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Virgin Media’s new Big Data pay-as-you-go SIM may tempt a few of you, as it sees the network offer unlimited mobile data to SIM-only customers in return for topping up with £10 of credit a month.
If you add £10 of calling credit Virgin Media then also shovels 300 SMS messages and an unlimited data bundle to your SIM, with a £15 top-up boosting the SMS allowance to unlimited status as well. All you have to do is buy a standard Virgin Mobile SIM and wait a month, when you’ll be able to call its people and have your plan changed to the Big Data option.
Virgin uses EE’s combined Orange and T-Mobile service for its coverage. So if you get a good EE signal Virgin’s super-cheap data SIM would do, although you’ll pay by the minute for your calls, so it would suit the less sociable type. [Virgin Media]
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superb option to bundle with the Nexus 4.
Still think giffgaff takes the lead? obviously dependent on signal strength in your area.
But if I could go on PAYG (got 1 year left on three’s unlimited 500 £36 month) I would go for Three’s £12.90 a month Unlimited data, 5000 Text and 2000 Mins. As in my area and most of the surroundings I get over 10Mbps speed and 3G everywhere.
Unlimitacular to be precise!
They’ve some pretty neat rolling 30 day bundles too which get even better if you’re a pre-existing customer.
http://www.virginmobile.com/vm/paymonthlySimOnly.do
Been trying to join their contracts for a while, and basically you need to be a Virgin Media customer to get any of the deals from the website (as far as I have been told).
Unlimited is good, but is it un-throttled as well?
This seems like an excellent deal for a dongle or tablet, as it appears that on the £10 deal, you only have about 38 minutes of talk time :-/
What’s the opinion on the EE data network versus 3? I currently use 3′s PAYG data plan and dongle for work, but I’m getting annoyed with the coverage blackspots and inconsistent performance even in London.
“All you have to do is buy a standard Virgin Mobile SIM and wait a month”
Not correct, if your read the T&C’s it says that as a joining bonus you get 45 days of free data and 300 texts. You just have to remember to top-up £10 each month to bank the following months freebies.
I’ve just got a new sim only deal today with Virgin ready for my Nexus 4
£12/month, 30 day rolling contract, 1200mins, 2500text and 1GB data.
Supposedly it’s a special offer on at the moment.
By the way I had to call them up to get the deal, no mention of it on the website and I’m a Virgin Media customer already so I don’t know if that makes a difference.
I rung up and spoke to someone that was being really unclear about the whole thing. If I joined today, I would have to wait 24 hours until the bundle comes into affect, then when I top up, wait another 24 hours until that comes into affect, THEN I can use ‘unlimited data’
Just for those interested, they say ‘truly unlimited’ but it does have a 10GB download limit on all mobile contracts and PAYG (which is still pretty good), and then if this is exceeded, users are throttled to 384kbps until the end of the month before being reset.
Here: http://www.virginmobile.com/vm/genericContent.do?contentId=our.service.footer.sm068#Virgin Media Mobile Acceptable Use Policy Pay As You Go