Best Budget Sim Card. Retaining Existing Number.

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ringway

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I've decided to let my Mum have my old Samsung Galaxy S2.
She currently pays £5 a week on Vodafone PAYG. I know she could get a contract phone for that much, but prefers to just top up when she pleases. Her existing phone is 7 years old.

She would need to retain her existing number and a little internet allowance would be nice.

Assuming the Galaxy S2 can be unlocked to work on any network, what would be the best way go about this?

Thanks in advance.

Paul.
 
I hear '3' are good value for money. But more importantly make sure you can get good coverage whichever network you choose.
 
I always found Tesco great value on PAYG with them matching your top up, that said I moved away from them to a great deal with Carphone Warehouse £7.50 per month with all the minutes, data and text I could ever use and a free Windows phone which has performed flawlessly for nearly 2 years
 
I hear '3' are good value for money. But more importantly make sure you can get good coverage whichever network you choose.

3 is great for data and internet but hopeless for calls as they don't have the basic GSM infrastructure of the other operators.
 
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
 
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

Wow, I've learned something there which is good for renewal time in August and cant be bad as piggybacked onto the Vodafone network which IMHO is the best available, definitely looks the way to go I would have thought.

Thanks for educating me :thumb:
 
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

Currently 10% off until Monday! Just ordered one for my MIFI device.:thumb:
 
Depends where you live. It's next to useless where I live so we've all moved to EE.

I agree, no VF signal at all where I live but have a VF sure signal so runs through my broadband connection, but when travelling globally as I do VF are unbeatable nothing else comes close for reliable data and voice. It can be very patchy on the East Coast and at our Holiday home for data and internet 3 is by far the better network :thumb:
 
Moved to 3 few months back £15 gives me}

All-you-can-eat data
2,000 minutes
5,000 Three-to-Three minutes.
5,000 texts
Unlimited tethering


It has since gone up to £20
 
Hmmmm
About to change in the next couple of months.
Currently with O2 and reception at home is iffy - ok in front garden, ok in rear garden, but c*rp in house.
About to start work on a 12 month project in the sticks. O2 poor, Vodafone a bit better, 3 no good at all, Orange/T-mobile/EE pretty good.
Was thinking about buying a new phone on e-bay (or similar) and buying a sim only contract.
This OVIVO sounds tempting as that's about the minutes/texts/data I need
 
ive been on tesco for a mumber of years,no problems with reception,theyuse o2 network,ifyou top up with £10 they give you another £20 but it must be used in 30 days
 
Another vote for Tesco, really easy to transfer your number also the phone telesales are really helpful and friendly. I moved from Vodafone and don't regret it one bit
 
Moved to 3 few months back £15 gives me}

All-you-can-eat data
2,000 minutes
5,000 Three-to-Three minutes.
5,000 texts
Unlimited tethering


It has since gone up to £20
3 is currently rolling out 4g across the country (free upgrade), I last week have 4g on my Galaxy S3 in Manchester area :thumb:
 
3 is currently rolling out 4g across the country (free upgrade), I last week have 4g on my Galaxy S3 in Manchester area :thumb:

Will they have to change their name to 4 ?
 
Tesco again here, we're paying £7.50 a month with a free handset (HTC Wildfire S). The monthly allowances are more than enough for what we need ... 250 minutes, 5000 texts, 750 Mb.

You can optionally have a 'capped' contract where if you do exceed any of the allowances the extra usage is PAYG. Great for kids etc. as you are guaranteed not to get any nasty shocks at the end of the month.
 
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

I would need to keep my number for business reasons.
Is there any risk if OVIVO went t*ts up that it would not be possible to port a mobile number out to another provider?
 
Last edited:
3 is currently rolling out 4g across the country (free upgrade), I last week have 4g on my Galaxy S3 in Manchester area :thumb:

Yep true;)
 
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. :doh: :D
 

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