SIMs in England and Scotland
 

I am wondering if anyone has any experience or a recommendation for a cell provider in England and Scotland. I have an unlocked phone and would like coverage for 30 days. I don't need much data, just might make the odd phone call or text to a reservation holder. Don't need GPS, etc.

Call into any Tesco Supermarket, they do plenty of reasonable SIM only deals and their shops are everywhere.

Pound shops, Carphone Warehouse and quite a few supermarkets/convenience shops sell SIM cards.

Major providers include Vodafone, O2, EE, and they all have shops in malls and high streets. There is also 3 Mobile, which has only 3G and 4G coverage.

In some rural areas you can get only a 2G signal, while towns and cities will have 3G and 4G. In the village where I live I can get only Vodafone and EE signals, but that will vary from place to place.

English sim cards are among the best in the world because their price is right; namely zero. You can have English sim cards delivered directly to your first hotels by going to their web sites. Add .co.uk to their name (Vodafone.co.uk, o2.co.uk, ee.co.uk) and you can see the plans. Three might be good as they only charge you for calls something like 2p/minute (even calls abroad from the UK). Lots of information of the various plans available on the web sites and easy to top up. I doubt you can beat the price.

Giffgaff is the one we have used. Somewhere on Fodors is a link to a person who will send you a SIM for free from the UK -- I believe Giffgaff users get a referral bonus of some kind for this.

We don't use a lot of data, however, so I can't comment on whether the cost is competitive with other brands.

You can add funds online.

ssander

As you've discovered there are many providers and lots of options.

But to keep it as simple as possible visit a branch of the Carphone Warehouse and they'll sort you out with a SIM for your needs.

https://www.carphonewarehouse.com/store-locator.html

I'd be hesitant to buy a Three (3 Mobile) SIM if you plan to spend a lot of time in the countryside where you can often get only 2G signals, as opposed to towns and cities which have 3G and 4G. A Three SIM is absolutely useless in the village where I live, because it doesn't have a 2G network and I can't pick up a signal at all.

I have a Vodafone SIM which picks up a signal almost everywhere. When in an area where the 3G or 4G signal isn't strong enough, it reverts to 2G. EE also has a strong 2G signal just about everywhere that doesn't have 3G or 4G coverage. A 2G signal is all you need for phone calls and texts.

BTW, Tesco and Giffgaff both use the O2 cellphone provider. Carphone Warehouse sells a variety of plans from the major providers, but make sure you get the one you need.

Thank you everyone...I have started investigating your suggestions. It looks as if it will be easy enough. It is very helpful to have the names of a few providers to start me off.

Does EDI have decently priced SIM providers directly in the airport? I have no issue paying a little bit more for the convenience factor.

If it's convenience sake you're interested in, you can purchase some British sim cards on ebay for as little as 99p (oop more than you would pay if you wait for arrival say in London). You can then go to the web sites. You can then top up Vodafone on its web site which takes paypal (unfortunately some of the British mobile operators have an asinine rule not to accept foreign credit cards for top ups) or go to mobiletopup.co.uk which for a small fee of about £1 will send you a top up code for all UK carriers via email and they do take paypal so for an outlay of about 2 quid give or take a few pence you can have a fully function British sim card the instant the wheels of the plane hit the runway at Heathrow or in Edinburgh or wherever. The ebay merchants and the mobiletopup web site are totally reliable (and no, I'm not a shill) but you do have to do a little research on the various plans available (they are similar) and decide, for example, just how much data you want to use although more and more hotels, still not nearly as many elsewhere, do now provide wifi as part of the room tariff and of course there's always Mickey D, Starbucks, Preat a manger, where people sit and browse using their free wifi.

As noted above, Vodafone is a viable operator. I do like 3 despite its limitatiions and actually the cheapest sim cards available on ebay are generally for 3. Also if you go the ebay route, watch out for shipping costs. The merchant I use, as I said, charged me 99p for a 3 sim card and £1 for shipping to the USA. Other merchants do advertise low prices but then sock it to you with shipping costs.

Thanks again...very good information to work with!