UK SIM card question
 

I will be traveling to the UK in July for 2 weeks and plan to get a SIM card for my iPhone while I am there. My friend in the UK suggested Three's PAYG plan.
https://www.three.co.uk/Store/SIM/Pay_As_You_Go

I will either get the £10 for 1GB or £15 for 5GB (looks like 3000 minutes and 3000 texts are included). My question is - has anyone used it and do you have any complaints?

In addition, one of my friends is currently traveling in the UK so I am planning to ask her to buy me a SIM card from a Three store while she is in London. The advantage of that will be (I'm assuming?) I will have the UK phone # ahead of time to provide it to my relatives and friends there? But how does activation work? Obviously I don't want to activate it until I arrive in the UK in July.

TIA for any thoughts.

We bought a card at Heathrow when we landed and got a WAY better deal than anything we found online before we left. The card was the same 1 GB with a lot of minutes (can't remember, wanted mostly for the internet) deal we'd seen online for like 20-25 quid but had 10GB "FREE" because we got it at the airport on a special deal. So you don't need to buy ahead.

Don't worry on having the number in advance. You can just send a text or email with the new number to those who may want to call you when you get the SIM card.

yk, just a thought but Three's coverage in my location is not good although some other major providers are fine. Of course, it could be the reverse in other areas. Ofcom, the regulator in the UK, has an online checker which will give you an idea of who gives best coverage in a particular location. You will need to use a postcode and if you have already booked your accommodation perhaps use theirs. Or, if travelling around the country maybe find some local businesses online and you will probably find their full address plus code.

https://checker.ofcom.org.uk/

Bill

I used a three UK sim last summer in the UK and France and it worked just dandy.
You can, and IMO, probably should activate it here in the US, as I did. It will roam in the US on tmobile and that will be one less thing to worry about when you get there. You can set up a mythree account on line. Then you would have to add funding through a topup like mobiltopup.co.UK or your friend could buy a topup code for you while in the UK. You can't directly use non UK credit cards on the Three website.

So we got into London quite late and couldn't get a SIM card at Heathrow as our ride was waiting. The Tube station nearest our lodgings had three phone shops so we were able to compare the SIM cards being offered before buying. The stores will install them for you.

Will 5GB be enough for 2 weeks, it does not seem alot, there are so many apps that eat data. Will you be able to use wifi where you are staying?

The problem you may run into with Three is that they have only 3G and 4G signals. That's fine in areas that have good coverage, but even in parts of London coverage isn't always good. If you buy a SIM from Vodafone, O2 or EE you will have 2G signals to fall back on when 3G and 4G isn't available. Where I live in Suffolk I can't get Three signals at all, and often only 2G with the others.

It might not be enough if you will stream video on it, but otherwise, for one person, anyway, 5GB should be far more than needed, at least from my recent experiences in Europe. Last week I was in Portugal, and over nine days, and I used all of 800MB. I used my phone constantly for Google Maps (not to mention email, Facebook, etc.) and also tethering my laptop on trains, and I made no attempt to save data, though I did use WiFi at hotels most of the time. Last year on a trip to Europe I had similar data usage.

Hmmm... so many good points from all of you, thank you!

We fly into Heathrow but will directly take the coach to Woking and then change for a train towards Exeter. The first part of our trip is in Lyme Regis. We will NEED a working phone before we get on the train because we will need to contact our host to come pick us up at the train station in Axminster. The nice thing about having a SIM card ahead of time is that I don't have to hunt for one when I arrive to Heathrow, jetlagged with a 5-year-old in tow, especially if we need to run for our coach for Woking.

The second leg of our trip is in London with a daytrip to Sevenoaks, and the third part of our trip is in Manchester/Liverpool area. I will have wifi when we are in our lodgings. 5GB will be more than enough for a 2-week trip... I currently have a 2GB/m plan in the US.

@rs899
So, if I ask my friend (who will be in London next week, but lives in Boston) to go to a Three store to get me a PAYG SIM card, can she do that add-on there at the store, so my SIM will already have the data plan, without activating the card right there and then?

I would defer to the locals on this. I don't know what the three stores will or will not do for you. Never been to one myself.

However, your friend can easily buy a three SIM and a separate topup in many places in the UK for you (places like chemists, mobile stores) and relay the code number back to you. You can activate the SIM, setup and fund your account online and get your phone roaming and working in the US a day or two before you leave.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fod...3660eb3864.jpg

I used EE in the UK, Belgium, and Netherlands last month. I can monitor my data usage thru text and able to top up online

"Will 5GB be enough for 2 weeks, it does not seem alot, there are so many apps that eat data. Will you be able to use wifi where you are staying?"

I'm pretty high use but blew less than 1 GB on the phone in 10 days because (1) we had wifi at both places we stayed, (2) I wasn't trying to stream Game of Thrones in its entirety while outside our lodgings.

Yk, I don't know why you are so fixated on Three when the other major providers all have better coverage in the UK. Here is a story on the BBC website which shows Three in last place behind the three other major providers, EE, O2, and Vodafone:
UK mobile coverage winners revealed in study - BBC News

If I had a Three SIM I wouldn't even get a signal in my home.

