Alright, who provides a good mobile phone service?

[floppybootstomp]

I've been with Orange since May 96 on a yearly contract and currently have a 'free' Samsung D500 from them. My contract, with Orange, expires in December.

I stupidly signed up for 18 months a year ago, seemed like a good deal at the time, I got 200 extra minutes a month for the first six months. All this means is that I now have an almost permanent build-up of around 400 minutes which I just can't seem to use up. I really don't rabbit that much on the dog

Were I to renew a contract now, the sucessor to my phone, the Samsung D600, looks good to me and I quite like Nokia. I think all the other makes are not terribly too good, I've tried most

So, anybody care to recommend a company to enter into a year's contract with? Vodaphone? (lots of redundancies lately) Virgin? (let's make Richard Branson richer) or what?

Do any of these companies let you phone 0800 numbers for free cos Orange don't? Who has best coverage?

btw, here's the thing that cheesed me off about Orange, really niggled me this, the penny-pinching tightwads, this was on my last bill:

Hello.From July 2006 you have the choice of receiving a free Orange bill which shows a summary of your charges, or paying £1.50 a month to receive a fully itemised bill that lists all your call details. To receive the full list of all your calls you don't need to do anything and the monthly charge will be automatically applied to your bill.

Note the wording 'free Orange bill'. Since whenever did anybody have to pay for an invoice?

And for the last ten years I've always had an itemised phone bill.

And if I don't phone them up, I'll be billed this £1.50 a month almost without my aproval. That sucks, so goodbye Orange.

 

[itsme]

I use PAYG with Virgin No problems! but then again I don`t use very much air time, text mainly. IMHO contracts are a pain.

 

[floppybootstomp]

IMHO PAYG is a pain, my phone is vital for work, hence me spending 10 years on a contract basis

It actually works out cheaper for me to spend £30.00 a month on a contract than keep buying top up cards.

And I do like having more or less the latest phone once a year at no cost.

Really not interested in PAYG.

 

[ChristopherP]

There are two companies worth using.

O2 and T-Mobile.

The others in my experience are not as good. O2 are best for prices and good on coverage, T-Mobile are absolutely superb - best customer service and more coverage than you can shake a stick at, just a little more expensive than the rest.

O2 generally are good on supplying the latest handsets.

Dont go with Voda. they suck. AND iin case of a national emergency you wont be able to use your phone as its the emergency service network

on O2 i get 50 minutes any network any time and 500 texts and 1meg of GPRS. Also free K750i and Bluetooth headset (i get my upgrade this month, but waiting for the K800i Cybershot)

 

[HeySteve]

I would also recommend O2, i got one of their great online deals back in december....

£30pm
Brand new Nokia N70
750 txts
300mins
double mins and texts for the first 6 months

only problem is that they dont send you a bill, spose they are trying to cut down on paper, but you can view everytrhing online instead

 

[floppybootstomp]

Thanks for replies guys

I've since realised I can actually view itemised bill online, I didn't realise that.

And that after phoning up Orange and giving some poor b*****d an earache

I will definitely check out T-Mobile and O2.

Thank you

 

[psd99]

tbh Flopps good idea would be to look around and see what companies can offer for you.
here are some sites:

www.mobileconnectionsonline.com
www.e2save.co.uk
www.onestopphoneshop.co.uk



now ring up your company orange and request your pak code
and tell them u got a better deal elsewhere.....
blah blah blah

then most likely because you have been a v good customer ( so I hope)
they will make u an offer thats REALLY GOOD

best way to do it is to tell them u got a better deal elsewhere
make one up if you want to just keep telling them that you are very unhappy because you have been a very VALUED customer and dont like the way you have been treated...........

now if worse comes to worse I suggest this:

(this is long and i presume u wont do this)
but if by chance u see a really good deal from ORANGE on a site somwhere
tell the orange representative that you want your pak code so that you can transfer your number from orange to say tmobile pay as u go.
then say u will get a pak code from t-mobile to transfer your number back to this really great orange deal u got from a webiste

if u do this please let me know what the person says to u!?

I gurantee they will be BAMBOOZLED!

