then join the like of LEBARA. that should more than cover the cost of anything she does outside and in the flat use the like of WhatsApp for calls

She lives in a flat in social housing (Radius) and I’m assuming the all the necessary cabling is down and that it would just be a matter of setting the router up. What actually does the engineer do and for that extra £30 I’ve read about, what would they do for that

As you might make out from my two posts - I’m confused 🤷‍♂️

jimjames

kah22 said:

So, in practice – what can you actually do with 100GB of mobile data in a month? I’m not really sure.

I'd think 100Gb will do everything you want for the month. Even as a family we don't use that much on our home broadband and that includes watching movies and Youtube

d123

Mee said:

I wasn't best pleased when I read that Vodafone & Three had merged. I now find more instances of black spots etc as I did with Three and earlier in the year some customers were left with no network access for several hours for which Lebara did apologise.

The Vodafone Three merger hasn’t moved past the paperwork stage yet, there has been no physical change to either network.

fiish

Some mast sharing has already started happening: https://www.vodafone.co.uk/newscentre/press-release/vodafonethree-delivers-automatic-coverage-improvement-millions/

The initial stage of merging the networks is being done on masts where they can remotely enable access to either network's customers with software - so no visit or physical changes to the masts involved.

Apparently there's no technical barrier to the likes of Lebara and iD Mobile (not owned by Vodafone or Three) having access to the other network's masts, once activated. It's not going to be advertised, and Vodafone and Three will only talk about the brands they own, but people on Lebara and/or iD SIMs have reported connecting to Three and Vodafone masts respectively, in some locations.