Cancellation of a contract if going abroad

Bagehot

Hi all,

I'm a foreigner and I may need to leave Ireland in the future. Therefore, before subscribing to a mobile contract, I'd like to have a few answers :

• Is is possible to cancel a contract if I leave the country? I was able to do it in France with my new Irish work contract.
• Is it easy to unlock a mobile phone if you have bought a locked phone? And expensive?

I'm currently thinking of switching from Meteor pay as you go to a skype phone by 3.

Thanks all!

Sam Vimes

You can cancel the contract but you have to pay your monthly commitment times the number of months you have left

Unlocking depends on the phone. With bill pay, you shouldn't have much trouble getting the phone unlocked by just calling the provider and asking for the code except with 3 who won't unlock it while you're still in contract and charge a €25 admin fee.

If you want to get it unlocked elsewhere there are very few phones if any that can't be unlocked but prices can vary between €10 and €60. You'd be best off asking in the unlocking sticky about that

You might be better off on pre pay. A lot of the pre pay offers are actually better than the bill pay ones unless you're a very heavy user like a business user

Random

I would suggest buying a prepay phone and then signing up to one of the 30 day contract billpay plans that the various networks have.

O2 have Clear plans.
Meteor have Billpay Lite.
Vodafone have Simply.

I don't think 3 have any 30 day plans but they have 6 month "best of both" plans (I'm open to correction on 3.

That or prepay.