Data useage on mobile contracts

[Bruce123]

My 12 month SIM-only deal from T-Mobile has come to an end and I was looking at other options. It's amazing what you can get for £5 or £7 a month.

 

I notice Virgin mobile do a VIP deal £15/month unlimited minutes, unlimited texts, unlimited data.

 

I wanted to see what unlimited data meant and came across this hidden away in their terms and conditions

 

Unlimited mobile internet is subject to a fair use allowance of 1GB per month. If your usage exceeds this amount then we reserve the right to charge you for the excessive element of your usage at the daily rate for your tariff outlined in our Tariff Table. Unlimited use is within the UK and is for your personal, non-commercial use only. It doesn't include making internet phone or video calls, peer to peer file sharing, using your phone as a modem, or while you are abroad and any of these uses will be charged at the daily rate for your tariff outlined in our Tariff Table.

 

Does Unlimited really mean 1GB per month? I hardly call this unlimited when other providers such as T-Mobile have 3GB/month (which they don't claim to be Unlimited).

 

To make matters even worse they have other SIM-only deals with "1GB Data" (not called "Unlimited Data"). So here we have 1GB Data and Unlimited Data, whereas it appears they are both infact the same data plan????

 

Surely this cannot be legal under Trades Descriptions?

 

Bruce.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Bruce123

[Jobos]

Virgin always sail close to the wind and their data usage caps are shocking.

[Arthur]

Surely this cannot be legal under Trades Descriptions?

Is it perfectly legal.

 

It's allowed because the British Advertising Standards Authority says so. The ASA's official stance, as set out by the Committee of Advertising Practice, is thus:

 

"It should be acceptable to describe an aspect of a service as 'unlimited' (e.g. 'for just £12 a month you can make unlimited calls to numbers beginning 01 and 02') despite the existence of a fair-use policy, which is invoked to prevent misuse of the service, providing the policy's existence is stated in the ad."

 

Basically, as long as you mention your "unlimited" service has an enforceable limitation, you're okay to advertise it as having no limit, and the ASA has ruled as such. (Source)

 

I'm with GiffGaff at the moment and even though they have tariffs with "unlimited" data, unlimited actually means a limit of 1GB per hour.

[twin--turbo]

I would forward that one to WATCHDOG, that realy is a very misleading package.

 

I only have 500MB which I dont usualy get close to except on holiday when I teather the tablet or laptop.

 

Rob

[teejay]

I have a £15 pm SIM only with Three, true unlimited data and allows tethering. I'm seriously considering ditching my home broadband as even though it's supposedly FTC I get a more reliable connection through my mobile, especially at peak times.

[vikpaw]

In the old days the fair usage only kicked in if you abused it a lot. It was to give them the option to reign you in, whereas the 1Gb package will defo end at the limit.

Not sure what it's like now and how strict they are. Don't some have a peak time fair usage?

I'm considering gettin a sim to whack in a dongle when I visit the UK next week. Was looking at giff gaff, not many let you share Internet do they.

If I pay for data on my Orange the hotspot feature gets removed from iPhone.

[Arthur]

not many let you share Internet do they.

Unfortunately not. You'll be fine if you get a GiffGaff "GigaBag" (or pre-paid 3G Three SIM card) though if you stick it in a dongle.

[mattlynch]

I have just said goodbye to giffgaff after lots of network outages in my area, I'm now on EE4G Payg, paying 15 pounds for 2gig of 4G data and 2 pounds for 400 texts with 168 free mins a month + can tether to my iPad! It's all going well so far

[Soulfish]

I was with Virgin for about 2 months last year. It was one of the worst networks for data I've ever been with. They'd just implemented a hidden spreed restriction, but managed to muck up the install/config so that people couldn't get more than 20kb/s at best.

 

Moved to Three and found them great. GF used them many years ago and found them very very poor so was slightly apprehensive giving them another shot but have to say had no problems. Data is fast and is truly unlimited. Accidentally had my phone download 40gb of my music library over 3G without issue a couple of months ago

[m25man]

3 Mobile with All you can eat £12.50 pm is about as cheap as you can get my son and daughter in law have this tariff in their Tab3's and they absolutely hammer it and never had a problem.

Unlike my other son who decided to stream music on his iPhone whilst decorating his new house with no wifi and clocked up a £900 data bill from EE

 

For my iPad I buy the 3 prepaid 3 or 12 month Data Sims from Amazon.

3 months or 3Gb for £11 or 12Gb for £54

Cut them down with a sim cutter throw them away when used up.

 

This is useful, http://mobilenetworkcomparison.org.uk/unlimiteddata/

Edited January 11, 2014 by m25man

[lmgtfy]

Depending on your usage Ovivo can work out good value. Like you my £8 a month T-Mobile contract has just ended and I've gone with the £0 a month SIM from Ovivo. They give you 200 mins, 300 texts and 500MB of data a month so as long as your a low user you could save around £100 a year. SIM card cost me £20 but will get £15 credit if I go over my allowance.

[vikpaw]

Looking at a goody bag for the iPad £15 for 3Gb in a month.

Plus Orange (EE) pay as you go dolphin offers up to 3gb for a £20 top up plus it says you can tether for £1 per day.

3 looks best so far at 10gb for £15 monthly but it's rolling so would need to take it out and cancel at the same time.

[hawc]

Three's 321 offer is excellent. I hardly use my phone and it only costs me a pound or so a month. This is so much cheaper than the £10 a month 02 wanted.

[elsiegee40]

3 Mobile with All you can eat £12.50 pm is about as cheap as you can get my son and daughter in law have this tariff in their Tab3's and they absolutely hammer it and never had a problem.

