[David Payne]

Hi, I'm thinking of getting a mobile phone, but I've never bought one before (I know, hard to believe). Anyway, I have a few simple questions about mobiles that the manufacturers don't seem to want to answer for me, and I'm wondering if someone here could tell me:

1) What are the differences between Pay As You Go, and Pay Monthly schemes? (along with any others I may not have heard of).

2) Is buying the phone itself a seperate process from subscribing to a network? Or in other words, if I buy a particular model, will I have to subscribe to a particular network and pay scheme? And if not, can you tell me which phone features are more dependant on the network than the model itself?

3) Anything else I might need to know about!

Thanks in advance!

[Salt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Payne

Hi, I'm thinking of getting a mobile phone, but I've never bought one before (I know, hard to believe). Anyway, I have a few simple questions about mobiles that the manufacturers don't seem to want to answer for me, and I'm wondering if someone here could tell me:

1) What are the differences between Pay As You Go, and Pay Monthly schemes? (along with any others I may not have heard of).

2) Is buying the phone itself a seperate process from subscribing to a network? Or in other words, if I buy a particular model, will I have to subscribe to a particular network and pay scheme? And if not, can you tell me which phone features are more dependant on the network than the model itself?


3) Anything else I might need to know about!

Thanks in advance!

1) Pay As You Go (PAYG) is when you put however much "credit" you want on your phone, and when you run out, you put it on as you please. Most networks allow you to put it on in increments of £10, £15, £25, £50.
Contract is when you pay a certain amount per month. E.g. You pay £30 a month, then you will get 100 voice minutes (talking) and 500 text messages to use. If you go over that, you will have to pay the extra.

2) Normally when you buy a phone, you buy it from the network so all you have to do is slip in the Sim Card (Holds your phone numbers, phone number and network details and credit or contract info.) If you buy a phone sim-free, you can buy a Sim Card and put it in, but this is unlikely. You can normally find out which networks have which phones, either from the shop or online. (www.carphonewarehouse.co.uk , www.phones4u.co.uk)

3) Once again, PAYG, you don't subscribe to anything, you just top-up as you please and when your credit runs out, it's up to you if or when you top it up.

Hope this helps!

DungBEEtle

[Rob_Online]

It'd also be useful to check out the various network's websites to see their coverage for your area.
With Vodafone & Orange (I think) you can top up on pay as you go with £5 too

[David Payne]

Thanks to both of you. Your posts were very helpful.