Below is a graph to compare the costs of sending a text from any of the UK's 16 mobile networks, this page is a big one, so can take up to 30 seconds to load correctly, sorry for the wait.
Last Updated: 12 November 2010
£1.38, the price it would cost you to send 1 text from each of the UK's 16 networks,
8.625p, the average price per text if each of the UK's 16 networks had an equal market share, obviously they don't, Orange, T-Mobile, 02 and Vodafone have more users than the 12 other networks combined.
£0.64, the price it would cost to send 16 texts from either GiffGaff or Asda Mobile
£0.06, the amount you would save per text if you went with GiffGaff or Asda Mobile, as opposed to going with any of the "big 5" mobile operators , T-Mobile, Orange, 02, Vodafone and 3.
Now compare prices per minute of calls from each of the UK's 16 networks, see the graph below.
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£2.49, the price it would cost you to talk for 1 minute on each of the 16 networks.
£1.28, the price it would cost you to talk for 16 minutes on GiffGaff or Asda Mobile, 2 of the cheapest call rates
For the networks which had a more
complected PAYG tariff
Lyca Mobile is 7p for UK
mobiles and 1p for UK landlines so we guessed that you phone landlines
and mobiles equally, meaning it would be 4p a minute, obviously if you
only phoned mobiles it would be 7p a minute and if you only phoned
landlines it would be 1p per minute.
Lebara Mobile is 10p for UK mobiles and 5p for UK landlines Monday-Friday, and 1p for UK landlines on weekends so we guessed that you phone landlines and mobiles equally, meaning it would cost 7.5p a minute, obviously if you only phoned mobiles it would be 10p a minute and if you only phoned landlines on weekdays it would be 5p per minute and if you only used your mobile to phone landlines on weekends it would be 1p a minute.
Nomi Mobile is 10p for UK mobiles and 5p for UK landlines so we guessed that you phone landlines and mobiles equally, meaning it would cost 7.5p a minute, obviously if you only phoned mobiles it would be 10p a minute and if you only phoned landlines it would be 5p per minute
So, which network should you go for,
Best all rounder, for UK
calls, Texts and Data - GiffGaff, not only is it the cheapest network
for texts(4p) and one of the cheapest networks for calls(8p) it has free
GiffGaff to GiffGaff Calls and gives you the chance to earn money by
helping out, see www.giffgaff.com
If you are never going to use
data(Internet) or Picture Messaging - Vectone Mobile, great for UK calls
and texts, also great for international calls as well. Cheaper than
Lebara Mobile when it comes to most international calls, however if you
are only going to make international calls to one specific country check
out which is the cheapest phone network for making international calls,
by using the following links
Vectone Mobile -
http://www.vectonemobile.co.uk/tariffs/international-rates.aspx
Lebara
Mobile - http://www.lebara-mobile.co.uk/en/internationaltariffs.php
Lyca
Mobile -
http://www.lycamobile.co.uk/lycamobile-plus-rates.aspx?tariff=lycaplus&lang=en
Nomi
Mobile - http://www.nomi-mobile.com/nomi_rates.php
Truphone Local
Anywhere - http://localanywhere.truphone.com/rates/
If you use mobile internet please check the mobile operator's own website since this can be very complicated. for example, you get a free allowance or once you have used X number of MB then it is free or it costs Xp for the first XMB then it costs Xp for the next XMB.
