Mobile Phones

888dee

Guest
now I realise this is not something that would normally be posted on a MH web site but I thought it was worth sharing...

Contract is up on my current mobile so have spent many fruitless hours trawling around looking for a decent deal,

I popped into the carphonewarehouse this afternoon on an off chance really and have been offered a Blackberry Curve 8520, 600 minutes, 500 texts, unlimited data for £20/month.

on the understanding anything related to "3" is best avoided this is far away the best deal I could find, just thought I would share.
 
When my contract came up for renewal I phoned T mobile and told them I wanted to cancel as I was a low user, they offered me 100 mins and 100 texts plus 24 hour internet access for a whole £7.50 a month! of course this is a sim only so you don't get to upgrade to a nice new shiney toy! All the providers are feeling the squeeze at the moment so it is worth playing hardball!

Nichodia
 
I never do contracts. The main advantage of contracts is usually you get a "free" latest model phone. Since I'm happy with PAYG and a phone that does text and calls with a camera, which I have had for 4 years, I find PAYG works out cheapest.
 
Mobile phones

I have been with 3 mobile for many years and have found them to be very reliable. A good thing about 3 is their loyalty scheme - each year you pay less on your contract - I now pay £10 per month for 500 minutes - any network, including landlines. My phone gets a signal in most places including remote places in Scotland. I get a free upgrade phone every year. Also their mobile broadband is very good too.
 
Interesting Barbt, there are a few folks I've spoken to think 3 is very good but there are equally a lot who would never go near them again, one of the main things which swayed me away from them was my next door neighbours' experience, poor signal at home, poor customer service from non-UK call centre...

poor CS I can pretty much cope with but as I work from home signal strength here is a major factor.

Good you've gotten on well with it though, maybe one day :)
 
Forgive me for sounding a right divvy but I am thinking of getting a dongle thingy for use in the van. I am payg with orange and I very rarely make calls with it. I was self employed and had it for people to ring me.

I take it that your mobile picks up the signal and transfers it to the dongle. As orange is expensive on payg, what is my best (cheapest) option given the fact the phone is an ornament I carry with me?

I did notice earlier this year that Asda were 8p per minute payg.
 
Barbt said:
I have been with 3 mobile for many years and have found them to be very reliable. A good thing about 3 is their loyalty scheme - each year you pay less on your contract - I now pay £10 per month for 500 minutes - any network, including landlines. My phone gets a signal in most places including remote places in Scotland. I get a free upgrade phone every year. Also their mobile broadband is very good too.
Click to expand...

i find 3 pretty good also ther mobile broadband seems great too as i am on it too only thing against 3 i find is there customer service leaves little to be desired to say the least .but there signal coverage is good .
 
maingate said:
Forgive me for sounding a right divvy but I am thinking of getting a dongle thingy for use in the van. I am payg with orange and I very rarely make calls with it. I was self employed and had it for people to ring me.

I take it that your mobile picks up the signal and transfers it to the dongle. As orange is expensive on payg, what is my best (cheapest) option given the fact the phone is an ornament I carry with me?

I did notice earlier this year that Asda were 8p per minute payg.
Click to expand...

I assume your phone is a 2g (GPRS that is)...

if so you need to basically forget you have it and view the dongle as a seperate entity, it is in effect a mobile phone that you can't talk into anyway.
 
I got 700 mobile minutes, unlimited calls to landlines, unlimited Internet for £17.50 with Vodafone. Its normally double that I think but at the time it was the end of the month and I haggled until I got this deal. Vodafone cant be trusted though so get everything in writing. They tried to bill be the full amount but I had heard they would do that and got the agreement in writing. they also sent me a brand new Sony phone which I promptly flogged on Ebay for £100 (I prefered my old Nokia N95) so first 6 months free basically. Its saved us a fortune in our home/office as I dont use the landline anymore.

Their customer service and support however is shocking!
 
I have also got a mobile broadband dongle (Three mobile) It is PAYG. I think Three have the best coverage on the mobile broadband.

One or two caveats on these dongles.

(a) You don't get brilliant speeds. It's supposed to be 3.6 Mbit max but the most I ever get is about 600k and that drops to 50-100k in poor reception areas. And when a lot of people are using the masts at popular times you can get dial up speeds like 5-20 k.

(b) You don't get brilliant coverage. It's pretty good around the home counties and along motorways, but we took a motorhome down to the Forest of Dean last year and it was rubbish coverage. Like 50k at the best of times and the signal keeps on fading out so you lose your connection.

(c) Bandwidth is time limited so if you pay for 3GB, it only lasts 30 days and if you haven't used it all at the end of the 30 days you lose what you have left and have to pay for more. I think all the deals are like this so even PAYG is more like a contract with the advantage you can duck out completely if you don't need it.

1GB is £10, 3GB is £15, and 7GB is £25 on PAYG.

If anyone knows of a better current deal and coverage let me know!
 
I've had a "3" dongle for a year now and find 3Gb per month is enough, in fact at the end of the month I go into download mode just to use up the credit. However I used to be able to watch the iplayer, but not now that the dongle is every where in the shops and with the demand on the system, I suspect!
 
Yep 3GB is quite a bit. In fact for email and use of text sites like this you could get away with 1GB. If you want to do You Tube and general browsing including vids and sound on a daily basis 3GB is needed. I have found if you want to play 3D graphics games like Second Life or intensive flash games like on social networks for a few hours a day then even 7GB will run out after 20 odd days or so.

Edit to say I also found that Second Life 3D game was possible in the early days of the modem, but speeds have become slower with the take up, and now it's not worth playing this game on the 3 modem as that game needs 200-300 + kbs and often you can't get this bandwidth due to other users online using the same mast.
 
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all interesting stuff.

My vodaphone mobile contract is finished so thanks for the carphone warehouse info.

I use a 3 dongle exclusively nowadays for the internet and I personally have had no problems here in deepest West Yorks

Channa
 
Hi Firefox

I have just got the new Maplin flyer with special offers. Vodafone payg is not time limited like 3 mobile

The Vodafone deal is£34.99 to buy the dongle (includes £15 top up), saving of £5
Unlimited timeframes.
There is also a 3 mobile broadband deal for £99. It is a 12gb starter pack, saving of £50.
 
I have been useing a 3 dongle as my only internet acess at home and away in the van now for 2 years now and ive never had a problem,,i get good signal at home and when in the van i take a long usb lead so if i get a poor signal i can poke the dongle out of the roof vent,,strangly i get much better signal on the dongle than i do on my 3 phone..

i would recomend 3 for mobile broadband and vodaphone for mobile phone..
 
maingate said:
Hi Firefox

I have just got the new Maplin flyer with special offers. Vodafone payg is not time limited like 3 mobile

The Vodafone deal is£34.99 to buy the dongle (includes £15 top up), saving of £5
Unlimited timeframes.
There is also a 3 mobile broadband deal for £99. It is a 12gb starter pack, saving of £50.
Click to expand...

I've been looking for one which is not time limited, although I have seen queries raised about the coverage on networks other than 3. T-mobile broadband in particular has had bad write ups. Looks like I should investigate vodaphone.

The mobile broadband market is growing all the time. It needs someone like Virgin to get in there and shake it up with some value deals. The time limited stuff is a real rip off and I think that will go when the competition hots up.

I've poked my dongle out of windows in previous motorhomes but I think the problem may be worse in my new van. I haven't fully tried it out yet though.
 
Be careful where you poke your dongle.

Dongle poking carries a hefty fine or 3 months in jail.
 
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