Cell service in the UK

[Supafreak]

Howdy,

Going to be studying abroad in London next semester and was wondering if any of you guys had experiences with any of the multitude of prepaid services. Virgin, vodafone, o2 etc...

Looking for best coverage with competitive rates (duh) and free incoming calls.

Thanks in advance.
Freak

 

[KarenMarie]

VeggieFrog is in school in the UK. I don't know who she uses... but i will find out. she has been there for a few years... and has used the same company since she got there.

i will ask her tomorrow and let you know.

 

[Davegod]

there's loads of packages from the mobile (cell) operators, it's not simple enough to make generalised reccomendations. even worth checking the contracts, which they're more likely to give you than you'd probably expect. want to pay loads for peak time usage but have free use during off peak? UK or international calls? what network are your friends on?

incoming calls are always no cost to you, er excepting premium services obviously - and not so obviously: watch out for the scams like thinking you're 'buying' a ringtone when some are actually a monthly charge, the regulator is still sorting this stuff out after the crazy frog fiasco.

coverage is almost complete in UK, the only question is signal strengh and some phones are better with weak signals than others. I doubt there's anywhere in london with less than a 4 bar reception for any of the major networks.

well worth shopping around, and pay 99.9% of your attention to all the rates and all the multitude of things affecting rates that might apply to you, there isnt really anything else to distinguish between them IMHO. When i say shop around, internet + carphone warehouse + Tesco (supermarket, sometimes have good exclusive package deals).

 

[Lonyo]

Vodafone definately has great coverage (even though I hate them, they're not very good price wise).
3 and Orange can be flakey in some out of city areas (experience), but if you mainly stick to London and don't go into the countryside a huge amount it shouldn't matter.

Basically any service provider will be OK for London, just find whatever's cheap.
This might help

 

[Davegod]

oh yeah, most prepay deals come as a package with a small range of phone options, but there's quite a few sites now selling just the sim cards for next to nothing. it can be pot luck as to wether you're phone will work with the card straight off, but a lot of the 'locked' phones can be unlocked to use any sim - i assume this is a semi-dodgy practice but not going to have the police rading you at 5am, there's some very bona fide sites selling the sims at least.

north american phones use a completely different system to europe, but if you have an expensive one there's a good chance it's dual band and can work anywhere with the right sim.

ps. vodaphone is now "T-Mobile".

 

[Mark R]

Essentially, all the networks have outstanding coverage throughout most of the country. O2s network probably goes a bit further into the boonies, but Voda and Orange probably have more capacity and better signal strength in populated regions. T-mobile's coverage is somewhat less good than the others, with a few patches in populated areas (e.g. small valleys). 3 have a relatively immature network of their own, but 3 phones will fall back onto O2's network is 3 can't take the call.

However, capacity isn't really a problem - I've never had a 'network busy' signal in the last 5 years - even at peak times. Similarly, except in the centre of huge buildings (e.g. hospitals) I've always got a signal in a populated area (Orange and Voda).

Within London itself, apart from the building problem, holes in coverage are pretty much unheard of for all 5 networks. Indeed, within the whole South East of the country, there are no significantly sized holes.

If you have an unlocked GSM phone then you should be able to just drop in a UK pay-as-you-go SIM card. (If you have a US GSM phone: Dual band will be fine for Voda and O2, but you'll *need* tri band for T-mob and Orange, and for optimal O2 performance). NB. Three SIM cards are not GSM compatible, and require a 3G (UMTS) phone.
However, a UK model phone and pay-as-you-go SIM can be bought brand new for under £40 so it's hardly worth bringing your own phone unless it's particularly good.

In terms of call costs:

Incoming calls are always free of charge to the recipient (unless you subscribe to premium content services, like ring tones, etc - where it's common for them to send collect charged material at regular intervals. Avoid these services at all costs)

There's very little difference between prices of different networks. In practice there are 2 main pricing schemes (peak/off-peak and flat rate). Not all networks offer both, and there are some minor differences between networks. Most networks will offer a discounted call cost with the larger increment top-ups.
Flat rate is around 20p/min to landlines and other phones on the home network, 40p/min to mobiles on a different network
Peak/off peak is around 30p/min during the day, and 5p/min during evening (1900-0700) and weekends.

Beware of 'non-geographic' area codes (often called lo-call, local rate, etc.) these are numbers that begin 07, 08 or 09. These are frequently used by call centres, and big companies. Calling these numbers from a mobile will usually encounter a big surcharge (including toll-free (0800) numbers).

Don't even think about calling international numbers from a PAYG mobile. There are calling cards that can be used to call international, but it's now common practice for the mobile networks to block popular calling cards. International calls are best done from a landline.

 

[PeeluckyDuckee]

I misread the title and thought you meant "Call service in UK"