Mobile Network Comparison

Ever wish you could save loads of money with a better mobile deal and make a difference at the same time? With The People’s Operator, UK mobile users can do just that and there’s no better time to get involved that now as they have just launched their new “Unlimited Deal”. Could this be the best offer currently on the market? In what must be a UK first, they are currently offering completely unlimited calls, texts and data – unlimited everything for just £14.99/month.

TPO have turned talking into a force for good by building a network that’s hardwired to support charity causes, converting its calls, text and data into donations – at no cost to its customers. They direct 10% of your monthly mobile bill to a cause or charity of your choice. It costs you nothing extra and is a great way to do your bit. Add to that the massive value of the Unlimited Deal and a responsible approach to running their business and you’ve got a new kind of mobile offer to be reckoned with.

How do they manage to do this without taking extra from your bank balance? They promise to match their fundraising ambitions with customer value and, like Giffgaff, they do this by cutting back on unnecessary overheads and flashy advertising. So while you won’t find them yelling at you from giant billboards or assaulting you on the high-street dressed as massive rubber phones, you will find their deals are better than the big guys. Which means you get better value on your minutes, messages and megabytes and also make it really easy to help the charity you care about the most.

At the moment, TPO are offering both a PAYG tariff as well as a monthly SIM-only rolling contract. But it’s their brand new Unlimited Everything 30 day rolling contract that has caught our attention. It’s a great new package – offering unlimited Talk, Text and Data for just £14.99. Plus while you’re chatting away, you can choose to support a good cause for free – if you have a charity you’d like to help, TPO will give 10p to a cause of your choice for every £1 you spend at no cost to you. There is a fair usage policy but it’s incredibly generous for the money and, with the fantastic low price of £14.99 and the added bonus of helping good causes for free, it’s ridiculously tempting.

TPO say that good business isn’t about making gestures, it’s about having a positive impact. That’s why they’ve built their network from the bottom up to do business right. Their customers come before shareholders and – as well as pledging 10% for customer who want to do their bit – they’re also committed to sharing a quarter of their profits every year with worthwhile causes through the TPO Foundation.

If your existing network is letting you down, or you simply want a change, switching over to the network is very easy indeed and you can keep your existing phone number. TPO also runs on EE, the UK’s largest 3G network, so you get excellent coverage across the country.

So, if you’re interested making the leap over to The People’s Operator and “turning your calls into kindness” why not grab their Unlimited Everything Package today while it’s still available (the offer ends on 5 November).

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Three Mobile have recently announced more details about the rollout of their forthcoming 4G mobile internet services. Although they are the last network in the UK to announce the full details of their plans, they have now confirmed which regions will receive 4G signal this year.

The rollout has been pencilled in for the latter half of 2013 for a while, but is only just now that we’re getting a clearer timeframe. Three have announced that, initially, only four cities will be able to use their superfast 4G service. These will be Birmingham, London, Manchester and, perhaps the surprise of the bunch, Reading.

These regions have clearly been chosen for a couple of reasons. Firstly they are all among the largest cities in the country and secondly they are all sprawling conurbations that also cover other highly-populated metropolitan areas. So, for example, people living in places such as Dudley, Alden, West Bromwich and Wolverhampton will also benefit from the 4G signal being broadcast in these areas.

Don’t worry if you don’t live in any of these regions though – Three have promised that they will up the pace of their rollout next year. There will be even more cities receiving high-speed 4G signal by the end of 2014. In fact, if you include smaller areas covered already by Birmingham, London Manchester and Reading this will bring the total to fifty. The cities that will be added next year are the following:

Aberdeen, Blackpool, Bolton, Bournemouth, Bradford, Brighton, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Coventry, Derby, Dundee, Edinburgh, Exeter, Glasgow, Gloucester, Huddersfield, Ipswich, Kingston Upon Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Luton, Milton Keynes, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Northampton, Norwich, Nottingham, Oxford, Peterborough, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Preston, Sheffield, Slough, Southampton, Southend On Sea, Stoke On Trent, Stockport, Swindon, Watford and York.

Three’s long-term plan is to have 98% of the UK population covered with 4G signal by the end of 2015. It has been a frustrating time as consumers have patiently waited for 4G to hit our shores. Thankfully, now all the rigmarole with the Ofcom auction is long behind us and it’s just up to the networks to get all the infrastructure in place to be turned on as soon as possible.

Some will wonder what is taking everyone so long since EE have had a working 4G signal for what is coming up to a year now and are in the middle of adding vast swathes of the country to their current regions. For those who don’t live inside some of the larger cities in the country, it will be far from reassuring to hear that it may be until the end of 2015 before they have any decent coverage.

After all, most Western European countries and the US as well as plenty of places in Asia have been using their high-speed 4G services for some time now. In these places, it has become the exception not to have 4G service and many couldn’t imagine going back to flaky, laggy 3G speeds. After all, Three have done little to explain why it’s going to take several years simply turn on a few cell towers and network switches. Even if they have to construct new antennae, it should not be such a laborious process.

Three is not the only network that is dragging its heels with its 4G rollout. We were disappointed to hear that even O₂ and Vodafone don’t seem to be planning to prioritise this service. Both of their 4G services were activated at the end of August but their timescale for the rollout to large-scale regions seems to be on the order of years rather than weeks or months.

