Good Sim Card for low use phone?

[melmerby]

Hi all

I've got a smartphone, it's main use is WiFi.

it's use for making calls is more for an emergency, so little in the way of outgoing calls are made (although I do receive many more)

I had a Vodafone PAYG sim which has a 90 day no call limit before it is de-activated.

To keep it active I called call credit or phoned my landline (wait for the land line to ring - lift handset - replace handset) this would resulting in a minimum call charge which would keep it active.

The last time I did this, apparently it didn't register so I have gone over the 90 days and been cut off. (second time this has happened)

 

So, I'm looking for a PAYG that has a much longer cut off time (Vodafone are one of the shortest!) and decent coverage.

Any suggestions?

 

[sjp23480]

try moneysavingexpert.com they usually have good advice

[Metr0Land]

I've set up my phone I keep in the car, and a phone for an elderly friend with giffgaff PAYG SIM's.  I THINK they allow 6 months before cutting you off but do pls check my memory!

 

In practice I make a short call after 3 months and encourage friend to do the same as we all want her to be more confident using mobile.

 

Their PAYG tariff is expensive if you use it for UK calls (25p/min to UK landlines and mobiles - can't remember text, I think it's 12p).  However some of the overseas calling rates are insanely low.  My friend has daughter in NZ and it's only 2p/min (yes tuppence) to landline in NZ (6p for mobile), whereas calling other daughter in Bristol is 25p/min though she has other cheaper ways of contacting daughter in Bristol.  

 

I THINK you have to put min £10 on the SIM initially but could be wrong.

[ejstubbs]

6 hours ago, melmerby said:

So, I'm looking for a PAYG that has a much longer cut off time (Vodafone are one of the shortest!) and decent coverage.

Any suggestions?

 

AFAIK Three have no cutoff on their PAYG SIMs.  Can't speak for their coverage but I imagine it's unlikely to be significantly worse than the other three i.e. Vodafone, EE or O2.

 

If you are tempted by the tariff offered by a third party service provider like GiffGaff and you're worried about their coverage in a particular area then you need to find out which of the main networks they use and check that network provider's coverage map (or one of the independent, crowd-sourced ones).  Oh, and if their network provider isn't Vodafone then make sure that your phone isn't locked to Vodafone, or get it unlocked, before switching.

[Wheatley]

1p mobile. Penny a minute, penny a text, penny a MB. Top up £10 every 4 months to stay connected and you can set it to auto-top-up. Uses the EE network, no issues so far. 

Edited July 22, 2022 by Wheatley

[Free At Last]

1 hour ago, ejstubbs said:

 

AFAIK Three have no cutoff on their PAYG SIMs.  Can't speak for their coverage but I imagine it's unlikely to be significantly worse than the other three i.e. Vodafone, EE or O2.

I had been on Three for many years from when they were 3p per minute call charge, they recently went up to 30p per minute. I only made a few calls per year. Credit never ran out and no cut off, I put £10 on first SIM when I cancelled my £10 per month landline, and still had over £6 left in June when my son decided to put me on his family and friends account. A waste of his money.
I only need a live phone to receive calls, most of my calls are made on WhatApp or Alexa over home wifi. I never had data switched on on the phone as I never use it when out.
A monthly contract or having to top up when still in credit is of no use to me.
I have just looked and can't find the PAYG tariff for Three.

[55020]

Asda PAYG sim cards have no expiry at all, as long as you use it once in 180 days for an outbound call or use some data. 

[melmerby]

AFAIK all PAYG mobile deals have a minimum usage requirement. Normally one outgoing call, text or some data usage qualifies.

Vodafone are currently 90, they sent me their T&Cs by text!

Many are 180 days, some are even lower than 90 but it's not easy to find it in some terms and conditions.

Having to top up £10 as a minimum usage condition, when you only make one or two outgoing calls is a waste of money.

A plan something like the Vodafone but with more minimum usage time would do

 

BTW signal level here is not good, being in a dip, although there is a new mast a few hundred metres from here.

[meil]

Some broadband providers do SIM only deals. For instance Plus Net does a SIM only for £6/month.

