O2 UK Reduce Flexibility to Swap Your Phone After 90 Days, Now it’s 11 Months
Customers of mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media), specifically those with the ‘Switch Up‘ service on their plan that gives you the flexibility to swap your Smartphone after 90 days (without having to pay off your contract), have recently been informed that the operator will shortly extend this period to 11 months.
The change wasn’t mentioned to us when we queried last week’s somewhat controversial change to O2’s annual price rise policy (here and here), but customers with the add-on did later receive the following notification as part of that price change: “On 22 January 2026, O2 Switch Up will be changing from a 90-day cycle to an 11-month cycle. This means you can switch to a new device every 11 months.”
In fairness, the old 90-day period, which is currently still being widely advertised on O2’s website despite the impending change, always seemed to be an economically challenging feature to deliver and one that many customers probably wouldn’t use within such a short period of time (although a fair few do). On the other hand, changing the period to 11 months does make it more akin to just being an annual contract.
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As we understand it from O2’s community agent (here), the change means that if, for example, somebody Switches Up their device tomorrow (1st November 2025) then, as the 90-day rule will still apply, they’d be able to Switch Up again on 1st February 2026. But after that last switch, the period would be changed to 11 months. Credits to forum member meritez for spotting this change (here).
A spokesperson for O2 told ISPreview:
“We’re continuing to offer Switch Up, allowing eligible O2 customers to ‘switch up’ every 11 months instead of every 90 days. This aligns more closely with how the majority of customers are already using Switch Up, and will help to reduce the number of minimally used handsets in circulation, supporting our sustainability goals.”
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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It’s time people stopped being phone snobs wanting the latest & greatest phone with features that I guess the majority of customers never use. Perfectly serviceable smart phones are available on Amazon for £100 or less and find a decent MVNO rolling 1 month contract that works perfectly well for most people. I’m afraid the mobile phone operators see these people coming.
Depends on needs and wants.
Those dirt cheap phones wouldn’t suit me as they’re usually either missing features I want (and use) and/or have shorter update cycles compared to more expensive alternatives (buy cheap, buy twice).
Try and keep that £100 plastic thing as long as an iPhone, which can last for eight years. You’re in a false economy, not to mention an environmental disaster.
I change my Iphone every 4-5 years thankyou very much
And I have been on a 1 month contract for 10+ years
@Simon 4-5 years is not the latest & greatest, so you’ve made my point precisely.
I’m not being funny but it is generally a better experience if you either just splurge out or just get an older flagship and keep it for a few years. It’s honestly not worth upgrading every year, but touching budget phones also aren’t a great idea with the amounts of pre installed bloat you can get (granted it still happens on flagships), they don’t really get a lot of updates, possible that they’ll slow down sooner than others etc. I believe I also have heard that people tend to hold on to budget phones for a shorter amount of time?
I’m rocking a Pixel 6 Pro (bought a year and a half ago) and other than some weird mobile network quirks (and weird restrictions from Google), it works perfectly fine and still has updates for another year.
I know it’s just my bubble but I don’t know anybody who upgrades every year anymore. There used to be big year on year improvements with each new release but now phones have basically reached their final form. The annual refreshes bring just small incremental improvements – so what’s the point until the battery dies? It’s true of a lot of tech. I think AI has some potential. I would upgrade, pre-battery death, if I could ask my phone to do stuff using the installed apps and it actually did it and it did it using on device models so no surveillance. Siri is very limited right now.
@Big Dave, well said, I bet the majority of people with a expensive phone does nothing more than look at a few sites, may take the odd photo or video, watch a video, maybe and use a few apps.
@tech3475, what do you do that you need to update your phone every few months? As for updates, some of them depending on what you get will update for 3 years and more with security patches. My Oppo, while the OS have not been updated for a couple of years, last year was the last year of security updates, so almost four years, not bad for a £130 odd phone. It is now over 4 years old and have a couple of problems, mainly the front camera and some stability issue.
I think it is a total waste of resources, sure some of the phones may be sold as used, but to be honest, I would not want a used phone, unless I really had to.
@Kyle, my Oppo is over 4 years old, started having problems a few months ago, that is plastic, but you put them in a case. A friend has the same phone, more or less the same age, she got it after I showed her what I have got, her partner, got a cheaper Oppo, nearly a year old I think, fine for what he needs.
I did think about getting a Iphone to replace mine, but £500 for the cheapest one is still crazy money for a phone. Will no doubt go for another Oppo.
Big Dave is correct, it is phone snobbery for a lot of people.
@insertfloppydiskhere, have you looked at a budget phone lately? My Oppo have no bloat, in fact the UI is more or less vanilla Android, I have had a look at some cheaper Motorola’s, and they seemed to be the same. TCL, again, vanilla Android.
It is Samsung, that used to have bloat on their phones and still have a strange UI, but they are better than they used to be.
The problem with phones now, certainly Pixel, Samsung and some of the higher end one is they shove AI rubbish onto them
This seems to be a material change to the agreement, effectively ending the old service (90 days) and bringing I a new one (11 months), not just changing the date range a little on the existing offering…
Has there been some kind of leadership change, at this company? I think they want to quickly become the most known telco for rinsing their own customers.
Every customer has the option to walk following the recent announcement, and why wouldn’t they, given the uncertainty of the inevitable new contract change of the week?
Thing is phones last longer these days, still I dont agree with this because it defeats the original idea of switchup which was not having to wait to upgrade. I personally see a mass exodus of O2 customers.
@Ad47uk
Did you mean “upgrade” when you said “update” in the first sentence? If so, no I don’t. My post was aimed more at the ‘budget phone’ comment and given I list software updates as a reason I don’t know why you’d think I’d replace my phone every few months.
I fact my S23 Ultra was already superseded by the S24 when I bought it on sale.
Motorola is IMO bad in this regard as they only promise 2-3 years of software updates, despite otherwise decent hardware. I’d rather pay that bit more on a device if it promises longer update support length.
There are also other factors, for example, I want native HDMI support which comes in handy every now and then, hence why budget phones are not always suitable for me, again ‘needs and wants’ as I know for a fact that there are people who don’t need features like this, hence why I bought/gifted budget phones for family.