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PAYG SIM with good per-MB rate

We have three phones on RWG. Credit never expires. If you don't buy a bundle it works as pure PAYG which is 5p/min, 5p/SMS, 1p/MB. Until the end of July they're doing double-credit: 2.5p/min, 2.5p/SMS, 0.5p/MB

I also do much the same thing - everyday RWG dumb phone for calls/SMS and I have a smart phone for maps/bus times/email. The smart phone is on iD Mobile PAYG which is 1P/MB. Credit expires after a year. I spend £5pa. Typically use 20MB of data on a trip.
I saw the double credit offer too but the reason I'm slightly hesitant to go with RWG is that it doesn't have access to all bands and no VOLTE or VO WiFi from what I can see. The fact that credit never expires looks good though. Can you order a PAYG SIM for free?



As I said earlier in the thread I have considered iD but I just can't see how to get hold of an iD PAYG SIM as there's no obvious order form on their website from what I can find. Could you let me know how you got hold of yours?
 
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I don't personally ever use 200mins myself, usually not even 1 😂
I think i average about 400min on personal, will see what i get on my work bill when the first comes through.
 
I Can you order a PAYG SIM for free?

As I said earlier in the thread I have considered iD but I just can't see how to get hold of an iD PAYG SIM as there's no obvious order form on their website from what I can find. Could you let me know how you got hold of yours?

Free RWG SIM

iD Mobile. Get a one month contract, cancel, it gets switched to PAYG. There may be a cheaper way of getting a PAYG SIM, I got one by accident...

Years ago we wanted a house mobile so I got a month contract with iD Mobile (£5 back then) but soon realised 1p Mobile would suit us better so I didn't continue. iD Mobile switched it to PAYG and for a long time it had no credit. They could have reclaimed the number and shut it down due to lack of use. I then decided to use the SIM in a smart phone and put a fiver credit on each year, I only get through around £3.
 
Spusu 1 Special - Actually does unlimited data too if you read the T&Cs at a reduced speed. wont be left high and dry. Support is very good to if you need to get involved.
 
Thanks for all the helpful suggestions, just thought I'd share a quick update as to where we are now:



• Sadly it seems like it's important this phone can make decent quality calls as well as have a good data connection. I'd personally have been fine with an option like spusu (in fact I signed up to their £1 for 5 GB offer to try them out and got great 5G speeds), but as it's not me making all these decisions sadly it looks like providers on a network without 3G (Vodafone/EE right now) that have no VOLTE support are now out of the question (Now Mobile, RWG, Talk Home), and similarly that providers that have no HD voice support whatsoever (e.g. spusu) are also off the list.



• CMLink looked like a great deal to me but unfortunately it's looking like the relative in question would rather not be getting their mobile services from a Chinese company who's website is partly in Chinese. If it was up to me I'd likely go for this as it's on the EE Core network just like other MVNO's like 1P and it has HD voice, VOLTE and VO WiFi as well so would be almost perfect for this use case. But sadly I think getting them to tick the "I'm happy for my data to be transferred to China" check box would prove difficult. However I'll keep it in mind if a use case for it comes up in the future.



• So I'm starting to look again at 1P dispite the minimum spend requirement. Is it as simple as £10 every 3 months, or is there also a requirement of £2.50 minimum every month with a fee being deducted if you fail to meet this?



• I'm also now starting to look again at iD, although I think that's less likely as Three is very weak and slow in the location, although it does still get data throughput there (albeit only about 3 MBPS) so is just about also a possibility. But it does have VOLTE, VO WiFi and the 1p/MB rate hence why I'm considering it.



I appreciate that finding the 'perfect offer' is getting pretty hard now, but please do post any PAYG offers you think might suit, particularly those that are:

• On EE or vodafone or one of their MVNO's

• Support HD voice, VO WiFi and VOLTE

• Have a relatively low per-MB rate (10p per MB is too high)

Or maybe alternatively we could get a monthly contract with a very low price. I looked at Lebara via MSE and this looks good in the medium term but I'd need to be re-doing this when the promotional rate expired and would like this to run with little or no intervention once set up if possible.

Again, I've really appreciated all the help on this so far.
 
Sorry to come back to this old thread, but we're still deciding on this as we're going to set it up later this month.

The options I have seriously considered are:

spusu - Looked good to me, but sadly is off the list now as descent call qualtion is sadly a must and from my own testing on the 5GB £1 plan it's really not the best (although data speeds were quite good though).



1P - This seemed like the best option, but with the recent announcement of the minimum spend being increased to £10 every 60 days this now means we'd be paying just over £60/year and I think we can get cheaper options as the person we're setting this up for is a pretty low data user. I'm still considering the £48/year plan for 500 MB per month, but there are definitely cheaper offers elsewhere.



