Tesco Mobile

[PlaneMan]

Do you need all the minutes/texts and data?

I use hardly anything when out and about, tiny amounts of data usually. Yesterday wa the first time in months I had to make a conventional phone call, they are usually done over hangouts or whatsapp.

I’ve used just over £10 of credit in about 5 months, that’s typical for me. (3 PAYG).

[Bob Williams]

Not making a decision yet Nolan, still have some EE data, txts & minutes, but that is food for thought, thanks.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[The Duke]

That deal @Tippon linked to is a good’n. It did originate form me through.

[JayCeeDee]

I’m looking to go Sim only sometime soon. Our contract with EE is about £27pm for u/l minutes, u/l texts and 1GB data ( no roll over for unused data). Been mulling it over for some time, but the other night SWMBO asked about whether we were getting good value. It was research time.

I see Sky has an new offer for their TV customers – sim only, 1GB data that rolls over for 3 years, free u/l minutes and texts, all for a tenner. The Z3C is coming out of contract next month and EE unlock it for free, so it’s only 2yo and does all I need it to. The only cloud on the horizon is the cost of new phones, but from watching here, things like the Swift @ £150ish solve that one.

Now mobile calls are included in our landline plan the mobile gets a lot less use, mainly just when we’re out and about.

[PlaneMan]

Check how much you actually use of your included allowances, even £10 a month might be a waste of money if you only use a fraction of your allowance.

[JayCeeDee]

PlaneMan wrote:

Check how much you actually use of your included allowances, even £10 a month might be a waste of money if you only use a fraction of your allowance.

Over the last few months it’s been between 250MB and 400MB, it gets used on speed camera app, googlemaps, plus loads of small background app usage, so that’s not too bad. There are things that I just don’t do at the moment, such as streaming films or music when I’m out for the day, so with the data roll over that issue will become irrelevant. I could also stream music from my phone through the car’s system without added cost.

The old adage is very true in this situation – the more you have, the more you use. I’ll be saving £15+ and getting more out of it!! Bonus:) :good:  :yahoo:

[Richard]

PlaneMan wrote:

Check how much you actually use of your included allowances, even £10 a month might be a waste of money if you only use a fraction of your allowance.

Wise words, I will be interested in my own results of a one month test, though it might be a slightly unfair test for the moment as movements far from base are limited by current health issues. I suspect users are either in the high consumption group or the low consumption group, with very little between the two.

[Dave Rice]

Last week in Cornwall visiting the relatives we were looking at them all sharing FTTC Broadband (converted farm buildings). The biggest issue was could they live without a landline each? Not a daft question as mobile signals are bad anyway and most of the buildings are in a bowl below the treeline. The one who has FTTC says his O2 wifi calling works a treat so tried my Three app. Worked perfectly even over the appalling ADSL at Aunties, so much so I am using it at home now so I don’t miss calls in the workshop.

Only O2 or Three let you use any old Android (4+) phone, EE and Vodaphone are limited models only (mostly new high end ones where it’s built in). I don’t think any of the MVNs have wifi calling. With the Three app you decide which SSIDs to associate it with, no idea about O2.

So some back of fag packet calculations later, even taking into account getting O2 sims with enough minutes to cover their existing landline usage and buying the WiFi kit, it costs in within a year (free labour from me of course, well beer and food costs). So they are all having a think.

That prompted me to look at how much I’m paying Sky – £91! That’s for basic TV, BB, line rental and 24 x 7 calls. Yikes!

No sport or movies in that cost. We worked out most of what we watch is on Freesat so paying £44 for Sky Atlantic (WestWorld and GoT) plus the odd bit of Discovery / Nat Geo was stupid. Now TV at £7 a month could cover some of the gap as and when. £47 for 40mbps FTTC, line rental and calls. TalkTalk will do that for £32 fixed for 24 months and no setup fee.

