Mobile Network Comparison

The brand-spanking new Samsung Galaxy SIII has been on sale in the UK since 29 May. The new Galaxy SIII has a gargantuan yet super-sharp 4.8-inch HD screen which is a complete treat to use. Samsung have also pulled out the stops to introduce a Siri-beating voice-command feature. One of the best features of the new SIII is the incredible 8MP camera and the latest Android software which is a vast improvement on anything iOS can offer. Top this all off with fantastic battery life and a blazingly fast processor and it’s clear this is a killer handset.

Is it an iPhone 4S-beater? Well, the reviews have been pretty unanimous: this is the best phone currently available anywhere in the world. But should you upgrade straight away and, more importantly, can you afford to? Now the dust has settled after the initial rush and frantic pre-order period, it’s time to sit back and take a more measured look.

For all of you who must have the latest and greatest mobile phone, we’ve scoured all the main mobile networks for all the fantastic deals currently available for the Galaxy SIII. By looking at different usage profiles, we’ve come up with the absolute best prices you can get on this incredible handset.

As ever, it’s worth doing the calculations properly. The cheapest monthly rate doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the cheapest deal if there’s a high one-off cost to buy a high-end phone such as this. Similarly, there’s no point thinking you’ve got a good deal by getting a “free” upgrade from your network when it would have been cheaper to buy it SIM-free and go with a lower-priced contract.

Total cost of ownership

The best way to seek out the actual best deals is to calculate the Total cost of ownership. This is simply the overall amount you’ll have to pay for a new Galaxy SIII taking account of the initial cost of the handset as well as the monthly price of the plan abd the length of the contract. Stated as a formula:

Total cost of ownership = cost_handset + cost_{monthly tariff} × t_{contract length}

As contracts usually have subsidised (or even free) handsets with pricier charges over the following months, this is the only way to fairly compare the available options. And with that out of the way, let’s begin.

The average Joe

Statistically, the average smartphone user needs about 250 minutes of call time along with about 250 texts and 250 MB of data allowance every month. At this level, there are lots of options but some are objectively better than others.

3 has a great deal on the Essential Internet 300 plan. You get 300 minutes, 5000 texts and 250 MB of data for £28/month plus a one-off charge of just £99. This makes a total over a 24 month contract of £771. For even better savings, you might want to consider T-Mobile with exactly the same bundle except you get unlimited texts instead of 5000 each month (not that there’s effectively much of a difference). This comes to just £704 over two years with a monthly rate of just £21 but an initial cost of £200 for the handset.

The light user

Light users might want to have a fancy phone but don’t want to waste money and won’t actually use up many minutes and texts. They often have access to free Wifi so they don’t need a huge mobile data allowance. It’s pretty hard to get good deal for light users on such a high-end handset but we’ve managed to dig a couple up.

O₂ can give you 200 minutes, unlimited texts and 100MB data for just £18.50/month. Adding in the handset cost of £250, this comes to a total over two years of just £694. You can do even better with T-Mobile though as they will give you 100 minutes, unlimited texts and 250MB of data for just £622 over two years. That’s only £15.50/month with the same initial cost of £250.

The internet addict

Many people nowadays use their smartphone as a second computer and with streaming video and audio easily available over high-speed mobile broadband, it’s easy to burn through a gigabyte or more of data every month. Especially with VoIP solutions like Skype and popular messaging programs like WhatsApp, a big data allowance can even replace having lots of texts and minutes. To cater for the internet addicts, we’ve come up with the best plans available with at least 1GB of monthly data.

3 have been offering unlimited data for years and have a great 3G network to cope with it. They’ll give you 500 minutes, 5000 texts and truly unlimited data for just £32/month. At this price band, the handset cost is only £29 making your two-year total £797. f you want to go PAYG it’s actually possible to save even more money with Giffgaff. Just buy the handset for £499, get a free SIM and a £10 goodybag every month and your total cost over two years will turn out to be just £740. You’ll get 250 minutes, as well as a very generous bundle of unlimited texts and data. T-Mobile can do a bit better as long as you don’t mind having a low SMS and call allowance. They’ll give you 50 minutes, 250 texts and a huge 1.5GB for only £21/month with a £200 one-off charge. This makes just £704 for the duration of a 24 month contract.