BTW, if you choose O2 there are 15,000 free wi-fi hotspots you can connect to when out & about, so don't even need to use the data on your SIM: https://www.o2.co.uk/connectivity/free-wifi

HI Andrew,
We bought Vodafone Netherlands SIM cards before we went to Paris and Amsterdam last year. Can we use them for our upcoming trip to England in October?
I set up online accounts, funded them, then purchased a bundle. I now have 0 credit, but it doesn't expire until Sept 1st 2018.
Am I right in thinking that I can fund it again, purchase another bundle, and we'd be good to go for the UK? We'll be in London, York, and Cotswolds. If I add Euros to the account, does that extend it's expiration? Can I wait to purchase a new bundle, or do I have to do it right away? We don't leave for the UK until Oct 3.

btw, I was happy with the Vodafone NL SIM cards. It was great to have an immediately working phone when we arrived in Paris. My husband found the internet coverage spotty on his iPhone and was annoyed by that. I didn't care. He's addicted to his phone. We had Wifi where we stayed and that satisfied me. I primarily want to be able to text each other on occasions we'll be doing separate things, and make a call if I'm lost or need to communicate with our hosts. It was nice to be able to leave a # where family could call or text if needed.

Thanks for all your tech help Andrew.

Should be able to. I just used my Dutch Vodafone SIM last week in Portugal - worked perfectly.

FYI, Vodafone was (still?) giving a 2X data bonus vs. last year. Now you get 1GB x2 (2GB) for only 10 euros, 4GB (2GBx2) for 15 euros, etc.

Yes, but (surprise to me) by only six months now from date of purchase. So if you add funds say June 1, you'd extend the expiration to December 2018 just by doing that.

It could be ANY activity extends your expiration. I added 10 euros a couple of weeks before my trip, then purchased the bundle (with the funds I had added) after I got to Portugal - and I think that pushed it out to six months from that date. I am considering this for future trips, because I have 5 euro credit left but my SIM expires in November. I want to keep it alive for next trip next year. I'm thinking I can send a text once every few months using my 5 euro credit or something to keep extending it. We'll see how that works! I set a reminder in Google Calendar to remind me just before it expires...

You NEED to wait to purchase it until then! Otherwise, your bundle is good for only 30 days. (FYI, if you add a LOT of credit now, make sure you turn OFF the bundle after you turn it on or it will renew every month, if you have enough funds!)

You can add the funds now with your credit card, but don't activate/purchase the bundle until just before you leave. If your trip is say two weeks, then just activate the bundle a day or two before you leave home, and you should be good to go.

Me too - very happy with this SIM! 10 euros for a week of fast data in Portugal (more than I needed) was a great price.

I have a Vodafone monthly contract in the UK, and am very happy with the coverage and service. I also use an EE data SIM in my iPad wifi + cellular. EE is probably the best provider for coverage throughout the UK. When I was an inpatient in a Cambridge hospital last year, wifi wasn't available, and EE was the only reliable signal I could get from the ward.

As a side question to this topic, if concerned about data usage should one:
a) turn off roaming?
b) turn off wi-fi assist?

The latter perhaps only applies to iPhones.

Thanks.

My biggest tip for saving data: don't stream videos. Streaming video eats data pretty quickly.

Turning off roaming doesn't reduce how much data you use - except that you'll lose data access completely if you roam off of your regular wireless network. (So obviously you'll save data if you get completely cut off.) If you are using a SIM in Europe, you in fact most likely WANT data roaming turned on - e.g., when I use my Dutch Vodafone SIM outside of the Netherlands (so far, ALWAYS), I'm going to need data roaming on all the time or I won't be able to connect at all.

My Android phone has a "Data Save" feature built into the latest version of Android. I think it tells certain apps not to use data unless absolutely necessary. I've only started playing with it.

When I roam in Europe, I find that data is so cheap that I don't much worry about using too much. E.g. my last trip to Portugal last week, where I used all of 800MB (out of 2GB, the least I could get with my Vodafone SIM) in eight days, for a cost of 10 euros. I didn't need to worry about saving data. IF I had been there for say a month, then I would have paid 20 euros to get 6GB of data - still would have been plenty.

Along those lines, on older Android o/s ( marshmallow)it may be useful to go into "settings" "general" "battery usage" and see what apps are on and using battery.

I noticed yesterday that Gas Buddy had used 20 percent of my battery, even though it wasn't open in my app window. From that screen I was able to shut it down. Presumably it is also using data while it is running in the background.

I also see that you can go into each app while under "mobile data" and restrict background data except under wifi. That's probably worth doing on data hungry apps.

Thank you Andrew. I appreciate your help with this.

I brought up Three because that was what a UK friend suggested when i asked her about PAYG SIM. That's the one she buys for her visiting relatives. But thanks for mentioning about coverage. I emailed our host in Dorset and he said coverage is iffy in his area and he uses O2 which is okay.

Having gone through all the answers I think in the end, I'll just take my chances and wait until I get to Heathrow and hopefully will find a store to sell me a SIM at a cheap price!