O2 UK Clarify Contradictory Claim of 5G Support on PAYG Plans
Mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media) has clarified to ISPreview that their Pay As You Go (PAYG) SIM plans still do NOT currently support their latest 5G (mobile broadband) network, which is despite the main product page for those plans being changed to state that customers will be able to “enjoy super-fast 4G and 5G with our Pay As You Go SIM cards.”
Some of ISPreview’s readers recently spotted (credits to hle13 and Lee) that the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section of O2’s Pay As You Go SIM (PAYG) plans page had been updated (we think, recently) to state that they now supported 5G. In response to the question “Can I get a 5G Pay As You Go SIM?“, O2’s web page stated: “Absolutely. Enjoy super-fast 4G and 5G with our Pay As You Go SIM cards.”
The move came as a surprise because other sections of O2’s website, such as their ‘How to use 5G’ section, were continuing to state that “5G connectivity is not currently available to our Pay As You Go customers,” which has long been our understanding too. Needless to say, we queried this contradiction with O2, albeit partly in the hope that the recent FAQ update might be signalling a welcome upgrade for PAYG customers. But sadly, it was not to be.
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A spokesperson for O2 told ISPreview: “We do not currently offer 5G on PAYG“. The operator now plans to correct their website.
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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Yet another ambiguous and contradictory statement from VMO2.
In July, CTO Jeanie York stated that “next year we’ll start work to move almost all remaining [human] traffic away from the 2G network…..unlike our 3G network, we won’t be turning 2G off completely”. Yes, you will – both 2G and 3G mobile services for O2 customers will be terminated next year. The 2G network will be reserved for emergency calls and data traffic for smart energy meters. The statement continues with a false reassurance that, “For most [4G] customers, these changes will happen seamlessly in the background, and they won’t notice any change”. Given the number of 4G phones not configured for 4G calling and those not on the O2 approved list, I predict “most customers” may well wake up next year with phones incapable of making calls or texts.
I can’t say much about this, but I know some providers intend to handle the situation very carefully and I’m hoping that O2 handles it a lot better than networks like Three did, leaving people without the ability to make calls or texts overnight.
Not sure what’s going to happen with the amount of 2G and/or 3G sites remaining though, they’ve got a lot to improve.
I used O2 Pay & Go as a 2nd line and one of the things that I noticed was the call quality on 2G and 3G was really poor, the 4G data speed on Pay & Go was also much slower than the 3G on other networks.
You would think O2 would offer 5G and good 4G speeds seeing as Pay & Go is entry level mobile and they’d like to keep people from leaving
Ambiguous, yes. Contradictory, not so much. 2G is not being switched off completely, it just won’t be accessible by O2 customers post update, which could be asking for trouble. I mean, have O2 activated VoLTE and WiFi calling for their own PAYG customers yet? According to their website the answer is still a no.
But they do offer 5G in their MVNO GiffGaff and probably other MVNO using their network.
Anyone looking to use 5G or 4G data from O2 away from large conurbations (PAYG or not) will be disappointed in how often they’ll have 3 or 4 bars of single strength and yet no way of extending their car parking stay. If O2 would spend some time in providing more data channels instead of wasting time on restricting PAYG users they might attract more of both
For me personally 5G is not all that anyway maybe in the next 1 – 2 years but every network regardless wether it is payg or paym should mandatory have wifi and 4g calling.
If you want 5G I’d say three and EE are best with testing
All the mobile providers now seem to be treating PAYS as some garbage quality tier, and lower priced monthly subs also not full quality.
However I find this in an odd stance, as ultimately if you providing PAYG customers with a heavily restricted service, the customer is less likely to upgrade to a more lucrative tier, indeed some people use PAYG to “try out a network”. Also PAYG is the most profitable in terms of usage, its harder to shift bytes on a slower connection, I can only assume they have decided to jump on the ARPU bandwagon.
So how do o2 virgin get away with all the misleading? where is ofcon ? where is trading standards etc?
slow2. what a joke man