The extreme smartphone fiend

Power-users are glued to their phone for most of their waking hours. It’s not uncommon to need 500 minutes every month as well as hundreds of texts and at least 500MB of mobile internet. The hard thing is keeping the costs down but we’ve identified some ways of doing it.

O₂ will give you 600 minutes, unlimited texts and 500MB of data usage for £32 per month. With a one-off charge of £100, this makes a total of £868 over two years. 3 also have a great deal on their Ultimate Internet 500 plan: 500 minutes, 5000 texts and unlimited data for £32 per month as well. As the handset costs just £29, your two year total is only £797.

If you need more than 500 minutes, prices soon smash through the £1K mark for a 24 month contract. However, for the well-informed customers, a total cost of ownership calculation reveals a better option. PAYG with Giffgaff can be done by buying the phone outright for £499 then getting a free SIM and a £20 monthly goodybag. This gives you a chonking 800 minutes every month as well as unlimited texts and data and will only set you back a total of £980 over 24 months.

Final conclusion

So there you go. Before you buy a new Samsung Galaxy SIII, make sure you’re got all the information you need to make a good decision. It’s a shame Orange and Vodafone couldn’t compete with the other networks but the only way to fairly compare deals across the networks and between PAYG and contract is by looking at the total cost of ownership. Don’t be fooled by flashy offers of cheap monthly rates or free phones – make sure you run the numbers yourself (or leave a polite comment below asking us to look at a particular deal for you :)). We hope you’ve found this post useful and that you get the cheapest deal possible on your fab new phone.

We hope you enjoyed reading the first half of our interview with OVIVO Founder Dariush Zand. We’ve got the second part ready for you now which will cover the tariffs currently available, the amount of adverts you can expect to watch and thoughts for the future of the mobile industry and mobile internet in general.

When do you launch and how can users get started with you?

We launched on April 16th! Visitors to www.ovivomobile.com can sign up for £5.00 and they will receive their SIM card in 2 business days direct to their home address. They will receive that £5.00 as credit in their account for any call charges made outside of their free allowance.

We have two simple tariffs: Ovivo for Smartphones – 200 Any Network Minutes, 200 Texts, 512MB, Free Ovivo to Ovivo Calls and Texts. And then, Ovivo for Tablets and Mobile Broadband – 1GB Free Mobile Internet. You receive this free allowance EACH MONTH with NO MINIMUM To-up required!

Outside of the bundle charges are the cheapest in the UK – 6p per minute (standard rate calls and mobiles), text and megabyte. If you bring your mobile number to Ovivo, you will also receive a £5.00 bonus and through our Ovivo Rewards Facebook Application, you can recommend the service to your friends and earn reward points when they sign up. These can be exchanged for free credit, but we will be looking to offer special promotions in the future.

What sort of ratio of advert-viewing-to-free-service can we expect?

At present, you will see an ad break when browsing as soon as you accumulate 2MB of Data Usage or after 15 Minutes, whichever happens first. However, we don’t serve up these adverts if (for example) you are in the middle of a transaction on a website. We try to minimise the customer intrusion. We are of course fine tuning the experience as we go, but the key point is that as time goes by, the advertising will become more and more relevant, targeted and therefore of value to our customers.

What do you think the impact of 4G and the exponential rise of smartphones is going to be on data pricing and where do you see the network in five years?

Very interesting question! As a consumer myself, I welcome 4G/LTE and the general evolution of networks. As a former Technologist, the technology behind LTE will address a lot of the challenges networks face as a result of the Smartphone explosion (capacity constraints, battery consumption as a result of handing over between 3G and 2G, rollout constraints, etc.). From a commercial perspective, the opportunities are endless with 4G allowing carriers and MVNOs to deliver much more media rich advertising and applications that add even more value to the customer experience. It will take time though for its rollout but likely we will continue to see as a result, the steady decline of data pricing from a wholesale perspective, which in turn will allow Ovivo to continue providing lots of free usage each month and monetise our service through Mobile Advertising and Value Added Applications. Looking historically, the average spend of a mobile phone user hasn’t changed much in 20 years…the speed of the network has, the capabilities of the phone and the usage has sky-rocketed. This trend will continue.

