02 sim only

Current position. Galaxy S2 phone on 02 contract which expires in June. Home broadband BT Infinty with 18 months to run. Virgin Tv package.

Need sim only contract from June; will keep phone for at least one more year.

Little use of minutes and text but can use over 300MB data per month and must have tethering for tablet.

I find that 02 mobile is in most places I visit and even if not e.g. tube stations, then Virgin tie up is. Also FON from my BT Infinity often fills the gaps.

02 do a sim only for £14 per month with 500MB data. Cannot find any mention of tethering in T & Cs so assume like my current contract?

Looks like the deal I need, provided tethering is allowed like my current contract.

Any views on tethering or a better deal?

In reply to a post by athegn:

02 do a sim only for £14 per month with 500MB data.

Seems dear! O2 do a PAYG Web Bolt-On for £6 pm with 500MB data + 20 MMS, Bolt Ons - The All-Rounder. You can turn it on/off by the month.

Suppose the £14 tariff includes calls & text which you have no use for and is a 12m contract.

Take a look here as a first port of call
http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/sims/pay-monthly/pa...

I have used both o2 and EEs network. To be frank the coverage is pretty similar just o2 has 3G less in my experience. So I would not be afraid of switching to T-mobile / Orange / EE / Virgin mobile (all same network) if it's cheaper, as it seems to be.

£9.90 a month gives 500mins, unlimited texts and 1Gb data with T-mobile so that's meeting your needs a lot more.
Check their coverage here
http://ee.co.uk/ee-and-me/network/4gee/coverage-checker

EDIT: Not sure about tethering but I was able to tether on t-mobile until August 2013 when I switched to EE without any issues. Worth checking though, although I'm pretty sure it wasn't technically allowed when I was with them but worked flawlessly.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sat 05-Apr-14 00:07:46)

Bolts-on is what I have at the moment but it needs something to bolt on to? If I only want a sim what could the bolt-on bolt to?

Or am I mis-understanding bolt-ons?

My wife has EE; where we go there seems less coverage than 02 but she does not use hers much so we may not be getting the full EE picture.

Tethering is important; in fact the last time my wife wanted wifi on the road she had to tether to my phone as EE did not have a signal; mind you that was in a rural spot, though one of our regular haunts.

Found this, so thethering EE ok:-

http://ee.co.uk/help/add-ons-benefits-and-plans/wifi...

Edited by athegn (Sat 05-Apr-14 09:21:33)

all o2 30day simplicity and 12 month simplicity tarrifs allow tethering only on o2 payg is tethering not allowed.

im on EE pay and go on dolphin tariff and for £10 i get 400 texts and 1gb data, no mins sadly but my actual £10 credit goes far enough for those

i use an android phone with the OpenGarden wifi tether app installed for when my home broadband goes down or im out and about so provided coverage is ok it works perfectly

only thing to add is windows 8 doesn't like ad-hoc networks quite so much (win 7 works no issues) but there are instructions on how to tweak the registry to allow them just takes some time to get working

What phone does she have? Phones can massively affect the signal you get.
That said EE doesn't seem the ideal option which I find strange as they have more masts than O2 and 99% 3G coverage which is the most 3G coverage of all the networks.

I use O2 and EE phones side by side now for business and leisure.
When out in rural areas my work always has to ring me on my ee phone as my O2 work phone doesn't have coverage...

That said every area is different.
I must say though that O2 does get to strange places better such as in basement flats or even into parts of London Underground. That said my O2 signal is very often gprs or E. EE doesn't get to these kinds of places.

If you are attached to O2 I would still shop around as £14 is steep for such a limited contract. For £17 you could get a better contract with a galaxy s3 thrown in...

I just checked my O2 phone has full signal but it's only GPRS. My EE phone has only 2 bars but it's 4G.
Turning 4G off I have 3 out of 5 bars of 3G
Using a 2G only pay and go orange handset it has full GPRS.

So it looks like the ee signals worse here but it's only worse as it's on 4g not gprs...

