Mobile Providers Joining Forces: More Change

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Have you forgotten the Rabbit phones?


You had to be near a transmitter (normally in a newsagent) to make or receive calls.
I actually seriously thought about buying one. I caught the bus home from work and used to wait for the bus outside a shop with the sign sticking out of it. I could have done all my phoning while waiting for the bus, it would have been like living in the future!

But I didn't get one, and lots of others didn't either. It was a crap idea. I think it was basically a cordless phone that used the shop's landline. Not surprised they rapidly went bust, it barely made sense but only for about two years until the mobile networks got established.
 
Yeah, I got my first in 1997, after being encouraged by the soon to be Mrs Secure. It was a Sony Ericsson phone from CPW. £14.99/ month with One2One, a GA628, I believe.

I had one of those free calls at evenings and weekends deals.

Orange poached me with the promise to keep the free calls deals but with a cheaper monthly cost. When PAYG became cheaper than contract for me, I rang Orange to ask if they could move me from contract to PAYG, but they refused (even though my contract had expired) because I didn't give them a reason. I wasn't in financial trouble but there could have been personal reasons why I wanted to move, so I told her as much. I said it was unreasonable of the company to demand a reason why, that they should allow me to move and it was stupidly short-sighted of them not to do so.
I told them to stick it and moved to Virgin, and lost my original One2One number. The number I originally got from Virgin is now Number 1 son's number. In fact, I collected more memorable numbers for me and the lads that all begin with the same 5 digit prefix.

In the early days, when I chose a phone, I used to ask CPW to give a choice of numbers that they had in the stock room: they were printed on the packaging.

So my history of service providers goes (from memory):

One2One (may have morphed into T Mobile)
Orange
Virgin
Asda (who moved from Voda to EE then back again.....)
3
Smarty

There were some dalliances with Tesco and Sainsbury Mobile along the way, but I can't remember where they fitted in.
 
I was originally with Vodafone which all came with an 0836 prefix. When I was given my gold number, it was an 0860 number which was Cellnet so I had to change networks. It wasn’t east in those days as it wasn’t just a matter of changing a SIM card. Each phone had an esn (electronic serial number) built into them and that esn had just one life on each network. It was possible to buy a phone in those days that were blocked on one network (due to unpaid bills or even registered as stolen) but it had to be reprogrammed - the airtime provider would programme them for me until I bought equipment to do them myself.

I’ve since chopped and changed networks on dozens of occasions and apart from Voda and Cellnet, I’ve been on O2 (formerly Cellnet), Orange, Three, Lebara, Asda mobile, Tesco mobile, Virgin, I.D. Mobile, Smarty. I find the MVNO's much better value than the parent networks.
 
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So my history of service providers goes (from memory):

One2One (may have morphed into T Mobile)
Orange
Virgin
Asda (who moved from Voda to EE then back again.....)
3
Smarty

There were some dalliances with Tesco and Sainsbury Mobile along the way, but I can't remember where they fitted in.

I have been with One2One/T-mobile/EE since my first mobile phone in 1999.

I am too lazy to move and always worried about losing things like SMS delivery reports.
 
I have been with One2One/T-mobile/EE since my first mobile phone in 1999.

I am too lazy to move and always worried about losing things like SMS delivery reports.
ditto was with what was one to one/t-mobile /ee from 2001 till 3 months ago when i went to tesco which was far cheaper for what i need than ee and its been spot on not noticed any difference
 
I have been with One2One/T-mobile/EE since my first mobile phone in 1999.

I am too lazy to move and always worried about losing things like SMS delivery reports.
You must be paying a huge mug premium.

What are you paying per month and for what?
 
You must be paying a huge mug premium.

What are you paying per month and for what?

I've been exclusively with Three since the late nineties, and exclusively with HTC handsets.
First one through contact, the rest sim only.

Currently, on a 12 month contract for unlimited calls, texts, and 30gb data a month.
£14.02.

Probably more then I could pay elsewhere, but hardly a "huge" premium IMHO.
 
You must be paying a huge mug premium.

What are you paying per month and for what?

I think I pay £32 (12 month sim only) for unlimited everything and the max 5G speeds (rather than the capped speeds).

I normally use less than 10Gb but I am happy to pay a premium just in case I need unlimited data.
 
I am too lazy to move and always worried about losing things like SMS delivery reports.

I didn't know that was provider dependent, I get none via Plusnet (EE) and did wonder why some suggested they got the reports.
 
I stand corrected

I did consider joining Three shortly after they launched.

From memory, back in 2003/2004 they had sales staff working in other stores, such as Superdrug, rather than having their own stores.

I picked up a PAYG SIM card and soon discovered that I couldn't get any signal where I live in outer London. When in an area with a signal, I tried to call customer services, on each occasion, I couldn't get through. I binned my SIM card.
 
Three have always been, to me anyway, like that girl in the nursery rhyme;

When they're good, they're really, really, good,
And when they're bad, they're horrid.

:LOL: :unsure:

Cheap enough, and reliable enough, for me though (y)
 
I didn't know that was provider dependent, I get none via Plusnet (EE) and did wonder why some suggested they got the reports.

They create extra overheads for networks. The message is delivered. The handset sends a message back to their network, which is then sent to my network and then back to my phone. Granted the date is minimal.

I am not aware of any virtual network that supports delivery reports natively.

Other than network provider, they can be handset manufacturer dependant. iPhones have never supported them.

SMS is my main form of cellular communication. I like knowing that a message has been delivered (or when it was delivered) and am happy to potentially pay above the odds for the feature.
 
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