CMLink - This seemed like great value at £18/year, but it seems like there's some resistance to ticking the "I agree for my data to be stored in China" box. I would've been happy to give it a try as it runs on EE's IMS and my data's likely stored in China anyway, but sadly this isn't my decision.



O2 direct - This seemed too expensive even via Uswitch given our requirements, but the plan that was posted here today for 1GB for £2.99 seems to be a perfect fit so I'm looking into it more now. I wouldn't use O2 for my main line, but data doesn't really need to be fast on this phone, it just needs to work. I'll be trying to do some more comprehensive testing with O2 in the area (the only difficulty is deprioritisation on giffgaff and roaming eSIM's so me not being able to get accurate readings. But again, speed isn't really the issue it just needs to be able to load Google Maps etc really). We are also in an O2 host area.

So its now really between 1P £48/year or O2 £2.99/month with a price increase in April (albeit small as this would be a percentage of the current price). Options with a top-up up front were prefered but with such a low monthly price I can't really look past this.

Does anybody have any real world experiences on whether 1P is worth the extra money and smaller data, or whether O2 would be fine for this use case? It definitely ticks the box for calls as even O2 2G calls would likely be better than spusu calls via VOLTE.
 
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Talk Home also do 1p per call/text/MB but there's no minimum spend unlike 1p Mobile.

Also 3GB, unlimted calls and texts which is 1p/month for 3 months: https://talkhome.co.uk/sim-only-deals/offer/192
That looked good and I did check them out in July as well, the only problem I can see is that they don't do VOLTE which may mean bad quality calls or even the phone failing to drop back to 2G for call, as EE have switched off 3G. WiFi Calling would also be helpful as the phone will be used in a house with little signal. So its a good thought but sadly I don't think it will be suitable in this case.
 
Or maybe alternatively we could get a monthly contract with a very low price. I looked at Lebara via MSE and this looks good in the medium term but I'd need to be re-doing this when the promotional rate expired and would like this to run with little or no intervention once set up if possible.
The thing is that Lebara made it so you can now order any offer on the same account, so it can take only a minute to order a new deal after the 6-7 month discount period, like 12GB for £1.

O2 1GB for £2.99 is a good choice for a long term price though.
 
That looked good and I did check them out in July as well, the only problem I can see is that they don't do VOLTE which may mean bad quality calls or even the phone failing to drop back to 2G for call, as EE have switched off 3G. WiFi Calling would also be helpful as the phone will be used in a house with little signal. So its a good thought but sadly I don't think it will be suitable in this case.
You litterally want your cake and to eat it.

There are cheap, decent, reliable deals out there that work fine, like Spusu, Talk Home, RWG or O2 Classic. Yes it won't be HD Voice, but you call a landline/company and there's no HD Voice anyway, so it doesn't even matter.

If HD Voice is absolutely critical, I'm sorry but you're going to have to pay for it. 1p is probably the best deal right now for the maximum service at the lowest price but there are minimum topup requirements. Otherwise ASDA Mobile's £4 talk and text plan maybe (or Lebara's £3.90 1GB although not fully unlimited). O2 £2.99 is getting there too - but you must take into account the price rise in April is baked into the contract.
 
That looked good and I did check them out in July as well, the only problem I can see is that they don't do VOLTE which may mean bad quality calls or even the phone failing to drop back to 2G for call, as EE have switched off 3G. WiFi Calling would also be helpful as the phone will be used in a house with little signal. So its a good thought but sadly I don't think it will be suitable in this case.
Asda mobile or 1p are your options.
Vodafone has HD Voice over 2G aswell as VoLTE
 
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I've just renewed our house mobile with RWG on a prepaid plan that works out £1.85 per month for 250 mins, 250 SMS, 2GB data each month.

If the phone ever goes over the allowance one month it would switch to PAYG using the credit balance which is 2.5p/min, 2.5p/SMS, 0.5p/MB - this is half their advertised price as twice a year they run a double-your-top-up. Or we could add a £3 30 day bundle for 1000 mins and 1000 SMS - note: you can buy a bundle out of your credit balance so that is effectively £1.50.

Plan is a two year Buy-and-Forget £50 but 10% off plans this month.

We each have personal mobiles on an old free plan - 50 mins, 50 SMS, 250MB data per month. The personal mobiles have a fiver credit each (200 mins) - RWG credit never expires.
 
The thing is that Lebara made it so you can now order any offer on the same account, so it can take only a minute to order a new deal after the 6-7 month discount period, like 12GB for £1.

O2 1GB for £2.99 is a good choice for a long term price though.
Is it now possible to order a new promotional plan on an existing Lebara number?
 
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