About a month ago I switched my mobile contract away from O2 to T-Mobile, lured by their web’n’walk data packages, and so far I’m absolutely delighted by the service.
Unitl recently, mobile data in the UK has involved slow speeds (GPRS mostly), high charges, and walled gardens.
Rather, than tying myself into a contract with a branded phone, I went for £7.50 a month sim only deal, with 50 minutes of calls a month, and a one month minimum term (note that I’m not a heavy voice or SMS user). OK, I have to provide my own handset, but the service is cheap, and I don’t have to put up with any carrier branding.
Next I added web’n’walk plus for £12.50 a month. That gives me 3Gb of data (including 3.5G HSDPA), with the only restriction being a ban on VOIP applications.
The experience has been a revelation. I can now get connected almost anywhere I want, without concerns about the cost, and often at very high speed. No problem with connecting via a laptop or my N800.
At long last, the promise of useful 3G connectivity seems to have arrived in the UK.
Hi,
I use 3 and pay £30/month for 300 minutes, 1000 text’s, 50 video minutes, 50 picture messages and £5 downloads. I then pay £5/month for ‘unlimited’ internet, skype and mobile mail (push e-mail). I also got a free Nokia N73, 8 months 1/2 price and a load of credit applied to the account too so I haven’t paid anything yet. I put quotes round unlimited because their is a fair usage policy of 1GB/month – but that’s ok because even when I have used it heavily i’ve still used less than 1GB/month. The bumber is, you’re not supposed to use a laptop/pda.
Ian
Hi Ian,
That’s a pretty good deal. T-Mobile do something similar (minus the Skype) for £7.50, but I wanted the freedom to connect via a laptop or PDA, which is why I went for the £12.50 3Gb package, which allows me to do that.
If my home ADSL line ever goes down, it should even be possible to work over 3G for a few days.
I’m using T-Mobile with a Nokia N95, which I’ll write more about in the next week or so.