O2 Cuts Classic Pay-As-You-Go Mobile Charges to Match Three UK
Mobile operator O2 will tomorrow cut the charges on their Classic Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) SIM from 5p a min calls, 5p a text and 5p per Megabyte of data (Mobile Broadband) to just 3p a min for calls, 2p a text and 1p per MB, which matches Three UK’s allegedly “unbeatable” pricing.
However we should point out that O2 will still require a minimum top-up of £10, while Three UK drops this to just £5 if you top-up online or by phone. On top of that Three UK will also throw in 10MB of extra data each time you top up, although O2 does counter this by offering 5% credit per top-up back for the first 3 months (this rises to 10% after 6 months via their Rewards scheme).
As usual customers will still be able to buy a bundle of mins, texts and data instead of the classic charge per use approach, although the downside of this method is that the bundled allowances you get tend to expire after 30 days and that can often make the classic approach more attractive for casual users (especially if you don’t use much data).
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 and Linkedin.
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I’ve often wondered and maybe some others here can share some insight, how some of the MVNO providers can offer such great rates?
I use a provider called 1p mobile, the gimmick being that calls, texts and 1mb data are all 1p – they use the EE network, how can they offer this and EE themselves not?
I’m assuming they purchase excess EE capacity and in the event of greater than normal capacity demand, i’d end up being throttled / unable to make calls. Is this the case?
I think with 1pMobile you have to top-up with £10 every 4 months or they disconnect you.
Yes, but voice quality as well as internet speed are low.
Absolutely not – they have allocated capacity,
Any advantage to using O2 over ‘3’ just for payg, no data usage?. Better coverage, more free hotspots?. Got a Tesco vredit I need to use up, then the £10 ‘3’ top up I got with my new phone as well.
“Three UK will also throw in 10MB of extra data each time you top up”
Gives me 100 MB but I haven’t topped up in a while. Am I missing something?
I’ve been with O2 for 8 years and they never give me nothing. Come May next year I am leaving them because they never look after existing customers.
Three still wins, £5 a month is usually enough for me.
I left o2 yesterday after 9 years. They would not budge. I left. They are not good, three is cheaper. Coverage fine.
Three all the way.£5 min top up. Last me ages as i only use it for the Internet.
Three all the way. £5 top up online. Last ages.