Hi Everyone,
I'm moving to the UK at the end of the month. And would like to know who would be the best phone provider to go with.
I don't want to go on a contract (prefer pay-as-you-go)...
I would like to use my handset as a mobile broadband modem as well...
I will only need about 300 minutes per month for calls.
Let me know if you need anymore info.
Thanks,
Dave
o2 is the least worst IMO
On the assumption you are only planning on getting a new SIM then check out all of the operators SIM only 30 day tariffs.
In all cases you get inclusive minutes and SMS, the ability to add extras, a data tariff being the biggie, and all for a fixed monthly fee but with no long term commitment.
As for which operator, ask the people in the area you will be moving to as to which has the best coverage. Don't trust the operator's web site for this info.
deedee's spot on with finding out someone in area to see about signal..
The 2 i would recommend if you was going "pay as you go" would be:
o2 £15 p/m unlimited data and unlimited texts, really it's 1000's of texts and 500MB data per month, who i currently use, one prob is taht they cut down certain features on pay as go internet so i have set up full internet email but no MMS, imagine wouldn't allow tethering?
T-Mobile £10 p/m Unlimited Data & Internet, can't find any terms regards texts but the internet is 40MB per day, i will be moving to T-Mobile very soon as it runs out in 31 January the offer.
Hope that helps.
thanks guys.. looks like the included internet (500mb / month) won't cut it for me...
i might have to get a mobile broadband usb dongle + SIM for my mobile
T-mobile's policy is "Fair Usage" they won't and I'm pretty sure Can't do anything if you go over the limit.
They'll just continuously hassle you to upgrade to the next package, blacklist 150 or something
As I'll to go to London to spend my xmas holidays, I was thinking to get a new PAYG SIM card to stay in touch easily w my friends. Besides text messagging and voice calls, I'll need a flat 3G data plan to be able to connect to the web (IM, Mail, basic web browsing, GMaps) and to use my phone as a modem (same use as before, plus hopefully to be able to download HSPL for HD2 and some customized ROMs lol).
I tried to check the T-Mo, O2 and Vodafone UK websites, but it seems that by using PAYG I can only get any kind of free internet a month after my first refill.
Does anyone knows if there's some carrier which has an offering that will allow me to use my PAYG account for my data needs?
on vodafone you only pay £1 A day for unlimited internet
Can you please give me a reference on their website? Becaused based on the info I found on the PAYG page, I discovered that the basic £1 data pack is for 15MB in a day, and then I get charged £2 for every additional MB.
On Vodafone UK, the only alternate offer I was able to find is a plan called Data Plus pack which allow me to have full internet usage (including voip and P2P) and it costs £10 a week plus a daily browsing charge of 50p a day for 25MB of data. I was hoping to find something cheaper and not as strict about data usage.
Like for example my current data plan on VodafoneIT, which is 3€ a week for 3GB of data, always on PAYG
O2 payg, top up £15 and get unlimited texts and 500mb internet for the month....
Thanks mate, I'll check out again the O2 payg page to see if there are any kind of limits when using that data pack
Just a 500mb cap
Thanks a lot, it sounds like a very good plan. I'll go for it
If you haven't heard of LycaMobile...It's a T-Mobile MNVO..
My AHD is Carrier Unlocked so I can use AT&T or T-Mobile, I got tired of paying 45+taxes for StraightTalk (AT&T) since I am mostly on wifi and don't really need the speed when I am not...
so i bought an unlock code and switched to Ultramobile last month because of their 19$ plan but they only give you 50mb of data
that was an issue for me and I didn't want to pay 39$ for their unlimited 2g when I could get GoSmart for 35$...
The other day I learned Lyca has the same plan as Gosmart but for 29$ (unlimited talk,text and 2g)
I waited too long to port my number from Ultra and lost it....
I've had Lyca service less then 2 hours and so far the only problem I had is their porting process,
It wasn't as fast as it was for me when I ported from other companies....
I've ported my number to and from a few companies and it always took less then 10 hours
I stupidly assumed 12 hours would be enough this time aswell,
Anyway 29$ sounds like a great deal I just hope I don't end up having issues with their service,
I figured I'd let people in the AHD section know about Lyca and post updates if I have any problems.
Maybe others have had experience with Lycamobile .
Apn settings i use
Name:lycamobile
APN:data.lycamobile.com
----------------------
Proxy:Not set
Port:Not set
Username:lmus
Password:lmus
Server:Not set
MMSC:Not set
MMS port:Not set
Auth Type:Not set
Apn Type:Not set
Update: 8/4/13
I've had lyca for almost 7 days now and at first I was having signal issues at home and it made it hard to have long text messages it was annoying, texts would get stuck at sending but seems good now after i went to Holoblur from Liquidsmooth.
