Looking to move my phone provider

mickoneill31

I'm thinking about moving my phone provider.

My requirements.
I live and work in Dublin so not too worried about the coverage around the country.
I need shag all phone calls and texts. I spend about 30 mins a month on the phone. Most of my texting goes through WhatsApp.
I need a plan with more than 2Gb Data.

I'm with Virgin Mobile. I'm on their €15 a month plan but every month I get the warnings to say I'm close to my limit about 10 days before the renewal date.

I was thinking of going to LycaMobile. They've an unlimited plan for €15 a month. So I got a SIM from them and went to their port page. Virgin Mobile isn't on their list. I rang them and was listening to music for 10 mins before I had to hang up. I emailed them a couple of days ago and am waiting a reply. This isn't inspiring confidence. I did some googling and found that when people have issues, they don't tend to be resolved.

So is there anything else out there that might be comparable or has anybody ported from Virgin to Lyca and had a good or bad experience?

NATLOR

48 months €15 plan?

http://www.48months.ie/membership-plans

Or ID mobile if you want 4g data

https://www.idmobile.ie/shop/phones-plans/prepay-plan

F1ngers

http://www.three.ie/online/voice/prepay/3pay-trio-sim/?src=p

E100(10 x E10) free credit for new customers - see T's and C's.
E20 p/m and keep your money.

All you can eat data.

raxy

You could go to I'd mobile. €14 for 250 minutes/texts & 3gb data.
Personally I'd keep away from anything on threes network. Im on Vodafone, €20 A month for 8gb data, 100 minutes /texts & free to Vodafone. Suits me perfectly & automatic top ups so I never have to check when I need to top up each month

gerard2210

You could try Tesco mobile, 15 euro a month, unlimited calls, 10GB data, you can use 10 euro of the 15 euro to buy a unlimited text add on, but you hardly send texts so you wouldn't need that. You keep the 15 euro for out of bundle charges.

tracey turnblad

EIR payg- €20 free texts free calls 15gb data

GY A1

tracey turnblad wrote: »

EIR payg- €20 free texts free calls 15gb data

What's eir coverage like

noel100

Vodafone x
20gb data
3000texts
100 anytime mins
Free weekend calls or Spotify or sky sports
Supposed to be student but still get this from store or on FB change age to 20 and sign up.

lawred2

I have lyca... Costs me 7.50 a month for practically unlimited calls and data. It's only 3G data but that's sufficient for my needs.

Won't suit everyone. I have broadband at home so don't need data at home. If I was a heavy user of data at home it would be worthless to me.

As long as you're happy that it's only 3G and a virtual operator with Three (and the limitations that brings) then it's a great value for money service.

Used to pay three 40/50 a month on contract for not much more of a service outside of not really needed 4G.. some waste of money

tracey turnblad

GY A1 wrote: »

What's eir coverage like

I’ve never had any problems been with meteor for years and since EIR took them over it’s been exactly the same

zell12

You should have no problem porting from VM to Lyca
- have you tried just choosing a wrong provider from the drop down menu, like vodafone/TM?

JamesReeves

NATLOR wrote: »

48 months €15 plan?



Or ID mobile if you want 4g data

https://www.idmobile.ie/shop/phones-plans/prepay-plan

STAY CLEAR of ID - terrible everything, from service to customer service! and their roaming didn't work for me so I was left for a week without service while in Brussels

mickoneill31

To give an update.

I switched to Lyca. I've heard horror stories about them but I've also heard horror stories about every provider.

In answer to my question above. They didn't have an option for Virgin but they did have one for UPC. So I was being stupid.


Apart from that. Their number porting form is not intuitive.

They ask for your ICCID. Who the hell knows what that is. Their help says that the number is on your old SIM. Only part of mine was on my SIM. I got an app from the play store to tell me the full number.


They ask for the Lyca phonenumber on your SIM and the number that you're porting. I typed in 35387... etc. etc. When you do this and hit the continue button the error message is invalid MSISDN. It didn't ask for MSISDN anywhere on the form (as far as I was aware). I figured out that if I changed my number formats to 087... etc. the form worked. Their help message could have mentioned that.


I gave a time an hour in the future and received a text message 5 minutes after that time to say the port had been successful. I changed SIMs and bought the €15 plan and I was good to go.


