Mobile Network Comparison

At the beginning of the month, Giffgaff finally started charging for mobile data. Because their pricing structure is quite complicated, we whipped up a handy graph to show how much it costs you to use PAYG data on Giffgaff:

Lots of people seemed to find this graph really useful but wanted to have a bit more context. Even more useful than knowing how much Giffgaff charge for data would be a comparative diagram showing how much all the mobile networks charge. So we went back to our spreadsheets and whipped up the following:

This is a graph showing the basic PAYG rates for data on all the main UK networks. With this, you can clearly see which networks are good value and which are rip-offs. And best of all, if you know your rough monthly usage, you can estimate how much mobile data is going to cost you on any network.

We’ve kept it as the basic tariff to allow for a fair comparison – of course, many networks have special booster deals for internet usage. Also, some networks even offer unlimited data but, bear in mind that even more don’t have truly all-you-can-eat mobile data offers.

As always, please leave any comments, corrections and suggestions in the comments below.

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To ensure that the site is always as up-to-date as possible, we’ve added nine more networks to our mobile coverage comparison table. This way you can always know in advance how good the signal and call quality is going to be before you switch to a new mobile provider. You can also compare the mobile coverage between all the mobile networks and even find out which network virtual networks run on. The new networks we added to our chart were Dayla Mobile, Delight Mobile, Dialog Vizz, GT Mobile, iCard Mobile, Kite Mobile, Now Mobile, Priyo Mobile and Stan Mobile.

We’ve recently been writing quite a bit about Ofcom’s 4G spectrum auction that will be held soon. Basically, Ofcom will sell off chunks of spectrum to whichever mobile network bids the most. As 4G is already a big buzzword and the future of telecommunications lies in high speed wireless access, Orange, O₂, Vodafone and the rest are likely to break the bank to ensure they get a decent portion. Despite their best efforts to keep costs down, the fact they are bidding against their direct commercial competitors means that Ofcom is due a big payday soon. This is claimed to be a good thing for the British public.

But perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned from the way the 3G spectrum was sold off here in the UK and elsewhere? Unlike here, in Sweden the 3G licenses were given away to the mobile companies absolutely free by their telecoms authority. Safeguards were put in place to ensure that the 3G infrastructure would cover the whole population, not just the lucrative densely-populated urban areas and that the successful companies actual had the will and means to install the masts and other hardware.

The idea was by saving money on an expensive bidding process, the telecoms companies could instead spend their cash on things that benefited them and their customers – advertising and installing the infrastructure. Largely because of this, 3G services have been much more commercially successful and more widely-adopted in Sweden than in the UK. As for the lost funds from giving away the radio spectrum to mobile networks free? Well, consumers pay tax on their phone bills which meant that the Swedish government was able to recoup much more money than they would have received for a one-off license.

If only Ofcom could be so thoughtful about the 4G spectrum sale here in the UK…