Mobile tariff for backup connection help

I have a mobile router that I last used for internet backup.
I went to use it again recently as my main internet connection had gone down and unfortunately the sim card was deactivated. So I'd like to solve this for the future.

My requirement is some kind of tariff that is as small as possible per month, but I can 'boost' to unlimited data in-month if my main fibre connection goes down. Last time I used EE PAYG for £10 and added on an unlimited data for £40 and we were in good shape. Ideally I'd pay less than £10/month to keep the sim card alive though.

Any ideas?

Oh, and best speed for data here is EE so ideally an EE vmno

What network is good coverage / performance wise in your shire? Is EE the most performant?

I’d check out Scancom personally.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I’d check out Scancom personally.

Just having a look - they do seem to have deals which I've not seen elsewhere - but can't see anything that is cheap then burstable to unlimited (unless I miss understand). I do see a 36-month contract unlimited data at £13 through discounts which is quite good, but since I won't actually be doing any data for most months an ideal tariff would be something like £5 + a £50 in month charge

The 1p mobile 'ai bot' seems to think a flexi sim (£60 annually) can have a single month of unlimited data added for £25 in month - without any fair usage policy being applied.
This sounds ideal, not sure if I believe to bot - it's not clear this is true from their main pages. Is anyone a 1p mobile user that can confirm if this is true?

I use 1p Mobile as my backup connection. They recently increased their minimum usage charge to £10 every 60 days but it's still a good deal for me. Most of the time I don't get close to the minimum usage as it would require about 500MB/month to hit it at 1p/MB. It does look like you can get an unlimited boost for £25 for 30 days but I've never needed that much data yet since my outages have only been for short periods.

It does look like you can get an unlimited boost for £25 for 30 days but I've never needed that much data yet since my outages have only been for short periods.

Yes, my outages have been for a few hours only, but I'd likely have to add on a boost quite quickly - our usage here is about 75gb/day so without any frame of reference it probably makes sense to quickly add an unlimited boost for 30 days.
If you can add it on demand, as you have indicated, this does look like a good option for me.

Just be aware that most “unlimited” stuff on mobile actually means FUP. Many operators have settled on 600GB pcm as their “unlimited” FUP.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Just be aware that most “unlimited” stuff on mobile actually means FUP. Many operators have settled on 600GB pcm as their “unlimited” FUP.

If I can get enough for a burst of 3-4 days within the AUP then I'd know what was happening with my primary connection by then I'd hope!
I have a starlink here also, but that is £75/mo to re-activate.

Having said that, maybe £5/mo + a burst fee is worse than just re-activating the starlink for one month in an outage..

Hmm...
[though I've just checked and it says that starlink is at capacity and I'd have to go for the £96/mo tariff!]

Edited by Jabes (Sun 12-Jan-25 22:31:07)