Mobile Network Comparison

Travelling around London on the Underground last week, a new advert from Vodafone really caught our eye. It offered unlimited data for the first three months of your contract to let you judge your normal usage before choosing which data tariff you want to go for.

You can see a similar in-store advert for yourself thanks to Mobile Industry Review. We love to see clever but simple thinking like this – it’s such a graceful and obvious solution to a common problem but so many of the major networks don’t want to make the effort to help their customers like this. Or, as Vodafone put it:

“Vodafone’s Data Test Drive is designed to give customers the confidence to experiment with their new phone on the UK’s best network, get to grips with its features and explore all the apps that are available for it”

The deal is currently not available on PAYG, just on new Vodafone contracts. For example you can buy the brand new Nokia Lumia 800 for just £36/month and this comes with 900 minutes, unlimited texts, 750MB data and, if you order fast, Vodafone will give you a £10 voucher each month for 6 month. But best of all, you get to qualify for the Data Test Drive for the first 3 months giving you unlimited data to measure your usage.

You have to have a smartphone to be able to try the Data Test Drive. However, it’s a great way of being better informed so you don’t waste money on a data allowance you don’t need or on expensive overage charges. On Vodafone going over by just 300MB a month can cost you an extra £120 a year so it’s great to be able to test things out before committing to a lengthy contract.

Of course, there are alternatives. Firstly, we’d urge you to look at Giffgaff instead. Not only do they offer by far the cheapest unlimited data offer at just £10/month, they also are a PAYG network so you’re not tied in for up to 24 months. You can change whenever you want and even their 20p/day data without a goodybag is fantastic value.

3 are another network with a great unlimited data offer on The One Plan. This comes with a massive 5000 3-to-3 minuts, 2000 any network minutes and 5000 texts – an allowance so huge you’re almost certain not to need to pay more than your £25/month fee. And, best of all, these offers from Giffgaff and 3 provide truly unlimited data unlike Vodafone who, like most networks, have hidden fair use restrictions. What’s more, they offer unlimited data for as long as you want, not just the first three months, negating the need to even test out your usage as you won’t ever have a limit.

Still, the 3 and Giffgaff plans aren’t for everyone and, if you’re planning on taking out a new Vodafone contract, the Test Drive offer might be exactly what you need to save money on your new tariff.

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Earlier this month, Giffgaff announced the details of their long awaited BlackBerry support. Finally, UK mobile phone users will be able to take advantage of push email, free BBM and BlackBerry internet services on the best value mobile network and completely free from the constraints of lengthy contracts. The service is due to launch on 8th December 2011. (edit: This was later delayed until 1st February 2012 for further testing).

Giffgaff’s intention to bring BlackBerry support to the network had been announced months and months ago but with the furious work to push out other projects such as data-only Gigabags, the amazing Hokey Cokey goodybag and data roaming it got left behind. Even worse than that, bringing BlackBerrys to Giffgaff actually got quietly delayed to 2012 at one point and it seemed nobody could be sure that it would actually ever happen. Thankfully for those of you constantly glued to your “CrackBerry” on other networks, they got past all the technical hitches and are currently in the final stages of user testing.

BlackBerry support will be offered through Giffgaff’s increasingly-maligned “Goodybag” architecture. It will be a monthly add-on (the name hasn’t been confirmed yet) and, at present, it must be bought with another goodybag. Giffgaff haven’t confirmed why this is yet but it may well be due to the technical restrictions of the Goodybag system.

Here’s the lowdown on all aspects of the new BlackBerry add-on:

How much will BlackBerry support cost?

In what must be the cheapest offer available anywhere in the country, BlackBerry support costs only £3 per month.

Do you have to buy another goodybag as well?

Yes, BlackBerry support only works with another goodybag.

Can you buy it while another goodybag is active?

Unfortunately no – the BlackBerry add-on must be bought at the same time as the goodybag.

Can you buy the BlackBerry add-on from your credit balance?

You can buy the BlackBerry add-on from either your credit balance or via a debit/credit card or even with an e-top-up voucher. You just have to make sure that you buy both the BlackBeryy add-on and the Giffgaff goodybag from the same payment source.

Is it possible to queue BlackBerry goodybags?

Yes, just like normal goodybags you can queue BlackBerry add-ons in advance so they activate automatically once your old one runs out.

What about roaming data?

Like all their other services, roaming data with BlackBerry on Giffgaff is a bargain. Even though they get charged for the data, Giffgaff is giving everyone 10MB for free every day!

Does it work with the Hokey Cokey goodybag?

Yes, you can activate a BlackBerry add-on with any goodybag. Hokey Cokey might not be ready for launch but will definitely be coming soon.

What are the data charges?

On any of the goodybags costing £10 or more, all data is included in your goodybag rate. However, the £5 Hokey Cokey and unlimited texts goodybags don’t include any data. These will have internet access charged at the standard PAYG data rates of 20p/day for a maximum of 20MB but all BBM and push email data will be completely free.

So what are you waiting for? If you’re paying over the odds on another network for your BlackBerry phone, now could be the perfect time to switch and start saving cash! Please let us know how you get on with BlackBerry on Giffgaff and if you have any questions we haven’t answered, let us know in the comments.

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A couple of months ago we reported on the T-Mobile rip-off tactics of secretly removing Lycamobile numbers from its inclusive package of voice minutes. Following up on that article, we can now reveal that T-Mobile erroneously list UK-based 07 mobile numbers that were originally issued by LycaMobile as “international” in order to allow their billing systems to charge customers extra.

Like 3, Vodafone and Orange, LycaMobile issue phone numbers on the 074 range (specifically the 07404 prefix code) and T-Mobile automatically charges customers for calls to these numbers even if they have minutes remaining. While some customers have managed to get one-off refunds by complaining and threatening to call Ofcom or CISAS, it seems this is an official T-Mobile policy that is here to stay regardless of its dubious legality.

T-Mobile have thankfully advised the full range of numbers that are not included in their allowances and have confirmed that the additional charges are specified in their Terms and Conditions of service:

07744	07755	07404	07405	074088	078931
075202	075594	075894	075895	075896	079112
075897	07609	07610	07621	07682	079118
077077	0782210	078228	078920	078921

Unfortunately this doesn’t fix the ethical issue of it being utterly unpractical for the average user to check whether a phone number is on the blacklist before dialling. Indeed, we would have thought that it would be a completely reasonable assumption to assume that all UK mobile numbers are allowed for inclusive minutes. The regulators have made it clear that mobile tariffs have to be transparent and nobody could claim that T-Mobile’s advertising about this is at all transparent. In any case, Ofcom, clearly indicate that “numbers 071 to 075 and 077 to 079 are UK mobile numbers”.

A potential solution if you are a Lycamobile user would be to try to request a PAC from another SIM and port in a non-074 number and see whether this addresses the issue. You could even use this opportunity to get a new personalised Gold phone number.

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