A quick phone call to Sky and we’re off to TalkTalk, but staying with Sky for TV @ £14 for 18 months (all the channels numerically up to the Movies). That’s slightly cheaper than buying a new Humax recorder for Freesat and the Now TV subs as and when. It’s amazing what discounts they can find when pushed and the renewal date is in the outlook calendar already.

So £91 to £46 with only the loss of a few channels we hardly watch (well it’s going to be £51 as I treated myself to 80mbps  :good:  )

Hardware wise the Sky box stays where it is, nothing new to learn there. As the WiFi is independent all I have to deal with is IP address changes in the workshop for servers etc.

EDIT – forgot to mention the TT subs comes with a free sim with 200 mins, 5000 txts and 500mb data! Might be handy when one of the Tesco contracts needs renewing.

[JayCeeDee]

@ricedg – Dave, that’s an awful lot to pay!! I’m on an identical package ( except you’re fibre ) for £65.89.

3 Mar – 2 Apr

A month in advance

Box Sets – including discounts£30.40

Sky Broadband Unlimited£10.00

Sky Talk Line Rental – including discounts£14.99
Call Diversion£2.50
Sky Talk Anytime Extra£8.00
Free items
Sky+ Subscription

Sky WiFi

Caller Display
Total£65.89

I called up and waved TT under their noses and they dropped it down by £15 iirc.

That’s an interesting price to pay for the TV package, – does that include Universal, Atlantic, Fox etc??

 

[Dave Rice]

Current packages, what would have been April’s bill:

Variety HD £44.00
Sky Fibre Unlimited £20.00
Sky Talk Line Rental £18.99
Sky Talk Anytime Extra £8.00

Replaced by Sky TV (discounted by £10.56 per month, with remaining duration of 18 months) = £14.44 and Talktalk £37 It does include Sky 1, Atlantic, Arts, etc. basically what you see in the Entertainment tab.

Gained faster fibre and £40, lost Docs, music and Kids. I’ve also gained the ability to use any router I like.

[JayCeeDee]

Interesting exercise – cheers Dave.?

[Tippon]

Dave Rice wrote:

As the WiFi is independent all I have to deal with is IP address changes in the workshop for servers etc.

I haven’t used Talk Talk, but when I switched to Vodafone recently, I just changed the router’s IP address and DHCP range to match the old Sky box. Saved messing around with trying to remember which kit had fixed IPs etc. 🙂

[The Duke]

What has always confused me, since moving from adsl2 to FTTC I no longer need to log into TT via the router. No username or password.

My details must be hardwired to the white BT box. As I just plug any router In to it and ir works.

My ‘wan connection type’ is set to. ‘Automatic ip’

https://goo.gl/photos/sheFudVcuN1zU7XT8

1. Here are the options as well as’ ‘automatic ip’

https://goo.gl/photos/T8X1DFmG8bY4YXnM9

Does FTTC still come with the white ‘BT open reach’  boxes?

Even if I buy a router that is capable of doing away with the white box, I’ve never been given a log in for my TT FTTC account.

I’m now just wondering if they would simultaneously give it me over the phone. I’d assume they would.

[Dave Rice]

The white box is long gone, you just need a VDSL capable router. it’s the same for Sky but they use an obscure authorisation method and you can’t find out what your credentials are.

I recently looked at a TT ADSL router and the credentials are both in plain text, plus all you do is phone 0345 172 0049 from the same line to get an automated message with the details.

For fibre from what I can see you’re right there is no user name or password, just set VLAN1 and MPoA with automatic IP. I’ll be experimenting after the dust has settled (transfer is 28th March).

@Tippon. Two reasons for me doing it the hard way:

Sky’s DHCP pool is 192.168.0.x and TT is 192.168.1.x Increasingly new kit is turning up with a default IP address in 192.168.1.x It’ll save me a lot of messing about.

I’ve let “fixed” devices get their IP from DHCP then made that static. The result is that their addresses are all over the place. Not a huge problem but a tidy up would be good.

[Tippon]

Fairy Nuff 😀

[Author]

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