Purchase short term mobile phone service in the UK

David Horne, _the_ chancellor of the duchy of besses o' th' barn and
prestwich tesco 24h offy wrote:
Ken wrote:


Mark Hewitt wrote:

"Ken" wrote in message
om...


Is there a charge for 800 number calls from a mobile?


We don't have '800' numbers in the UK, we have '0800' numbers[1] And yes,
most networks charge these at standard rates.

[1]Even though the number is 0800 some networks make you dial it without the
leading 0 as charging for an 0800 call is not permitted.




I have seen that there are many pay as you go cards on ebay that sell
for amazingly low prices +postage. Are these scams or are these vendors
paid a bounty for acquiring clients for the various companies. Do you
think this is a reasonable way to purchase a SIM to use for just a few
weeks? They seem to be available for O2, t-mobile, Orange, etc.


I don't think you really need to buy one on ebay. Many of the pay as you
go SIM's come with enough credit included to either include or almost
include the cost.

Thanks

Thus spaketh Ken:
As I understand it, I can bring my unlocked mobile phone from the US
and purchase a card for about £10 or £20, 1/2 of which goes toward
the cost of the calls and 1/2 of which goes toward the use of the
service. I have heard that they can be purchased from Virgin. Are
there other services available worth looking at?

I will be landing at Heathrow and driving to Bath, so I won't be in
London to purchase a service. I was hoping to purchase a service at
the airport, so any info would be appreciated.

Thanks
Ken K


Virgin mobile is often recommended for travellers from overseas, as Virgin
rarely cut the service off if you haven't used it for a year or so, others
networks cut you off after 3 months / 6 months of non-use. Not a problem if
you don't plan to come back within a year or two The tariff isn't too bad
either.

Topping up is straight forward, mobile phone shops, newsagents, supermarkets
ATMs.

O2 and Vodafone are mainly a 900MHz network with a few fill in 1800Mhz.

Orange and T-Mobile are 1800MHz networks, Virgin runs over T-Mobile.


--
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www.southeastbirmingham.co.uk

Jack Campin - bogus address wrote:
Virgin is probably
the least well served by high street shops and is the only one of the
major firms I would prefer not to use.

I've been using them since 1999 and the service has been utterly
flawless. Remember that they're really T-Mobile under contract, and a
very favourable contract it is (to Virgin Group) which means that the
prices are pretty low. I'm not an NTL fan, and am watching carefully
now they've taken over, but I don't anticipate major issues.

That said, I think (if you don't want GPRS etc) the "Tesco Value" SIM
is probably the cheapest these days, and they use O2 that has better
coverage.

Neil

"Ken" wrote in message
. ..
As I understand it, I can bring my unlocked mobile phone from the US and
purchase a card for about £10 or £20, 1/2 of which goes toward the cost of
the calls and 1/2 of which goes toward the use of the service. I have
heard that they can be purchased from Virgin. Are there other services
available worth looking at?

I will be landing at Heathrow and driving to Bath, so I won't be in London
to purchase a service. I was hoping to purchase a service at the airport,
so any info would be appreciated.

Thanks
Ken K

O2 mate be your best bet if you going be texting and calling back to the
USA. You will need a Tri or Quadband mobile.

List of UK network Sim Cards.
http://experimentalist.co.uk/shop/index.php?cPath=22

--



www.croydebay.com Croyde Bay North Devon UK
www.saunton.co.uk Saunton North Devon UK
www.experimentalist.co.uk/shop/index.php
Australia, New Zealand, USA, German, UK, South Africa, Thailand, Brazil Sim
Cards &
EPIRB.

Neil Williams wrote:

Jack Campin - bogus address wrote:
Virgin is probably
the least well served by high street shops and is the only one of the
major firms I would prefer not to use.

I've been using them since 1999 and the service has been utterly
flawless. Remember that they're really T-Mobile under contract, and a
very favourable contract it is (to Virgin Group) which means that the
prices are pretty low. I'm not an NTL fan, and am watching carefully
now they've taken over, but I don't anticipate major issues.

That said, I think (if you don't want GPRS etc) the "Tesco Value" SIM
is probably the cheapest these days, and they use O2 that has better
coverage.

Tesco Value is 15p a minute, like Easymobile. The cheapest at the moment
without any minimum spend is probably T-mobile's new PAYG plan, which is
12p a minute to landlines and mobiles anytime. Tesco Extra is 10p a
minute, but requires a monthly top up of at least £15. However, if you
auto top-up, you get a discount of 10%, so 9p a minute for £13.50
top-up. It has GPRS too. Why people bother with contracts when PAYG
prices are that low, I really don't know. It's usually cheaper just to
buy a new phone at cost than to get one 'free' on a pricy contract plan.

--
David Horne- http://www.davidhorne.net
usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk
http://homepage.mac.com/davidhornecomposer http://soundjunction.org

I'm still thinking about exactly what I want to do, my Tmobile phone is
the ONLY model that won't work (nokia 6010), so our plan is to buy a
phone and order one of the "sim" top up cards in advance via ebay etc.,
then just pop the sim into an unlocked phone to use during our stay (2
weeks around London) then I guess I could sell the sim and remaining
minutes to somebody else. Maybe the phone too.

Any tips on a phone, we are thinking of sticking with Tmobile, which I
think means any triband.

Thanks, nice thread.