BT Pay Up Front for Life Mobile Contract

Gingejoe

I am writing to state that my wife and me bought two of these SIM contracts in September 2001. They were quite expensive at the time £200 each and we decided upon the 50 minutes anytime per month in phone calls. 

We since held onto these SIM contracts because they are For LIFE, although O2 have tried to move us onto other contracts and we have told them NO and insist they honour their side of the contract which is for life.

They have since moved these contracts onto 4G and given us replacement SIMs. Now we are on Unlimited calls and messages with a small amount 0.5G of data.

We intend to continue with these contracts until we die and make sure O2 honour their part of the contacts.

It would be good to hear from anyone else has done this

mebu60

Well done, sounds like you have achieved a great result there. Just for clarity as the headline refers to BT and the text to O2, presumably you bought these deals from BT Cellnet before it was spun out into O2 UK (and then on to Telefónica trading as O2).

ballyblack

0.5 GB data in 2001 was something,  not so now!

skycatcher

Still got ours though not really using it anymore due to the small data allowance. Would be nice to convert some of the mins/txt for more data!

brewerdave

ballyblack said:

0.5 GB data in 2001 was something,  not so now!

Wouldn't have been any data allowance in 2001 ! People had mobiles to make phone calls and text then. Was there even a mobile internet service ?
I'd be delighted with a similar deal now as I use virtually no data on the go - but £200 up front in 2001 was a serious commitment - my first mobile from BT Cellnet in 1999 was PAYG - had to top up every so often - usually £10 to £15 every couple of months. 

Vitor

Fair play to them for still giving you service, most of us are lucky if our contracts survive a hardware refresh, let alone a quarter century. Treat that SIM as a family heirloom. 

Stuart_W

I am also on the BTCellnet PayUpFrontForLife 2001 deal, got the 4G SIM card replacement last year. It is a cracking deal and really like using a basic phone in place of a smartphone much of the time now. 

Mine was originally 200 off-peak minutes each month (before 7am/after 7pm on weekdays or all weekend). If I remember correctly there were three choices - 200 off peak minutes each month, 50 anytime minutes each month or 50 free texts each month. I guess the idea was as your main phone, you'd use the free stuff and also pay for some use each month too.

Initially I was paying 12p per text or 35p/min for any daytime minutes.

Every version of PUFFL has been moved to unlimited free texts and minutes and 0.5G of data because I presume their updated billing systems couldn't cope with the old tariffs as no tariffs measure minutes anymore, and certainly any notion of peak and off-peak for minutes is long gone. The data is a surprise though, although the 2G brick phone my SIM card is in will certainly not be using any. The original deal had no data included, and I don't think the original provided handsets were even WAP capable (the mobile internet access of the time - v slow plain text).

When 2G finally gets switched off I will transfer my SIM card into a 4G handset, but for now it seems quite happy.

J_B

skycatcher said:

Still got ours though not really using it anymore due to the small data allowance. Would be nice to convert some of the mins/txt for more data!

Suggestion - get a dual sim phone, put a 'deal' Lebara sim in the second slot and use the data; when the deal ends, ditch that sim and get another!

ScroogeMcDog

I bought two PUFFL phones back in 2001 or 2002, with 50' anytime calls, which we could use for WAP dial-up on our Siemens C35 handsets to check football scores and train times.  Oh, the new-fangled wizardry of mobile internet.

I figured "for life" would most likely mean three years, tops, but I have been pleasantly surprised.

O2 did cut off Internet access completely after a few years, though they always denied doing it deliberately when I complained.  They eventually gave me unlimited 3G Internet access to shut me up; I don't know how many other PUFFL users got that, but my wife didn't.  I still had to pay for texts, and calls beyond 50', but I spent very little, so it was a very good deal.  They eventually tempted me onto a "modern" tariff by offering me a discount - £5/mth, I think it was.

My wife's phone still works, and I think now has the small data allowance others have mentioned.

I leave O2 tomorrow because their customer support these days is practically non-existent, but that's a different matter.

PUFFL FTW!

millie

I have a sim card with this contact too. There was a question mark on the  RPI rise last year of £3 a month but several people including myself challenged it and it was not charged. There is an old thread about this contract somewhere. The RPI increase was never a problem in the past as it was a percentage and as we were paying nothing it did not apply.

PHK

brewerdave said:

ballyblack said:

0.5 GB data in 2001 was something,  not so now!

Wouldn't have been any data allowance in 2001 ! People had mobiles to make phone calls and text then. Was there even a mobile internet service ?
I'd be delighted with a similar deal now as I use virtually no data on the go - but £200 up front in 2001 was a serious commitment - my first mobile from BT Cellnet in 1999 was PAYG - had to top up every so often - usually £10 to £15 every couple of months. 

The first tariff with a data call allowance launched in 1994. By 2001, GPRS was up and running and 3G launched not long after. I paid £5 a month in 2001 for a massive 5MB data package.