Best Budget Sim Card. Retaining Existing Number.

[ss201]

An MVNO called OVIVO will be the way to go.

You get 250 minutes, 300 texts and 500MB data per month for FREE....Yes FREE as in £0. Sound to good to be true? Yes but it is true. I have been using it for the past 3 months and there are people who have had it for over a year.

They run the service on the Vodafone network. You pay a one time fee of £20 for the sim card and of that, £15 is credited to your mobile phone account. if you port an old number in, you get an extra £3 credit. So the sim card should really only cost your mum £2. You then get the allowances I listed above every month and your £18 credit remains on your account and is available to spend on roaming, picture messages, outside of allowance calls e.t.c

Sounds great. Do you know if this will work with an iPhone 3 or a simple Nokia? - I don't use a mobile much and not at all for internet browsing

 

[Charles Morgan]

Thanks for all the input, everyone.

I went to Tesco this afternoon and got a sim card. £10pm - 1000 minutes, 5000 texts and 1GB of data.
Now all I have to do is teach my Mum how to use the phone and the internet on it, which I'm sure will be a long-winded process.

That's excellent. I have just come off contract so bye bye Vodafone!

 

[DSM10000]

Sounds great. Do you know if this will work with an iPhone 3 or a simple Nokia? - I don't use a mobile much and not at all for internet browsing

My SIM arrived yesterday, placed in my MIFI, registered it on-line, turned MIFI on, connected to Vodaphone.

If using it in a 'phone you need to connect your phone to a link, download the OVIVO manager software and go.

 

[SL300-24]

Take a look at Virgin Mobile. All 30 day contracts, I and my teenage daughters have the VIP unlimited sim for £15 per month which gives me everything and most importantly they get no excess charges for going over their previous set limit.

Virgin Media - Compare Pay Monthly unlimited SIM only deals - Virgin Media

My wife has the mobile Tariff at £7 per month which suits her usage. Check the above link. We were previously all on o2 and have saved a fair bit every month. Also 30 days and you can move on if you wish, keeps things competitive.

 

[BTB 500]

My wife has the mobile Tariff at £7 per month which suits her usage. Check the above link.

TBH for that sort of money I don't mind being 'locked in' to a 12 or even 24 month contract. We get more minutes, more data, and a free smartphone for £7.50 a month with Tesco.

The unlimited one looks good for heavy users though.

 

[kinaero]

3 is currently rolling out 4g across the country (free upgrade), I last week have 4g on my Galaxy S3 in Manchester area

My phone is actually S4, not S3! Cleared that one up.

To be honest, unless people wanted to keep their old phones, otherwise to buy a new generation smart phones would easily cost upwards of £600!!
Assuming we take out a 2 years contracts, it worked out pretty similar

 

[EClassy]

My phone is actually S4, not S3! Cleared that one up.

To be honest, unless people wanted to keep their old phones, otherwise to buy a new generation smart phones would easily cost upwards of £600!!
Assuming we take out a 2 years contracts, it worked out pretty similar

A Nexus 5 (made for Google by LG) costs only £240 sim free at CPW. It is as good as or in most cases better than the 'premium' competition e.g. Galaxy S4, HTC One, LG G2.

1. 5'' 1080p display at over 445pi
2. 2GB Ram
3. LTE/4G

 

[EClassy]

Sounds great. Do you know if this will work with an iPhone 3 or a simple Nokia? - I don't use a mobile much and not at all for internet browsing

I have had my number for 10 years and I have also always worried about this. I'd like to think there must be some form of protection for consumers if a mobile phone operator went bust.

One thing I forgot to mention about OVIVO (I really should have) is that they are able to susbsidise the tariffs by displaying adverts to you about every 5 minutes for approximately 5 seconds before your page loads when browsing the internet. This doesbt affect all your other apps and operations in the background which require internet connections. Those will work as normal.

 

[Piff]

Think I will probably go with this .
Keep my old phone (nothing wrong with it but I guess I'm too used to changing every 2 yrs)
I had though I might want a 4G phone but it looks like it's going to be quite a while before the operators roll out 4G in this area.

 

[EClassy]

Ovivo went offline without notice yesterday taking my £5 with them. I also dont have my number for now but all customers have been asked to fill out a form on their website to request PAC codes.

I guess they are right when they say there is no such thing as as a free lunch!

Sorry to anyone that has taken this up based on my recommendation.