So there you are – hopefully that answered some of your questions about OVIVO. However, we really want to get together with Dariush to ask him a bit more about the network so if you have any questions of your own, please post them in the comments section so we can ask OVIVO for you.

Last week we came across a rather novel new network called OVIVO. Just like Samba Mobile (who we recently interviewed), they claim to offer completely free mobile internet. However, they also go one step further by offering completely free calls and texts too.

How do they manage this you ask? Well, they are an advert-supported network. So, basically, they get paid to show you targeted ads and use this money to pay off your phone bill for you. Does it work? Well, that remains to be seen but they claim to offer you 200 minutes, 200 texts and 500 MB of data every month without you having to pay a penny. If you’re interested and want to know a little bit more, read on as we ask some questions to Dariush Zand, CEO and Founder of OVIVO Mobile.

Thanks for taking the time to talk with us today, first of all can you explain a little more about the genesis of the company and the ideas behind it?

We started Ovivo in September 2011, although I personally have been in the Telecommunications business since 1995 in broad range of roles and companies (sales, Marketing, Technology, Operators, Equipment Manufacturers, etc.). The key driver behind the business was to Innovate and drive change…a move away from the existing billing paradigm of carriers worldwide. We learned from studies such as this that a substantial amount of customers’ bundles are unused and with contract durations of over 18 months, the model does not favour the consumer. However changing this model and moving to a more Internet orientated model of providing service requires a careful, yet exciting approach. Hence Ovivo was born, to drive this change and achieve what to date the industry has viewed as not being possible. Our company identity and logo reflects this – an Ibis, carrying a Rhino on its head is achieving what most thought to believe as impossible! Not any more.

What can users expect from the adverts they have to view and how are you choosing advertisers?

Initially we are working with key Advertising Network Partners (Google, Bliss Media, Inmobi, Adfonic and Linking Mobile) to place relevant advertising for our target segments. As we grow, we will augment this with dedicated advertising campaigns and seek to deliver true added value to a highly consumable, yet cost conscious segment, the student market. Where we go from there, will include much more targeted profiling (Hyper local in some cases) and relevant to add value to customers and entice click through and conversions.

The MVNO market is incredibly competitive and saturated – apart from your pricing plan, how else are you going to distinguish yourselves and get the word out?

You’re quite right, it is a very saturated market with (at last count) 60+ MVNOs in the UK alone! Price is always a key differentiator, but we hope to attract our initial customers through the innovative nature of our brand, service and promise. With over 2.5m students in the UK, we have a substantial market opportunity to prove our model, drive further innovation and roll it out to the broader market.

This revenue model has been attempted many times before in other markets – why do you think it will work better now and in this particular niche?

We’ve been referred to as “The Ghost of Blyk” and “Blyk 2.0” on a number of occasions! I personally welcome the reference as Blyk were pioneers trying to do something in an industry where the market simply wasn’t ready, the value chain did not exist and the technology wasn’t available. Thanks to the Smartphone revolution, the Advertising Ecosystem and extensibility created by pioneers such as Google and Bliss, the Technology advancements of our Partners such as Moben International and the fact that we are now seeing the take-off or Mobile Advertising, the time is right for the Ad-funded MVNO. Why in this particular student Niche segment? Very simply, because we need to prove our model with the Consumers of tomorrow, where even though they may have cash constraints, they are perceived as extremely lucrative by brands looking to win their custom and raise awareness of their brand at an early point of their consumer lives.

What is your target market? How has adoption been so far and do you have growth forecasts?

Students today, extending through to general Smartphone users (those who want and buy the latest gadgets) and Visitors to the UK. Initial take-up and interest has been very promising, however, I can’t disclose actual figures or our growth forecasts at this stage as it is commercially confidential.

Hope that answered some of your questions. Check back in a few days the second part of the interview with Dariush. In the meantime, please subscribe to our RSS feed and follow us on Twitter so you’ll know when to check back.