One can wonder whether this might be due to the increased costs 4G networks are facing due to the high bandwidth requirements of their customers, but even this conspiracy theory seems a little bit far-fetched. Still, at the end of the day, it is only customers who are losing out by this increasingly drawn-out process.

Even worse are the omissions on the list of cities due to get their 4G capability. After all, while it may seem impressive to have 50 cities covered by the end of 2014, no mention is made of the places that aren’t going to be covered. It seems a little bit absurd that massive cities such as Edinburgh, Swansea, Bath, and Worcester still won’t be covered even by the end of next year. Surely all the people who live in these areas that won’t have the option to use Three for their 4G coverage will feel that is a bit of an oversight that they have been left out?

At least Three is doing something right about its new 4G service. They are the only network who have announced that they will not be charging a premium for people who want to take up their offer. All the other networks have simply seen 4G as a way to squeeze more money out of their long-suffering customers. Instead, Three appear to be seeing it as a way to distinguish their service.

In fact, Three are traditionally one of the most internet-friendly mobile networks in the era of increasingly strict monthly data caps and bans on mobile tethering. They have long offered truly unlimited data plans and many other tariffs and stand by their word by not disconnecting even the customers with the heaviest usage.

We can only applaud this forward-thinking customer service as it makes those attempting to restrict people’s use of their mobiles appear to be simple Luddites in comparison. It it sheer madness not to realise that we will become ever more reliant on mobile data in the future and that attempting to hold people back by imposing artificial restrictions simply to save a few pennies in the short-term is damaging to all of us.

In light of this, we can see another positive to Three’s 4G offering despite the delays. As well as pledging not charge extra for fast Internet access, the company have also made it clear that they’ll be offering unlimited tariffs so youcan really make the most of your high-speed Internet connection. EE’s incredibly low data allowances have been harshly criticised as being about as useful as a chocolate teapot since the greater bandwidth offered by 4G means it is possible to burn through months worth of internet in just a few minutes. Critics have argued that there is no point having fast internet if you only end up being up to use it less as a result.

Do you live in any of the regions that will be seeing Three’s 4G service by the end of the year? Or have you tried 4G mobile Internet from one of the other network operators? You think is worth paying any extra money for or are you happy with 3G on your mobile? And you can choose any of the networks to be your 4G provider who would you choose and why?

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Three Mobile are rolling out a brand-new scheme to help you save money when using your mobile abroad. Called Feel At Home, the new deal completely abolishes all roaming fees you would usually have to pay when travelling in a select few foreign countries.

We’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve heard of mammoth bills caused by overseas roaming charges. Even within the EU, it is easy to run up £100s in a few hours browsing the internet and even a quick call to loved ones back home can cost more than your hotel room for the night. Things are often an order of magnitude worse if you’re visiting countries not in Europe.

Most of us are aware that when we go on holiday, we will be restricted to communicating with people back home during infrequent visits to desperately-slow internet cafés. While this means that we can really concentrate on relaxing and enjoying ourselves while we are away from home, sometimes emergencies can crop up. And this can mean that you urgently need to get in touch with people back in Blighty. Or, if you’re away for a really long trip, it’s definitely nice to be to call your significant other for a quick chat or check in with your folks.

Previously the prices have been exorbitant and completely unaffordable but Three’s new deal will make a difference, at least for a few destinations. When you’re travelling in Austria, Australia, Denmark, Hong Kong, Italy, the Republic of Ireland or Sweden you only have to pay the normal UK rates for making calls, sending texts or even browsing the web with your mobile data connection. Presumably these particular countries have made the list because Three’s parent company – Hutchison Whampoa – have business relationships with the operators existing there and have worked out some sort of deal.

Even better, if you have an inclusive allowances that provide a certain amount of minutes, texts or megabytes of data, these will still be usable when you roaming. So when you’re on holiday, you can use up your monthly allowance that would otherwise end up going to waste. And with many Three Mobile tariffs including unlimited data, the possibility of saving huge amount of money on roaming internet access are huge.

The only thing you have to look out for is that the offer only includes calling and texting UK numbers back home. You can’t make roaming calls to other countries or even the local country you are currently travelling in. Even so, there is nothing to complain about and it’s a great deal for all Three Mobile customers. Best of all, you don’t even have to do anything to activate the offer. You will be opted in automatically and will start saving as soon as your phone starts roaming on a network in any of the countries that are included.

We think this is great news as, traditionally, roaming charges have hit consumers’ wallets hard. Most the time, the mobile networks have done little to make this any better and have happily pocketed profits they’ve been making. Now, it’s almost worth picking up a Three Mobile PAYG SIM if you’re going away to one of the countries listed for about a couple of weeks.

Once again, it’s been down to Three to pioneer a new way of doing things that puts customers first. We can only hope that this hots up the competition for overseas roaming and that we see other networks follow suit with their own alternative offers to help you save money. Were also certainly interested in seeing which countries to the sized at next to the Feel At Home plan.

Did you use your mobile much last time you away on holiday? What’s the most expensive roaming bill you have ever been hit with? And what do you think of this new offer – will you be using it and do you think that the other networks will follow suit soon?

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