[Izzy]

I believe the 180 day test is to do with the dearth of available mobile numbers and being able to reuse/recycle those redundant. This is required I think by OFCOM  because of the problem. Most providers seem to use this limit. The problem with many PAYG sims is they demand a regular £10 a month top up, which to my mind isn’t then really PAYG, and quite a lot per year if all you really do is Wi-Fi/txt with them, as I do. I’m with EE, them having taken over Orange, with a no auto top up PAYG, but get constantly bombarded with offers to ‘add’ data which would automatically change it to a regular top up scheme, so you have to be careful. 

[melmerby]

8 hours ago, meil said:

Some broadband providers do SIM only deals. For instance Plus Net does a SIM only for £6/month.

That's a contract not PAYG

[AndrewC]

Not strictly PAYG but Lyca do a monthly £5  which I use for my work phone. It isn't a contract either but a rolling charge. I use it as an emergency 5g tether at home if the broadband goes down too. 

[Free At Last]

The Asda one mentioned above looks to be a good deal for a non user.

Says nothing about having to make calls and even so at 4p for a minute maybe twice a year a £5 initial top up would see me out.

[Hroth]

Yes, the Asda offer is pretty good, with a minimum £5 topup whenever your credit gets low.  When I was moving house last year, I got a basic Nokia phone and an Asda sim for communicating with estate agents, surveyors, removal companies and the like. It meant that they were kept away from my real mobile phone.

 

I kept it going, just in case. Its no hardship to make a brief outgoing call every couple of months before the 180 day deadline kicks in.

 

Edited July 23, 2022 by Hroth
Ruddy touchscreen "keyboard"...

[melmerby]

Just checked out the Asda one

You get the Sim, register, then top it up and away you go.

Good calling charge rates as well, much lower than the parent network (Vodafone)

 

I'll get one ordered - done!

 

Thanks to those that have made suggestions.

[ejstubbs]

On 22/07/2022 at 18:50, Free At Last said:

I have just looked and can't find the PAYG tariff for Three.

 

I just had a look-see myself and I agree it's not easy to find.  If you use the "Shop" menu at the top of the page on the Three web site and choose "Pay As You Go phone SIMs" all you get is a load of stuff about monthly data packs.  But they actually do have a standard credit-based PAYG tariff, although to find it you have to delve amongst the links in small print at the bottom of the page, under the heading "Our company".  The link is called "Price Guide".

 

I have a Three PAYG SIM in my "emergency backup" phone.  The price guide that Three sent me a link to when I bought the SIM in 2018 is here - that's the 3p/min calls, 2p per text, 1p/MB tariff.  However, when I look at the pre-March 2020 PAYG tariff currently posted on the Three web site as above, that says that my tariff is 35p/min, 15p per text and 10p/MB, which is the same as the current new PAYG account tariff.  I've no record of ever being advised of that change 🤨 and when I called my main mobile just now a check of my credit balance after the call shows that it did indeed cost me 35p ☹️.  At least the credit balance is shown as never expiring, so I still have that minor perk cf their new PAYG account tariff, which requires one "chargeable event" within 180 days or they may disconnect you.

 

I think I'll be shopping for a new PAYG SIM pretty soon.  However, I don't think it will be an ASDA one, for the reason in my post below.

 

EDITED to say that the Three credit-based PAYG tariff hike seems to be fairly recent, as in this month, at least according to moneysavingexpert.com.  It also seems from MSE that Three's is the only PAYG tariff that only requires you to make a call/text/use data every so often in order to avoid being disconnected, rather than having to make a minimum top-up on a more or less regular basis.  So maybe I'll stick with Three after all for now, and just make sure that I have a decent credit balance to cover the high call charges if I ever do find myself in a situation where I need to use the phone.

Edited July 24, 2022 by ejstubbs

[ejstubbs]

23 hours ago, Hroth said:

I kept it going, just in case. Its no hardship to make a brief outgoing call every couple of months before the 180 day deadline kicks in.

 

The current ASDA PAYG Ts & Cs say you need to make a top-up every 180 days*, not just make a call/text/use data:

 

Quote

After 180 days without topping-up or purchasing a bundle your account will become restricted and you won't be able to make calls, send texts or use data, however you will still be able to receive inbound calls and texts.

