EE UK Refresh Pay As You Go 5G Mobile Plans and Add Data Parachute Feature
Mobile and broadband provider EE (BT) has announced a “refresh” of their 30-day Pay As You Go (PAYG) mobile plans, which they say will give customers “greater value and more flexibility” (i.e. bigger mobile broadband data allowances), as well as access to the operator’s 5G network and a new ‘Data Parachute’ feature.
Previously EE’s 30-day PAYG plans started at about £9 to £10 per month (£9 for the ‘Saver’ option), which gave you 8GB of data, 500 minutes, a 25Mbps mobile broadband speed cap, unlimited texts and Data Rollover. The new plans have similar pricing, but £9-£10 will now get you 20GB of data, as well as some extras via a 1GB Data Parachute and Free Data boosts.
The Free Data boost feature will, much as the name implies, give you extra data added to your allowances every two plan purchases (with up to six total boosts). EE’s website specifically states that you’ll get an extra 2GB for every two 30-day plan purchases in a row.
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As for that Data Parachute feature, this automatically provides customers with 1GB of free data if they run out unexpectedly. “Data Parachute helps customers stay connected, whether to keep in touch with friends and loved ones or use Maps to get home, giving them a little extra breathing room until they can top up,” said EE.
| Pay As You Go Plans(10% discount available via Saver plans) | |||
| Plan | Data | Minutes | Texts |
| £10 | 20GB | 500 | Unlimited |
| £15 | 75GB | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| £20 | 150GB | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| £30 | 200GB | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| £35 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
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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I hate what these big telecoms companies have done to PAYG. Instead of just topping up £20 or whatever, they’ve turned it into a subscription service.. which is literally PAYM.
Makes sense in a way. They might not want the accounting hassles of having tons customer credit on their books. They will presumably have to pay licensing costs to their vendors based on number of active services.
What’s their business case for doing all that for someone who spends literally pennies per year, especially when it is likely that most PAYG customers are on a bundle. It’s still different to pay monthly in that there is no credit check, no commitment, and no debt to chase up. Anyone who makes more than a couple of phone calls a month is probably better off on a bundle anyway.
If the government really wanted to “sell” Digital ID, they would require all phone providers to offer a basic service for £0 with unlimited inbound calling, limited oubound calling (0800’s mostly) and enough data to operate digital ID and access government websites.
“Universal basic phone service”
Then many of the use cases for “true” PAYG will just go away.
Looking at the website still no eSIM for PAYG?
Just checked the EE website, all still come with a 25meg data cap so not great for smart phone users.
I’d say 25Mbps is more than enough for a smartphone user. A 4K Netflix film is ~15Mbps, for example.
What this isn’t good for is hotspot usage if you have multiple users connected or need to do heavy download, if you use it as a broadband replacement, or are a bit nerdy and want to check the top speeds in the area. But for smartphone use? I can’t think of anything that doesn’t work with 25Mbps.
it is all about data these days. I know someone who has a normal dumb phone and yet impossible to find PAYG or any other service that just offers text and voice.
So they had to get something for a fiver a month that had low data, but was good on text and voice.
I realise that most people have a smartphone these days, but not everyone.
25mb speed cap on 5g lol go to 1mobile you get more data and uncapped speeds
Its effectively no change, how does this make things cheaper for those who use less than the original cap? Its basically a marketing win that gives nothing to that set of customers.
It would be nice if ee/bt could sort out all the dead spots in Billericay that has been ongoing for many many years.
It should be 50 meg to compete with Threes offering at least.. Overall I’m happy with EE but I find streaming Apple Music a challenge sometimes on highest quality
Will PAYG customers have free access to EE WiFi hotspots ?
Used EE WiFi as my broadband for 7+ years with old BY Broadband accounts, not had any money put in over last 5 & 7 years, now FTTP with highland, they broke all my auto login methods maybe 9 months ago (new login flow)