Hi all,
Myself and my parents are all with Virgin Mobile at the moment but both my Mum and me have had network problems recently.
Over the past week or two on my phone I've noticed that the signal keeps disappearing completely during the daytime and my Mum knows of at least two people who have been unable to contact her.
Due to these problems I've decided to look at our options. I've been with Virgin for at least 5 years without many problems - their customer service has been consistently exceptional and I like their easy-to-understand tariff and website.
Most of all I'm looking for a consistent and reliable network with good customer service.
Tariff-wise, we are light users, perhaps very light. I personally only need to top-up my phone, usually by £5, once every two to three months. My Mum spends the most - probably £20 a month, and my Dad about £10 a month at the most. On which basis, I would need a network that allows £5 top-ups, either by printed voucher or by debit/credit card - I'm not sure that they all do these days.
Call charges-wise - cheaper cross-network calls would be good - I don't fancy the idea of 30 or 40ppm to call another mobile network.
Not worried too much about text message costs or text bundles - we only send about 5-10 messages a week each, so text message bundles that need to be used within a set time period would be a waste for us.
The option of call bundles paid for from credit for example £10 for 60 minutes of any network anytime calls would be nice - in case we need to make more calls that normal during a set time period for instance if we are away from home.
The main other network we call is Vodafone, which my brother is on, and of course BT landlines. I also call a lot of local-rate non-geographical numbers like 0845x. I also use GPRS WAP a bit but my parents don't.
From my initial research Orange looks good tariff-wise, but the tariffs I've seen from Vodafone and O2 look expensive in like-for-like comparison, excluding any bundles.
Unless I am wrong, Orange compares to Virgin very closely, and I like the Virgin tariff - that's the main reason I've stuff with them for so long, that and the customer service.
I think I can rule-out T-Mobile as they use the same network as Virgin and the main reason I want to leave Virgin is network issues.
I hope this explains our needs - any questions please let me know.
Many thanks in advance for any advice.
Kind regards,
Steve.
Myself and my parents are all with Virgin Mobile at the moment but both my Mum and me have had network problems recently.
Over the past week or two on my phone I've noticed that the signal keeps disappearing completely during the daytime and my Mum knows of at least two people who have been unable to contact her.
Due to these problems I've decided to look at our options. I've been with Virgin for at least 5 years without many problems - their customer service has been consistently exceptional and I like their easy-to-understand tariff and website.
Most of all I'm looking for a consistent and reliable network with good customer service.
Tariff-wise, we are light users, perhaps very light. I personally only need to top-up my phone, usually by £5, once every two to three months. My Mum spends the most - probably £20 a month, and my Dad about £10 a month at the most. On which basis, I would need a network that allows £5 top-ups, either by printed voucher or by debit/credit card - I'm not sure that they all do these days.
Call charges-wise - cheaper cross-network calls would be good - I don't fancy the idea of 30 or 40ppm to call another mobile network.
Not worried too much about text message costs or text bundles - we only send about 5-10 messages a week each, so text message bundles that need to be used within a set time period would be a waste for us.
The option of call bundles paid for from credit for example £10 for 60 minutes of any network anytime calls would be nice - in case we need to make more calls that normal during a set time period for instance if we are away from home.
The main other network we call is Vodafone, which my brother is on, and of course BT landlines. I also call a lot of local-rate non-geographical numbers like 0845x. I also use GPRS WAP a bit but my parents don't.
From my initial research Orange looks good tariff-wise, but the tariffs I've seen from Vodafone and O2 look expensive in like-for-like comparison, excluding any bundles.
Unless I am wrong, Orange compares to Virgin very closely, and I like the Virgin tariff - that's the main reason I've stuff with them for so long, that and the customer service.
I think I can rule-out T-Mobile as they use the same network as Virgin and the main reason I want to leave Virgin is network issues.
I hope this explains our needs - any questions please let me know.
Many thanks in advance for any advice.
Kind regards,
Steve.
). And 20ppm on 0870, an eye watering 35ppm on 0871 for my current provider, 02.
) And also the 3 network if they were prepared to buy a new handset.