Unlike my other son who decided to stream music on his iPhone whilst decorating his new house with no wifi and clocked up a £900 data bill from EE

 

For my iPad I buy the 3 prepaid 3 or 12 month Data Sims from Amazon.

3 months or 3Gb for £11 or 12Gb for £54

Cut them down with a sim cutter throw them away when used up.

 

This is useful, http://mobilenetworkcomparison.org.uk/unlimiteddata/

 

Regrettably, Three Mobile prepaid data sims seem to have gone up in price. I have just been looking for one for my mifi and the 3GB/3 month one seems to be about £21 now

[hawc]

Dont try a 321 sim from three for data. I learnt the hard way.....

[SpuffMonkey]

Depending on your usage Ovivo can work out good value. Like you my £8 a month T-Mobile contract has just ended and I've gone with the £0 a month SIM from Ovivo. They give you 200 mins, 300 texts and 500MB of data a month so as long as your a low user you could save around £100 a year. SIM card cost me £20 but will get £15 credit if I go over my allowance.

 

Yeah - they're pretty good - haven't paid anything in the last 6 months! Top!

[jinnantonnixx]

I have a £15 pm SIM only with Three, true unlimited data and allows tethering. I'm seriously considering ditching my home broadband as even though it's supposedly FTC I get a more reliable connection through my mobile, especially at peak times.

 

^^^ this

 

The One plan (which includes tethering) is a practical alternative to a landline+broadband for many people. Downloads into the tens of gigabytes per month are no problem.

[vikpaw]

My prob is i don't want a long term contract and defo not to change my number. I want 'dine and dash' mob broadband

[laserblazer]

I've got a Carphone Whorehouse contract which provides 500Mb, data, 250 minutes of calls and 2000 texts. It's on Vodafone and is effectively unlimited data because it's so slow I couldn't download 500MB in a month! Their minutes are pretty short as well.

[vikpaw]

That's what you get for shopping in a crack den

[m25man]

Regrettably, Three Mobile prepaid data sims seem to have gone up in price. I have just been looking for one for my mifi and the 3GB/3 month one seems to be about £21 now

 

That's a real pain, looks like the supply has run dry, they all used to be standard sims and needed cutting down but your quite right most now seem to be micro or nano sims at a hugely inflated price!

 

Looks like I will be switching the old iPhone to a 3 plan and tether the iPad to that.

Fortunately the sim I have in the iPad still has 9 months left on it!

[vikpaw]

I've ended up switching to Dolphin on orange /ee but I'm dubious as to whether the data package has started as they wanted me to wait until the monthly analysis date which is in Feb. unlimited texts and hopefully 3GB data for a £20 top up is pretty awesome and I can buy a call bundle with the money to counteract the high per minute rates (25p/min).

 

I also got a giga bag with giff gaff, £12.50 for 3GB which does allow tethering but not on iDevices! can switch it out to a mifi but that's hassle. Only just realised you can get the same type of package from Ovivo for £10/3GB. Same deal with no tether on iDevices tho. 1GB per month for free is awesome though. For some reason I thought it was a phone package only and only realised it has data packs after spending on giff gaff. Next time ....

 

I shouldn't need much but spoilt by having true unlimited in Saudi for £60 and it can be split across 3 sims / devices with no limits or bar on tethering. Works out really good.

@elsiegee40 the 12GB 3 package ain't bad for £70 odd. Lasts a year so half what you were paying before.

 

Edit: sorry mis-read. It's a bit more but not much, couple of quid.

Edited January 19, 2014 by vikpaw

[Bruce123]

BUMP!

 

I advised a friend who was on T-mobile PAYG to sign-up to T-mobile's SIM-Only monthly rolling contact for £10/month for 250 minutes. She doesn't make many calls ending up topping up by £10 every 3 weeks, so it won't save her that much but would have allowed her to make longer/more calls without worrying about the cost.

 

Anyway, she went into Phones4U and explained she is already on T-Mobile PAYG and would like to keep the number, the friendly salesman said that once she signed up to the new contract she can simply ring T-mobile customer services and they can transfer the number from PAYG to the contract SIM. Anyway, she signed up there and then, but guess what.... On ringing customer services it was not possible to transfer the number from T-Mobile PAYG to T-Mobile contract. However, had she changed network then it would have been possible using the PAC code mechanism, but PAC codes can only be used between networks and not within the same network. The only option he gave was to go into a T-Mobile shop and get a free Orange SIM and (with or without their assistance) transfer the number to the Orange SIM and then back into the T-Mobile contract using PAC codes. He said that had Phones4U treated this as an "upgrade" then she could have kept the number, but they get less commission than a new line (i.e. new customer). He said it's quite common when purchasing from independent shops acting as agents for T-Mobile.

 

Anyway, she did as they advised but went to Phones4U instead (as it was them who "mis-sold" the contract). They begrudgingly assisted by going down the Orange PAYG SIM solution and was quite rude. Anyway, for some reason the number didn't transfer to the Orange SIM.

 

So now she's thinking of just keeping the T-mobile PAYG SIM and cancelling the new contract with T-Mobile, it will cost her £20 but it all got too complicated and was getting stressful.

 

1) How counter-intuitive it is that transferring a number from one network to another is easier than within the same network. The customer services guy mentioned it was due to OFCOM regulations but I suspect it's more that T-mobile's systems don't allow them to do it.

 

2) Unscrupulous sales staff who would happily screw you over for an extra £5 commission.

 

3) If you plan to do this yourself go to a T-Mobile shop and specify an UPGRADE. Or do it online as I think there is a tick-box to say you are an existing T-Mobile PAYG customer.

 

Anyway, back to my original post, I still haven't decided which contract I am going to choose, but I thought I would let everyone know about this issue.

 

Many Thanks,

 

Bruce.

Edited February 4, 2014 by Bruce123