 

...

 

If after a further 90 days you haven’t contacted us to top-up or purchase a bundle your account will be expired, once your account is expired you will no longer be able to retrieve the mobile number or any credit remaining on the account.

 

You may be fortunate to have got your SIM at a time when their terms were less restrictive, like I did with my Three PAYG SIM.

 

* Note that this isn't stated oin the MSE web page I linked in my previous post.  But it is on ASDA mobile's web site.

Edited July 24, 2022 by ejstubbs

[ejstubbs]

I've just been doing some more research, and it seems that Vodafone have a 'secret' PAYG tariff that might suit me.  It's called "Pay As You Go 1" and is rather well hidden in their PAYG FAQs, under "What are the standard Pay as you go rates?"  It costs you £1 each day you use the phone, which gives you unlimited call minutes, unlimited texts and 50MB data for the rest of the [calendar] day.  So not great for data - although you can buy more data in 50MB chunks if you exceed your allowance for the day.  But good for emergency calling and texting.  To keep the SIM active you have to make one "chargeable outbound activity" (i.e. make a call, send a text or use data), or make a top-up, every 180 days.  Each chargeable outbound activity will cost you £1, so it basically costs £2 a year to keep the SIM active.

 

I think this would work out cheaper than Three if I ever actually needed to make an emergency call - I expect that such a call would quite likely take more than three minutes (£1.05 at Three's rates).  If nothing else, you wouldn't have to worry about running out of credit during any call on the same day, which might justify the £2 annual cost.

 

AFAICT from Vodafone's Pay as you go 1 FAQs page, the way to get this tariff is to order a PAYG SIM without a "bundle", and then opt in to PAYG1 by calling 41146 FoC.  I think you need to do this before you make your initial credit top-up - from my reading of their PAYG FAQs, if you top-up before opting in to PAYG1 then they will turn the top-up into a "bundle" rather than leaving it as credit on your account.  I might be wrong about that, but I probably wouldn't want to take the risk.

 

All the above pertains only to emergency calls to non-emergency numbers e.g. roadside recovery services, friends, family etc.  999 calls from a mobile are free anyway*, so you don't even need credit to make the call - though whether you can call 999 with a disconnected SIM in the phone I don't know.  (I had an idea that you can call 999 without a SIM in the phone at all, but I can't find any authoritative information yay or nay about that - and certainly not through Ofcom's impenetrable web site ☹️)

 

It's also worth knowing that 999 calls effectively use network "roaming" i.e. even if there's no signal from you own network provider in the location you're calling from, the phone can route the call over any network which does have signal there.  So when it comes to making 999 calls you needn't be too bothered about a particular network's geographic coverage.

 

* And thus presumably wouldn't count as a "chargeable outbound activity".  Though I can't really foresee anyone calling the emergency services just in order to keep their SIM active!

Edited July 24, 2022 by ejstubbs

[Hroth]

3 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

 

The current ASDA PAYG Ts & Cs say you need to make a top-up every 180 days*, not just make a call/text/use data:

 

 

You may be fortunate to have got your SIM at a time when their terms were less restrictive, like I did with my Three PAYG SIM.

 

* Note that this isn't stated oin the MSE web page I linked in my previous post.  But it is on ASDA mobile's web site.

 

Interesting.....

 

I'd better check my account.  Asda have probably realised that people are just keeping an account ticking over without payments for as long as possible!

[melmerby]

4 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

 

The current ASDA PAYG Ts & Cs say you need to make a top-up every 180 days*, not just make a call/text/use data:

 

 

You may be fortunate to have got your SIM at a time when their terms were less restrictive, like I did with my Three PAYG SIM.

 

* Note that this isn't stated oin the MSE web page I linked in my previous post.  But it is on ASDA mobile's web site.

My (ex) Vodafone PAYG had a 90 day limit and you only had to make a call in that period, I hadn't topped up for 2 years but had run the credit down from around £10 to less than £5 but was disconnected after 90 days of non use.

