Hi guys,

Has anyone tried any of the free mobile broadband sim only plans. To be honest the VMNO that sits on vodafone seems too good to be true, what's the catch?

I've ordered sims from Samba, which sits on the Three network and you watch some Youtube based ads to earn free data. I watched about 20 minutes of youtube (to be fair some of the time I was reading other tabs whilst listening) and I have 70MB of credit from just 20 minutes of ads. You can earn money each day, topping up by watching ads.

I actually found because I selected my interest the ads weren't ads as such but content driven, so I watched some presentations of Azure from Microsoft because I selected I work in IT and learned quite a bit obout Azure cloud provisioning.

You can earn money before the sim arrives, so I'm still waiting for the sim to arrive.

The other one was Ovivo, which is a VMNO on Vodafone, you can choose between 2 free tariffs, 1 gig of data free a month or you can get a smartphone plan which has 250MB data 200 any network minutes and some texts as well. This one works a bit differently, they somehow display ads during web browsing, again the sim hasn't arrived so wait and see I guess, I wonder how intrusive the ads will be.

Both have a small initial cost, Ovivo is £5 for the sim, then you never have to pay again and your allowance resets monthly. On Samba, it was £8.99 one off I think and then you earn credit by watching videos.

Both allow optional top-ups of cash for extra data. I would imagine that these companies might not last. I'm more keen on the sound of Samba even though it only gives you small amounts of data because you watch the ads when you want to earn credit. There is a Chrome addon that shows your remaining allowance too.

I've check the T&C's and they aren't doing anything horrible in terms of spying or privacy as far as I can see. I'm just wondering what others experience is like?

History has shown that ad-funded 'free' broadband does not work, at least not in the long term. Remember the debacle NTL inflicted on us 11 years ago?

I remember a free phone service aimed at teens before too which closed, and the people behind Samba have had a failed business before. However maybe now the time is right, as data consumption is growing very fast and advertisers want to reach customers.

We'll see, but i'll be happy to have it whilst it lasts. I have an unlocked dongle and it's handy to have a small amount of data for using a laptop away from home for just browsing etc. My free credit is up to 120 megs on Samba now, that's a fair amount of just web browsing.

I saw these on HotUKDeals . They are worth a punt i suppose but I doubt they will last long green, especially Ovivio. If something looks too good to be true its usually because it is.

Yeah I doubt Ovivo will last too, they are giving away minutes, texts, and data which would usually cost a user at least £15 a month or 1GB of data a month, which would usually cost about £5+. The are only delivering ads in web browsing. Knowing that a lot of users won't actually browse that much on the smartphone tariff (maybe not even at all) I find it difficult to believe the ad revenue would support the service.

With Samba, although they have had a failed try before I think they will have learned lessons, also you have to view the ads to earn the credit so the advertisers know that people will at the least have listened to them whilst browsing in other tabs, or at least a certain percentage will.

The allowance they give is smaller, but I'm up to 200MB worth of credit now, which would last me a month on a dongle for just occasional use when I'm out of the house.

The offering from Samba looks more professional too, where as Ovivo seems a bit too good to be true and the website isn't as good etc, however it does run on Vodafone, so that will be a good selling point for some.

I will try both when the sims arrive and report back anyway.

Does not sound like a sustainable proposition for the average user. A good way to put more pressure on a network though delivering data that the average user does not want in order to use some.

Interesting concept, but flawed and it hopefully won't clog up the network with lots of useless bits affecting genuine paying customers.

So presumably wave you think delivering separate content, radio, TV, data separately via independent networks of transmitters in the long term is the future, when IP can carry them. I note you say it's flawed and talk of clogging up networks but no substance to your post.

With LTE advanced a 48Kbps AAC+ stream won't clog a network, especially if you can multicast it to the ISP. The bandwidth will be there in future, and the future is IP based, not single networks of transmitters broadcasting just a handful of selected audio broadcasts in MP2.

This is not being delivered using LTE though - it uses 3's 2100Mhz UMTS HSPA+ network (LTE has yet to be licenced!in the UK) and the concern has to be that customers who are paying 3 directly for services could be affected by the use of network capacity to deliver unwanted adverts to credit users with free data.