Originally i thought lyca went to unlimited 2g after the first 50mb but turns out it's 3g.
To to be sure i downloaded a 100mb video last night, at 1.5-2mb which seems to be my average data speed on lyca since day 1... anyway i'm still getting 1.5-2mb on speedtest.net today so Lyca is even more worth it for me now that i know it's unlimited 3g instead of a slow 2g..
I used to use testmy.net in the browser but for some reason after i flashed holoblur 0.9 last night testmy.net says Forbidden.
So at the moment the only issue I have with Lyca is that they don't have mms but i can live with that if my data speeds stay at at least 800kbs.
I also forgot to backup my contacts when i flashed holoblur 0.9 last night , I had 2 contacts i had added that day...I am lucky Lyca keeps a call log online.
Sounds good. Although do they have any 3G plans.
I don't mind a 250mb 3G plan vs unlimited 2G
http://www.lycamobile.us/en/national-plans
It's a similar concept to T-Mobile's in that you get an allotment of 4G (3G) data and then it goes to 2G speed. Looks very interesting. Thinking of switching to their 1GB plan after I use up all my T-Mobile credit. The $20 credit for international calls is a winner for me. I assume there's no LTE,
I just saw a guy handing out lycamobile booklets, I told him have the service we talked a minute..I mentioned my plan and 2g ..he claimed it goes to 3g after that 50mb of 4g...I hope that's true. 3g is like up to 800kbs or something iirc...so that would be great.
That sounds like a pretty sweet phone plan. I might switch over to it once my contract ends. Do let us know if there are any problems you may run into.:good:
I've had lyca for almost 7 days now and at first I was having signal issues at home and it made it hard to have long text messages it was annoying, texts would get stuck at sending but seems good now after i went to Holoblur from Liquidsmooth.
And I hardly use data but i was pretty sure i had used more then 50mb, but to be sure i downloaded a 100mb video last night, at 1.5-2mb which seems to be my average data speed on lyca since day 1... anyway i'm still getting 1.5-2mb on speedtest.net today.. i used to use testmy.net but for some reason after i flashed holoblur 0.9 last night testmy.net says Forbidden.
So at the moment the only issue I have with Lyca is that they don't have mms but i can live with that if my data speeds stay at at least 800kbs.
1 month of service and I'm happy so far, feels like as time goes by my service becomes more stable. The first 2 weeks I was losing service often and had problems sending texts and had a few calls drop.. but been good the past week or so.
Gave them a try as well. I only used them temporarily to place international calls but the one time that I did it whle driving I didn't see any difference with the T-Mobile service. So far,
- Call quality to landlines in Europe was excellent.
- Call quality to cell phones in Europe was decent. On a single incidence the volume was too loud and it distorted. I don't think this was Lycamobile's problem.
- I can't get the online recharge to work. I enter all my info and at the end I get the message the transaction failed. I see the temporary authorization on my credit card, and it later goes away. I was only able to add credit by going to a local cell phone store.
- Customer service is in India. They are not allowed to request credit card information, so they couldn't do the recharge.
- Online customer service only got me the autorespond email and nothing after that.
- Calls (pay as you go) are charged at 20+ seconds longer than the call as timed by the phone itself.
- The sim card doesn't have the APN info for data. I didn't want to use data, so I didn't enter an APN.
- International roaming in Europe worked fine and at 46¢/min it beats AT&T and T-Mobile's $1.29, $1.39 or $1.79, and matches what European pay as you go carriers charge when roaming within Europe.
Given that I couldn't get any credit card to process on their website, I couldn't buy a sim card from their website either. One store sold them for $10, another for $5, and they go for 99¢ on eBay.
I think I'm going to try h2o next. Their $49/mo plans are very comparable: unlimited voice, domestic and international texts, 1GB data. Lycamoble gives $20 credit for international calls (1¢/min land-8¢/min cell in Europe) whereas h2o has unlimited landline (certain countries) and gives $40 credit for 20-30¢/min (in Europe) calls to cell phones. h2o also has mms but doesn't roam internationally.
Lyca sends free sims. And the first time I called customer support the person sounded Indian but every time after that I have gotten customer support from the UK.
skuly said:
Lyca sends free sims. And the first time I called customer support the person sounded Indian but every time after that I have gotten customer support from the UK.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sims are free but they charge $7 for shipping and handling.
diamond12 said:
Sims are free but they charge $7 for shipping and handling.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh thats new..there wasn't a shipping fee ...but you can get them for a dollar or less from amazon or eBay .
