Concidering mobile only data (no landline)

[phil1946]

Both Hil and I have O2 mobile 'phones with unlimited calls and texts and 1gb of data per month and get 4g at about 64 Mb/s at home.

We pay £26 per month for the landline, all calls (but never use it to make calls and get lots of unwanted PPI etc) and Broadband and get just under 7Mb/s.

As we tour for about 3 months each year we also pay both the CC and C&CC £25 each to use their Broadband. There are times that we pay a private site to use their WiFi and other times when we use the mobiles as a hotspot and exceed the allowance.

I reckon that we are spending around £400 per year for Broadband and, other than Google, Facebook, emails etc the only downloading we do is about 3 hours of SKY TV catch up each month.

I see that GiffGaff have a sim that includes unlimited data for £20 per month that, if it worked, would save (400 - 240) £160 per year. I believe that there is no contract which would enable me to try for one month before canceling our landline.

Any ideas, suggestions or experience welcome.

 

[scotjimland]

my daughter has a Giffgaff sim .. no contract, no hassle , no problems.. .. she has one of the goody bags at £5 per month..

when I feel rich I give her the £7.50 goody bag

only downside I have found is... Itemised call details and billing is not available.... just data and mins used..

 

[Easyliving]

We use our mobiles more and more and its nearly always the mobile number I quote when I want someone to give me a call. Maybe its getting near the time when we can start thinking about doing away with land lines, just using our mobile devices for everything as Phil says.

Certainly worth thinking about.

Paul

 

[Stealaway]

I have tried it with my 3gThree phone but its much slower. I think I'll wait till we have 5g

 

[GJH]

We use a 3 MiFi away from home, on PAYG so only have to "feed" it when we are away.

At home we have Virgin Media landline and broadband. We receive a few calls but never make any as our 3 mobiles are a lot cheaper. Each year when I receive the letter from VM saying they are putting prices up I ring them and ask what they can do to stop me ceasing the useless landline or leaving them totally. They invariably come up with a deal that means we pay less for both landline and broadband than one or the other singly.

EDIT - £21.49 a month at the moment.

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[thehutchies]

The Giffgaff unlimited data tariff is a con.
If you are planning to stream video, you will probably find that your access will be restricted and ultimately denied.
It happened to us, so read the small print carefully.
It's unlimited, but only if you don't use much

 

[SuperMike]

Also, a Sky box does not like being hooked, for downloading to Mifi or phone type devices. It sees the connection ok, but most often, can't for whatever reason use it.

 

[Diesel]

3G and 4G speeds are always going to be down to the area you live, We have just moved (this morning) from Sky Fibre to Vodafone Fibre ...with both me and my wife working from home I was a little perplexed when I spoke with VF this morning and they told be I could be without connection for upto 16hrs whilst openreach do their bit to switch us over.

We both tethered our phones and got 15meg down and 15meg up on 4G. VF fibre has just this minute come live with 20meg down and 10meg up - we live in a city though, if we could get those speeds elsewhere we could be in the bus much more

It annoys the hell out of me that we still pay for a landline phone on with Broadband ....to be fair VF landline package is pretty good as includes 300mins to uk mobiles....just don't need it though and phone will not be plugged in :-(

 

[Boringfrog]

Got rid of BT years ago. Go for it.

 

[Electraglide]

We did away with the landline 18 months ago. Unlimited calls and texts on our mobiles and a 3 data sim in a mifi unit. We have never been large data user's, saved us money and we use 3 "feel at home " when we are away. Works well for us.

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[MattR]

In my experience, GiffGaff are good enough as a spare phone but as they operate on O2 (and don't get priority connection) and O2 is pretty poor, their reliability isn't as great as other mobile companies.

I left O2 last year, tired of the promises to speed up my 3G service which was very slow. They managed to improve, but only after I had given notice to cancel my contract.

I'd be tempted to test the GiffGaff sim alongside a 3 sim and buy cheap sims off eBay when required. 3 aren't perfect but I've been impressed with them and they would give a wider coverage in conjunction with your O2 phone sims than you'd get with GiffGaff.

 

[Tweedie]

Where we live we can only get super slooooow broadband, they haven't heard of this fancy fibre optic thing yet, on a good day we do get a splendid 2 bars on the mobile phone and as for 3G & 4G what's that all about, we use the hanging out of the bedroom window network to get a signal. Landline only sensible option at the moment for us.

 

[mitzimad]

unless its changed recently you cant tether on the gif gaf unlimited tarifs

 

[dartslf2000]

I'll second what's been said, giffgaff 'unlimited' data, isn't unlimited at all, it's a 6gb limit, then throttled. Unless you use midnight to 8am. No roaming obviously and no tethering. So compared to 3, it's not very good at all, we do what you're thinking of, with 2 x smart phones with unlimited everything with 3. Can't fault it, took them to USA and Spain in the last 2 months and used them without limit or additional cost.

 

[brynric]

We've had 4 months in a caravan whilst our house is being built. We have unlimited contracts and free site wifi so we imagined we'd get by without BT when we move in.
In reality because of where we are phone signals are weak and the Internet is annoyingly slow. We will probably go back to BT for more reliable calls and faster internet.
There, I bet I'm the first to use "BT" and "reliable" in the same sentence.
If we were in a different area, we'd probably reach a different conclusion.

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[dartslf2000]

BT and reliable lol, omg!
We tried them for a few months and after daily phone calls and repeated visits from engineers of varying seniority, they finally agreed that in our area of Wales they couldn't provide a service that was worth a bucket of warm spit, gave us a refund and compensation for all the time wasted waiting for engineers etc. Numpties.

 

[phil1946]

OK then so a slight change as so many of you use 3 - how about the same idea but using this

Three 3G Pay n Go STANDARD/MICRO or NANO SIM (300 mins, Unlimited Data + 3000txts)
99.3% Positive Feedback

£19.25

might have to see if 3 do 4G

 

[WillH]

Just a suggestion but if you are going the mobile only route consider two different networks. I'm on 3 and my wife uses O2, we find we have a better chance of a good signal when we are away anywhere.

 

[phil1946]

Thanks to all for your responses.

Will, Hil and I both have 1gig per month free on our 02 mobiles so are looking to try and get my phablet ('phone/tablet) to tether on another supplier. Was thinking GiffGaff but now probably (?) 3. Have used the phablet with various sims when touring with some success to feed Hil's Ipad, my laptop, Kindle and mobiles via WiFi but am now looking for a one size fitts all and canceling the landline to fund a, hoped for, improvement.

 

[Don Quixote]

Watch GiffGaff in the small print:
What does ‘Always On’ data mean?
Our Always On goodybag is designed to give you peace of mind that you'll always have access to data. With Always On you get 6GB ONLY of UK data at full 4G speeds and then an unlimited data allowance at a reduced speed (256kbps) from 8am to midnight. From midnight to 7.59am you have an unlimited data allowance at full speed.

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