I am thinking of signing up to the home 100 bolt on. I live in the YO12 postcode area but work in the YO11 postcode area only 4 miles away. How strict are O2 on the postcode you are calling from. Are calls from the YO11 postcode likley to be included in my bolt on minutes?

I used to be on the Home 100 bolt-on, but I felt I wasn't getting my best use out of it so went off it. Anyway, before you make an eligible call, a voice saying "Home 100 call" will be audible before the ringing starts. That will tell you if you are eligible or not. In my experience O2 determine your home zone by the base stations that are designed to serve you home postcode.

In my case I discovered that there were two base stations locally that when I was logged on to them I was able to make home 100 calls no matter how far I was from my "home". I live in a rural area so the spread of base stations are more wider than in Urban areas. One trick I made wasto read the base station area codes and recognise them to certain locations so if the right codes came up on my phone I knew then I could make a home 100 call. I used this knowledge to make a "home 100 call" 25 miles from home! but this only came about through a fluke. The second base station was by distance further away from me than some other base stations.

Thanks for the info. One more question how long does it take from signing up to the bolt on untill it is active?

Normally 48hours.

I had Home 250. It worked ok if outside my house of at front upstairs, but did not work at the back of my house.

It worked 3 miles away though

I found if you make the call in your home area then go out of it its ok... well i could go from front of house to back

So if I sign up from my house that is the postcode it will use as my home postcode?

It use's the postcode you enter in

OK, thanks

Yep, this is because that the cell coverage at the front of your house was the one that O2 assumed gave you the best coverage in your postcode. It might be that at the back of your house a better signal was obtained from another cell that was more distant. Unfortunately O2 can't deal with every variant like that but calling them and explaining your problem may help, may not.

As I've said above I used to be able to make calls from up to 25 miles from home using the bolt on though this was in the Sperrin Mountains where O2 reception was patchy and a gap in the mountains allowed my "home" cell to be received and make a call using the bolt on. In general I was able to use my home bolt on up to around 3-5 miles from my home, it depended on base station location and topology and using O2s mapfinder.

If they introduced a bolt-on of say 50 cross network anytime minutes for £7, or 75 for £10 without the home restriction I would be very interested indeed.

Unfortunately O2 can't deal with every variant like that but calling them and explaining your problem may help, may not.

It did not they said they could not help, so i now use VoIP, for 51p more than o2 home, i get as many mins to landlines as i like at off peak time