Updates:
- Online recharge works for me now
- Lycamoble responded via email that calls are billed from the time the call is placed (including ring time)
skuly said:
Oh thats new..there wasn't a shipping fee ...but you can get them for a dollar or less from amazon or eBay .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah i also get mine for free about a month ago, happy w the service so far! :good::good:
They did end up losing some text messages for me. I confirmed that these were sent as SMS and not MMS.
Also, they automatically put me on the $39 plan without me doing so, when I added $40 credit in my account. Even though I requested to cancel the auto-renew and got the confirmation text, I still got a text on the renewal date that there were insufficient funds to renew my plan.
Other annoyances:
There is no voicemail integration. I never got the voicemail notification icon when I had voicemail. They sent a text message instead. Also, the voicemail service number did not get automatically integrated and I had to program it myself.
My number did not show in the phone info screen. Instead it showed +10000000000.
diamond12 said:
They did end up losing some text messages for me. I confirmed that these were sent as SMS and not MMS.
Also, they automatically put me on the $39 plan without me doing so, when I added $40 credit in my account. Even though I requested to cancel the auto-renew and got the confirmation text, I still got a text on the renewal date that there were insufficient funds to renew my plan.
Other annoyances:
There is no voicemail integration. I never got the voicemail notification icon when I had voicemail. They sent a text message instead. Also, the voicemail service number did not get automatically integrated and I had to program it myself.
My number did not show in the phone info screen. Instead it showed +10000000000.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also noticed international SMS plan doesn't work or I'm using some other APN settings. Can anyone confirm?
I'm using Google voice so MMS is no big deal for me actually. I don't use anyways lol.
I also don't what why the number appears like that but they have a dial up combination that shows the number on your screen, I guess it was *613#
And my phone always shows R (stands for roaming) and doesn't show the data speed letter like 4g 3g etc
Did anyone have the same issue too?
Note: I currently break my Atrix HD these were the issues I faced when it was working.
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
I used the 29$ plan for a few months and it was good service, i hardly use my phone so i stopped using a plan a few months ago and i had like 17$ on my account, atm it's only down to $8, at 2c per min ,since i don't text i am only paying a few $ a month for my service.
legendnexus said:
I also noticed international SMS plan doesn't work or I'm using some other APN settings. Can anyone confirm?
And my phone always shows R (stands for roaming) and doesn't show the data speed letter like 4g 3g etc
Did anyone have the same issue too?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't have either of these issues.
diamond12 said:
I didn't have either of these issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you share your APN settings?
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
I switched to Spot Mobile yesterday so I can't see on my phone now but I had the recommended settings on the Lycamobile page:
APN: data.lycamobile.com
Username: lmus
Password: plus
APN Type: default,supl,admin,dun
Everything else blank.
Hi all,
does anyone using Lycamobile UK with ZOPO ZP700 ?
I can not get internet working with this phone (android 4.2)
I have set all as it should be but with no result.
Thanks for the info
We are heading to Switzerland, Austria and Prague next week. Last time I was in Europe (Spain) a couple years ago I had an S4 on Sprint. It was rooted and I got a SIM card and it worked fine and I'm sure was cheaper, but it was a hassle setting it up (couldn't change API settings until I was in WiFi, so I couldn't activate data until I was at the first hotel; I couldn't tell how much data I had left and voice because it was in Spanish - a couple times I had someone at the hotel listen to the message but other times I just bought more than I needed because I wasn't sure and didn't want to run out of data). I don't know how easy it is to use a new SIM in the S6, so I'm thinking I'll just use the Verizon global roaming to make it easier. I primarily use it for maps (and I'll use offline maps) and information (Google for info, nearby restaurants, etc.) so pretty much data and really not voice.
I've never used global roaming - does anyone have advice about using the Verizon S6 in Europe?
Functionality it works fine in pretty much every country with Verizon's global roaming plans. It can get expensive though, as you only get 100mb data on those plans.
Hello everybody,
I'm a new P9 user and an old MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) customer.
My operator (Fastweb, in Italy) allows access to 2 standard operators:
- 3 ITA (3G and 4G enabled, with a flat data traffic included, should be the standard operator for me
- TIM (only 2G enabled and all the mobile data that are used while connected with it are counted and billed separately).
I want that when connected to 3 ITA the phone will not consider it as roaming, but just as a normal operator.
but... I also want that when connected to TIM, it has to consider it as roaming, so the phone must let me be able to receive (and do) calls but I can block the mobile connection.
Now the situation is that both the connection are considered as the normal operator, so when I'm connected with TIM (very frequently, accordingly to my area) internet still working and starts to eat money from my account.
I've seen in this forum that a lot of people had similar problem (usually the opposite problem of mine) and they solved in many way by editing the ROM files or simply uploading some file like spn-conf.xml
What can I do with my Huawei P9? Can I do anything similar?
Thank you all!