Not long ago 3's CEO was warning they might not be able to cope with demand with the bandwidth they have. This development seems to be at odds with that but is understandable as 3 UK seem to be looking to increase revenues by whatever means lately.

Oops. wrong thread. Anyway same point that I will report back on these services when the sims arrive.

It would be interesting to use a Ovivo SIM in a MiFi. Surely there is no way it could get a client to display ads.

The ads will be embedded in the page somehow I suspect, will find out when I test it.

They will just inject some javascript into every HTML page loaded, so will happen no matter what device you use. Adblock might get rid of them, though.

Fad..

Yeah you might be right, I might hop on whilst they are around though and at least have a test.

Yeah agreed, initially though for your free 1GB each month you just get an initial home page with ads on, then browse away to whatever you want and it won't initially have any other ads.


Samba say you'll get fully unrestricted internet access with no ads or changes at all, but you'll need to visit their ad page to earn credit.

If anything I'd have thought it would be Giffgaff that would suffer from this, as they are typically people that wanted to earn the free credit or are light users, when you start giving away free calls, texts and data each month I should imagine that will be attractive to the giffgaff crowd. There's already a bit of discussion about these 2 providers in the Giffgaff forums, with a number of GG users saying they used to use Blyk, which was a free credit network for teens / students.

I do agree with the comments about who long these providers might last though, but at the same time I'm very interested in giving them a go as it's only £5 and £8.99 for both and that's it.

I'm posting using Samba now, works great. It's basically unrestricted 3 service and free as long as you are willing to watch ads in order to top up your allowance. Currently 450MB in my allowance.

Next to test is Ovivo!

Ovivo doesn't work as there is no Vodafone 3G signal here, oh well

No point if there's only edge (which is all I'm getting), same upstairs and in a fairly populated area not in the country. Might be good for out and about though I guess.

Free advertising supported data from the network that's CEO said it would have issues with bandwith to support users and which now has published details of TrafficSense data management to stop paying customes who have bought all you can eat data packages from affecting other users!

You couldn't make this stuff up!

You take things too far man...

Indeed.

Ok I got Ovivo working now with 0 bars of 3G. Pages seem to load fast, but speedtest is not good. The ISP has a strange name on speedtest, also the network just shows as "mobile services" !

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1978463703.png

Every one in so many pages you seem to get the following page:

http://oi45.tinypic.com/14k9kqb.jpg

Hmmm guess it's good for 1GB free, can't complain at that (apart from I wish Vodafone's 3G signal provided at least 1 bar)

I don't think so - seems realistic to me. Nothing less than predicted from the mobile network that promised All You can eat data but now punishes those who are in the top 5% of users with restrictions for a week if they go beyond whatever they consider uneasonable (no data quantities published).

Meanwhile junk adverts swamp the network to generate revenue and provide free data for those prepared to put up with watching advertising.

The customer priorirties seem to have been lost somewhere. Paying customers promised AYCE should have priority over those using free data on the network in exchange for watching (data hungry video) advertisng surely?

@Thine Wonk - thanks for your testing on these - not something that I would personally need or use but can see how it could be good for some people...even if it only stays a bout for a few months you can get some free data for a while

No probs Alan, I'd say if you get a good vodafone signal and have an unlocked device then for less than £10 one off fee go for it, for 1GB of data Ovivo is great. It only displays ads about 1 in 20 pages and you just click past them anyway. It's a great freebie whilst it lasts.

Both sims were completely white / blank on top by the way so very easy to get them mixed up now ! Will have to write the network on them!

Well, so much for Samba which runs off the 3 network, it's stopped working for the last 2 days.

I have loads of data, but I can no longer connect to the service, it sees signal, but won't log on and authenticate. The Ovivo sim works fine in my mobile broadband dongle, but the Samba sim fails to authenticate in either an unlocked dongle on on my unlocked phone!!

I only used 6 Megs

I see some other people are reporting issues too on their forum so I'll see if I can get it resolved, I've emailed their support I thought this was going to be a really cool little freebie, but it seems not at the moment.

A new sim card is being sent out for me, seems others are having the same issue by the looks of Twitter and Samba's help area.

Ovivo has been working well I was impressed with Vodafone's 3G coverage on the motorway listening to TuneIn, it works better if you force it to 3G only.