VOXI Goes Live with Unlimited UK 5G Data At No Extra Cost
Mobile operator Vodafone UK has announced that customers of their sibling contract-free “youth brand” – VOXI – can now also access the new ultrafast 5G (mobile broadband) network, which will be offered “at no extra cost.” The operator also confirmed that their own Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) plans will be getting 5G “soon“.
As part of this announcement VOXI are offering their now 5G capable Endless Data plan alongside an introductory price of £30 per month until February 2020 (£35 thereafter). The plan also includes unlimited calls / minutes, “no contract” (technically there’s a 30 day minimum period) and of course EU roaming.
Vodafone’s 5G network is now live in busy parts of Birkenhead, Birmingham, Bolton, Bootle, Bristol, Cardiff, Droylsden, Eccles, Glasgow, Horwich, Huyton-With-Roby, Isles of Scilly, Lancaster, Liverpool, Llandudno, London, Manchester, Mangotsfield, Newbury, Paisley, Penarth, Plymouth, Prestwich, Salford, Solihull, Stoke-on-Trent, Stretford, Wallasey, Warrington and Wolverhampton.
The operator claims “you’ll get average speeds of up to 150-200Mbps and peak speeds of 1Gbps,” although mobile is a highly variable service and as such there will always be locations where you’ll struggle to achieve this.
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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If only they offered WiFi calling…
Have tried this across networks, don’t bother as it only really works with a WiFi service that has no other traffic on it – ie the service offers no QoS/QoE.
Vodafone need to pull their fingers out and get a move on upgrading 4G!
4G is getting really slow and most places are 3-5 years away from getting basic 5G coverage.
am seeing way over 70-80Mbps in most places, maybe your phone is locking itself on B20
@DanielM
Not an issue with my phone. I can get LTE+ if I’m in one of the few places that has it. Had 165Mbps the other day at services on the M5. Problem is Vodafone have not deployed LTE+ widely so most of the country is stuck with 4G on just 10MHZ bandwidth in Band 20. So per cell capacity is 75Mbps at best. Typical speeds are 2-5Mbps in these areas.
100% I commute to Birmingham for work and they’re seemingly unable to pull 4G and barely 3G on the train over or at Five Ways station not far from work. And even walking round the centre of Wolverhampton (one of their 5G cities) I’ve seen drops to 2G during calls.
I am new to Vodafone, having switched from Three in August, and at least in Central London the service is amazing. The slowest that I’ve seen is 50mb down, although it is true that signal is a bit weak north of Stocwell but other than that the service is amazing, with peaks of just over 300mb down and 70 down (with an iPhone 11 Pro). Also noticed a massive difference in Heathrow and Stansted airports, where Three was basically useless.
Things might be different outside the M25 though.
Anybody know what the EU fair use policy is for unlimited data? Had a look on their website but couldn’t see it.
It’s unlimited EXCEPT tethering or dedicated router use. Check Acceptable Use on their T&Cs page.
I’ve tried to obtain a VOXI SIM several times and their website form seems to be totally broken and submit fails to do anything. For me, it doesnt work on macOS (Chrome or Safari). So far I havent found a way to contact their support or alternative way to request. Has anybody actually managed to request and subsequently received a VOXI SIM?
Worked for me just now. Drop @VOXI_UK a DM on Twitter and they’ll give you a hand. Seems to be a UK-based team and very helpful.
Thanks Olly. It occurred to me that I hadnt tried on my phone and when doing so, their website was far easier to navigate and I found the help contacts. Now sorted and SIM on the way.
In case nobody else has noticed or pointed out, VOXI’s standard (metered) data plans are currently unlimited too. No extra charge. They sent an SMS on 2nd October that read:
“Hi, we’re making some technical updates to our plans so to make sure you’re not impacted, we’ve temporarily switched you over to completely unlimited data. To make sure your unlimited data is activated, just restart your device. We’ll text you to let you know when everything is back to normal. Thanks, VOXI.”
A quick check of their forum shows a plethora of complaints from users getting data deducted for browsing social media sites, which of course, is intended to be “limitless” and excluded from data allowance. There’s no chance of permanently resolving this (think about how many IPs and domain names the social media networks (and related ad networks) use!) but hopefully VOXI can improve the calculation of data for customers on lower data plans.
Interestingly, since September my data usage in VOXI portal has showed 0GB but I’ve legitimately used 5GB, so I suspect they’ve been working on this for a while.
If they can’t resolve the data issue, do you think the ‘temporary’ unlimited might become permanent by default?
Can anyone confirm whether VOXI allows WhatsApp, Skype and Hangouts to be used in their “unlimited” Social Media category, please?
I don’t even recognise all the icons they show, WhatsApp seems to be there, but neither Hangouts nor Skype were shown last time I looked (and it made me wonder whether Facebook did a deal so Hangouts and Skype are blocked.
Who “owns” Twitter these days, by the way?
Video calls are not classed as social media. Though it’s possible to video call on WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Viber etc, video calls are easily identifiable due to the protocol used, and therefore billed from your data allowance. Similarly, since Hangouts and Skype emphasize video calls, those not free and billed from your data allowance.
Got this sim in a 5G router – see how long that lasts!
What 5G router did you use? My voxi sim doesn’t work in my Huawei CPE pro. Works in my 4G router tho. Strange!