I am personally with t-mobile have been with them for 8 years
every year I do what I have suggested in this post
this year I have been a bit lazy

neways

good luck and do let us know how it goes

meanwhile if your looking for good reviews for phones
this is a site I reccomend:

www.mobileburn.com

 

[floppybootstomp]

Thanks PSD99, I had a good look round those sites, I only seemed to like the last one you listed, onestopphoneshop, as they didn't have any hidden extras such as compulsory insurance and itemised billing charges. So I phoned them up.

I asked for a free Samsung D600, about £30.00 a month, 12 month contract, no charge for itemised billing and no compulsory insurance.

They came back with just that which would give me 200 minutes a month and 100 free texts and double that amount for the first three months. Plus there was some kind of discount I could claim back after 6 months or something.

Now, that's exactly the same as what I have at the moment, except I won't get any more double minutes and I currently don't get any free texts at all. That deal was with 02.

So, slight improvement eh?

However, when I mentioned my contract didn't expire until December, sales guy went kinda cold on me

So, come December, I will look to change and get a better deal and hopefully by then the Samsung SGH-900 will be on the market, looks good, kinda like a slimline D600 with a 3.3 Megapixel camera and all kinds of other stuff, there's a review at www.mobileburn.com

Again, all, thanks for comments and links

 

[ChristopherP]

Flops - what you can probably do is cancel your contract now and they wont make you pay the rest... and you get to keep the phone.

Thats what TMobile let me do!! Flogged the K700i for £80 and got an O2 Contract!

 

[psd99]

your welcome
glad to help you.

its the 18 month deals that get to me too!

the difference between 18 months and 12 months on something like this is massive!

yer its probably best to wait till December time now looking at your current situation
and with regards to that phone it will probably be even cheaper come that time

do keep us posted

 

[Anon_F]

I'm on PAYG with o2 and transfered to a tariff with 150 minutes free off-peak minutes as long as i top up £15 per month. o2 did screw things up a bit but they did give a me £10 credit as goodwill.

But i think as psd99 has said play them off each other, no operator likes to loose a customer, so ythat means you get in a win-win situation

 

[Thermaltke]

I managed to get tons out of O2 just by ringing them up and playing with them, threatening to cancel, becuase I probably would if they didn't offer me a better deal, so my contract seemed to get better and better, until they released the "O2 missed call alert" this is so horrible i'm going for Oranges student contract: 1000 texts and 100 mins for £25 no quibble, free phone, 12months contract, activated immediately from the shop. Done. I'm just waiting for my NUS number to come through so I can get it.

As alot of people are not going to be able to get this contract, i'd recomment oranges new contract, because you can get either all texts, or all minuites, on a really good rate, or balance them out cheaply, and double them for an 18 month contract, check them out Imagine what you could get when you barter with them more!

 

[psd99]

Oranges student contract: 1000 texts and 100 mins for £25 no quibble, free phone, 12months contract, activated immediately from the shop.

that in my eyes is a complete rip off!

I would not go for that
u can do much better from the sites I have mentioned on one of my previous posts!

 

[Thermaltke]

 

[psd99]

well with the nine months at £1.99 thats okay

but for the other 9 months u will have to pay £30.00
personallym i still think its very over priced.

 

[PotGuy]

i just have an old 3310 with O2. it comes up as bt cellnet ><

i get 300 free texts, 100 free minutes and a 5mb picture allowance or something

and i only have to top up £10 once every 2 months to get them

 

[psd99]

its not a great phone but

12 Months FREE
400 mins & 250 texts per month
Order Now
Mobile Phone Details


http://www.e2save.co.uk/mobile/phon...30&PHPSESSID=079799cc901fea9b4fbb5d1a5b0e0179

tbh im in a sitatuation where i dont care abt the phone
as long as i get v v good line rental and minutes id be hapy with that
but if ur looking for a good phone oc itll cost more

 

[HGV2]

I'm with Orange on a business tariff as i'm self employed.
My local Orange shop looks for the best deal for me every year.
I need a phone provider that is reliable, & has good coverage everywhere

 

[TriplexDread]

O2

200mins 500texts both with rollover. Reduced to £20pm (second year, approaching third) Hope to get even better deal in August.

Oh free fone upgrades as per usual

 

[ChristopherP]

What?!

Are they any network any time minutes?