 

I'm a bit annoyed with Vodafone as I had opted for no marketing texts but was getting 2 or three a week asking me to do various things such as get data bundles etc. After asking several times to stop them with no result I ignored all texts from Vodafone (which is what one of their salesmen recommended) and usually just ended up deleting them after several had gathered in the in box.

The last couple I had but didn't read until this week said "You need to make a call within the next 90days" and then later "You need to make a call within the next 45 days". Nothing after that. I just got disconnected.

 

My wife was in Hospital for 5 months a few year's back, she had a phone but due to a bad stroke she couldn't make calls but could just about receive them, so I topped up her phone and left it at the hospital with her.

Once she was home we tried to use her phone and found the same thing, it had been disconnected as having not made any outgoing calls for more than 90 days. (Quite a bit more than 90)

I got in touch with Vodafone and explained what had happened.

The person that answered seemed to understand the problem and tried to be helpful.

They said thay would try and re-connect it but said that it was too late and the number had been withdrawn and was now back in the pool for re-use.

 

 

Edited July 24, 2022 by melmerby

[Metr0Land]

2 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

 

It's also worth knowing that 999 calls effectively use network "roaming" i.e. even if there's no signal from you own network provider in the location you're calling from, the phone can route the call over any network which does have signal there.  So when it comes to making 999 calls you needn't be too bothered about a particular network's geographic coverage.

 

 

 

Off topic (but this is rmweb) AFAIK you can also call 911 (for N American visitors) and 112 for European visitors who know those numbers by heart

[melmerby]

3 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

 

All the above pertains only to emergency calls to non-emergency numbers e.g. roadside recovery services, friends, family etc.  999 calls from a mobile are free anyway*, so you don't even need credit to make the call - though whether you can call 999 with a disconnected SIM in the phone I don't know.  (I had an idea that you can call 999 without a SIM in the phone at all, but I can't find any authoritative information yay or nay about that - and certainly not through Ofcom's impenetrable web site ☹️)

 

* And thus presumably wouldn't count as a "chargeable outbound activity".  Though I can't really foresee anyone calling the emergency services just in order to keep their SIM active!

You seemingly can't call from a disconnected SIM as it doesn't have a network connection anymore.*

 

I've tried to call Vodafone on a free number but it just says "No Network Available" Any attempt at making a call of any sort gets the same message

 

It's strange though, my previous phone is years off the network, the number & account were transferred to the "new" phone some years back but I still got marketing texts from Vodafone - work that out!

 

EDIT

*Just looked at my phone again and I have a message "Emergency Calls Only" even though I can't use any Vodafone shortform free calls. (for help etc.)

 

EDIT 2

I can't receive calls, the number is unrecognized

Edited July 24, 2022 by melmerby

[melmerby]

If you take the sim card out you get a slightly different message. (Old phone, disconnected 4+ years)

You get "No Sim Card" "Emergency Calls Only"

With the Sim card in you get "Searching For Network" "No Service" "Emergency Calls Only"

 

Still received a couple of texts from Vodafone!

[Nick C]

We've got a spare GiffGaff PAYG phone - their requirement is to make a call or send a text at least once every 180 days, no need to top up. It also sends an email reminder a month before, so you know it needs doing!

[melmerby]

Just got my Asda Sim placed it in phone, reads a signal - great

Set up account - enter my e-mail address - disaster.

It wont accept it because it has a forbidden word in it.

It wont tell me what it is forbidden so that's the end of it.

I've been using the same e-mail for 15+ years and it's the same e-mail address that I use for Asda Home Shopping.

 

I've been in touch with Asda help and they suggested using a different e-mail account e.g. Gmail, which I have.

Same thing rejected it as having a forbidden word but I use it for the Play store!

The chap said wait 10 mins and I'll call you back to see whether it accepted the Gmail.

 

I then got a call which went straight to voicemail (?), Which I need to dial 121 to retrieve. No credit because I can't register my SIM card, so can't do that.

I've waited a further 15mins and nothing so phone turned off and I can get on doing more important things.

 

All in all a waste of time.

 

 

 

Edited July 28, 2022 by melmerby
fingers