Advice on prepaid sim for uk holiday

[needthephone]

I have an unlocked iPhone 3G and my wife and I are coming to the uk on holiday (from Australia)

Does anybody know which paid sim I could use for our month long trip? we want to be able to book accommodation etc on the road so would need the Internet. As we will be travelling from south east England to NE Scotland we would need decent 3G or Edge coverage across the uk.

I looked on the Internet and see lots of companies do them but I couldn't see any with data plans.

Does anyone have any thoughts ?

 

[robbieduncan]

Call O2 (in the UK) and see if you would be able to use a PAYG sim with the Web+WiFi for iPhone Bolt On....

 

[needthephone]

Thanks for that- I'm madly searching the internet but there isn't much available on data plans with pre paid.

You would think lots of people would want to do this-maybe they haven't cottoned on yet

 

[tallon]

Thanks for that- I'm madly searching the internet but there isn't much available on data plans with pre paid.
yet

T-Mobile offer pay and go sim cards with reasonable call charges.

http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/shop/mobile-phones/sim-card/pay-as-you-go/pay-as-you-go-sim/Mates_Rates_(SIM)/

They also offer an add-on service for internet/data. For pay and go it costs £2.50 (about 5.35 Australian dollars) for 5 days unlimited browsing (with a fair usage policy of 40mb per day).

http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/mobile-internet/on-your-phone/how-to-get-it/#existing (scroll to the bottom of the page, its under the 'Pay as you go' heading)

If you know exactly where you'll be visiting, you can use the coverage checker:

http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/coverage/street-check/

Hope this helps

 

[needthephone]

Thanks very much for that.


It says if you are an existing T Mobile customer- do you know if they will sell them to new T Mobile customers?

 

[iSimon]

As far as I am aware Three have the best 3G coverage in the UK (and use the Orange 2G network to fallback on when out of 3G) and their PAYG prices for data are also very reasonable - could be just what you're looking for. You can use your credit to buy a £5 addon that gives you unlimited internet for one month.

3's PAYG prices are here.

Their website has an offer for a PAYG SIM for £9.99 with £10 pre-loaded (of which £5 could be used to buy the internet add-on) but that may not be available if you buy a SIM in a shop so you may need to buy the top up on top of the SIM.

 

[sibruk]

One other thing in T-Mobile's favour is their incredible 3G coverage. It just seems to be everywhere (I have a USB dongle for mobile broadband from them), unlike O2 which is definitely patchy. And as for Three - don't even bother with them, unless you are going to be spending all your time North of Birmingham! The coverage across the South is dire (again, from personal experience).

 

[tallon]

It says if you are an existing T Mobile customer- do you know if they will sell them to new T Mobile customers?

I would guess that once you bought a sim only pack, they would consider you a customer. Hopefully you could just add the data service on once the sim card is activated.

 

[needthephone]

Thanks for the replies.

We want good coverage as we will be travelling throughout teh UK and would need to be able to search the internet in between the main cities so we can hopefully book a cosy pub in a beautiful village- I can taste my pint of 'bitter' already!!

Maybe a silly question but is there 3G coverage in the English Lake District? It would be good to see where we were in those mountains if we go walking

 

[Moria]

Thanks for the replies.

We want good coverage as we will be travelling throughout teh UK and would need to be able to search the internet in between the main cities so we can hopefully book a cosy pub in a beautiful village- I can taste my pint of 'bitter' already!!

Maybe a silly question but is there 3G coverage in the English Lake District? It would be good to see where we were in those mountains if we go walking

3G coverage is generally very good in the UK. I don't actually get it at home but that's to be expected since I live in the middle of nowhere. 10 miles south (closer to Glasgow) and I get a great 3G reception. All the big cities definitely have it in Scotland. Most of Southern England should have it too, judging from the map below Three don't have 3G coverage in the Lake District but you might get lucky.

http://www.three.co.uk/personal/coverage_/three_coverage.omp

 

[needthephone]

I am with three in I'd so maybe I can ask them if they can do the uk plan while I'm up there.

I'll check the t mobile coverage for the lakes though