Perhaps the wife's got 3G when you have gprs? That would usually show lower signal but doesn't mean a full gprs signal isn't there waiting. If you get me.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sat 05-Apr-14 13:13:46)

Take a look at Tescomobile (uses the O2 network). On a monthly contract £10 gets you 500Mb, 250 minutes & 5,000 texts. I've found their support to be good.

GiffGaff (O2 by any other name) will, for £10, sell you 1GB. 500 mins and unlimited texts.

John

In reply to a post by JHo1:

Take a look at Tescomobile (uses the O2 network). On a monthly contract £10 gets you 500Mb, 250 minutes & 5,000 texts. I've found their support to be good.

GiffGaff (O2 by any other name) will, for £10, sell you 1GB. 500 mins and unlimited texts.

John

on tesco its easier to have the triple credit tariff and buy data + texts as addons

£10 gets £30 £15 gets £45 ect

In reply to a post by athegn:

what could the bolt-on bolt to?

It bolts on to a PAYG plan.

As I understand, you already have an O2 sim in your Galaxy S2 which is on a Pay Monthly contract till June. If you don't renew, it will revert to PAYG, probably O2's Talkalotmore tariff. I'd recommend changing that for free to the Text and Web tariff which when you top up £10 gives you 500 MB data + 300 SMS during the following month. Then draw down the £10 top up on Web Bolt-ons for the successive months. Then reiterate.

Adamtemp says tethering not allowed with PAYG?

Edited by athegn (Sat 05-Apr-14 22:00:53)

Sorry, I was addressing your OP on deals not tethering.

How can they tell?

It's not even a matter of telling and being told off... Often the provider will fully restrict tethering so the tethering option isn't even available on the handset. It does happen.

I see! I just tried it as an experiment with my O2 simmed Galaxy S3. I had to enable it as a Portable WiFi Hotspot, and login my PC over WiFi with the access key the mobile told me.

It worked but it was so slow and unreliable as to be unusable .

Any contract will not revert to payg on o2 it stays on the same terms and costs but with a 30 day rolling notice period.

So how does one go from Pay Monthly contract to PAYG? Is it possible? Does it require a diff SIM? I don't know, having always been on PAYG.

you ring o2 and end contract saying you wnan to move to payg and they send a new sim out as that has all the correct info for sms center for payg

all explained on the o2 website search keep my number

Edited by deleted (Mon 07-Apr-14 08:56:22)

Thank you for all your advice. Will get some kind of contract; want to keep my old number.

BTW - Just been away for a few days, staying at Premier Inn, Evesham. Almost no 2G; 3G forget it. had to use Premier Inn, expensive wifi (There is Premier's free 30 minutes per day).

O2 allow tethering but of course the limit is very low so doesnt matter to them.

On my package when hitting the limit, they throttle (very heavily to make it unusable).

O2 no longer throttle they now stop all data many threads about this on the o2 community forum

maybe on new packages but not on mine, if they stopped all data they would be breaching my contract.

Tested it again today after read your post and is still a throttle down to unusable speeds.

I think I am going to move to t-mobile.

My sister found a sweet deal which I think I will be copying.

800mins, galaxy S4, unlimited 3g/4g with 2 gig of tethering included. £20 month.

I then sell my s3 as well.

When we last visited my parents was no 3g signal to be seen on O2, was very annoying, my sister was fine on t-mobile.

Three worked quite well ironically (given how bad it is in my area) was watching iplayer/netflix with it on phone, but I dont want to use a server that has no 2g presence, plus three is terrible at my address, so t-mobile seems the place for me to go.

Trust me o2 would not be in breach as all t&c for many years have had 5 options for action if going over one of them is to stop data.a thread about this on the o2 community.

Edited by deleted (Thu 17-Apr-14 08:03:11)

my contract is 9 years old. is no option on it for them to stop data.

Edited by Chrysalis (Thu 17-Apr-14 21:12:21)