The APN for internet had to be changed. That took a bit of googling but the instructions are easy to find. And the instructions were also texted in one of their later texts.


I've received 12 texts so far from them with info about the service. They sent one an hour. I think they're finished now.


The data is 3G. I knew this when porting. I ran speedtest and have gotten 7Mb -> about 10Mb/s. Youtube and Netflix work fine so those are the most data intensive apps I'd use. The speed is not so important to me. The quantity is. I'd say I'll use 5Gb a month, so it means I don't have to worry about my data usage. I've set my phone to warn me at 14Gb anyway.

Data tethering seems fine too.


So far so good. I'll update this post if I see any major issues.

NATLOR

mickoneill31 wrote: »

To give an update.

I switched to Lyca. I've heard horror stories about them but I've also heard horror stories about every provider.

In answer to my question above. They didn't have an option for Virgin but they did have one for UPC. So I was being stupid.


Apart from that. Their number porting form is not intuitive.

They ask for your ICCID. Who the hell knows what that is. Their help says that the number is on your old SIM. Only part of mine was on my SIM. I got an app from the play store to tell me the full number.


They ask for the Lyca phonenumber on your SIM and the number that you're porting. I typed in 35387... etc. etc. When you do this and hit the continue button the error message is invalid MSISDN. It didn't ask for MSISDN anywhere on the form (as far as I was aware). I figured out that if I changed my number formats to 087... etc. the form worked. Their help message could have mentioned that.


I gave a time an hour in the future and received a text message 5 minutes after that time to say the port had been successful. I changed SIMs and bought the €15 plan and I was good to go.


The APN for internet had to be changed. That took a bit of googling but the instructions are easy to find. And the instructions were also texted in one of their later texts.


I've received 12 texts so far from them with info about the service. They sent one an hour. I think they're finished now.


The data is 3G. I knew this when porting. I ran speedtest and have gotten 7Mb -> about 10Mb/s. Youtube and Netflix work fine so those are the most data intensive apps I'd use. The speed is not so important to me. The quantity is. I'd say I'll use 5Gb a month, so it means I don't have to worry about my data usage. I've set my phone to warn me at 14Gb anyway.

Data tethering seems fine too.


So far so good. I'll update this post if I see any major issues.

If you aren't using many texts and don't need more than 10GB of data a month you can halve your monthly bill.

Month 1 top up by €15 this gives you unlimited calls and 10GB data for 30 days and you keep your €15 (any texts come out of your credit so use whatsapp etc for messaging)

Month 2 use your €15 credit to buy the Ireland plus bundle
So 2 months are only costing €15

Make sure you disable recurring payments
And set a reminder every 29 days to renew

IRCA

mickoneill31 wrote: »

I'm thinking about moving my phone provider.

My requirements.
I live and work in Dublin so not too worried about the coverage around the country.
I need shag all phone calls and texts. I spend about 30 mins a month on the phone. Most of my texting goes through WhatsApp.
I need a plan with more than 2Gb Data.

I'm with Virgin Mobile. I'm on their €15 a month plan but every month I get the warnings to say I'm close to my limit about 10 days before the renewal date.

I was thinking of going to LycaMobile. They've an unlimited plan for €15 a month. So I got a SIM from them and went to their port page. Virgin Mobile isn't on their list. I rang them and was listening to music for 10 mins before I had to hang up. I emailed them a couple of days ago and am waiting a reply. This isn't inspiring confidence. I did some googling and found that when people have issues, they don't tend to be resolved.

So is there anything else out there that might be comparable or has anybody ported from Virgin to Lyca and had a good or bad experience?

Three have a decent SIM only 30day plan for €30 - Unlimited Calls/texts/Data (up to 60GB/month) - Customer Support isn't great in my experience, but might be worth a look

noel100

IRCA wrote:

Three have a decent SIM only 30day plan for €30 - Unlimited Calls/texts/Data (up to 60GB/month) - Customer Support isn't great in my experience, but might be worth a look

Signal is only good in towns or city's, signal drops when.you travel between towns no data no signal. It's never consistent always switching to 2g and you have to manually set it back to 4g. Customer service is a joke.

lawred2

IRCA wrote: »

Three have a decent SIM only 30day plan for €30 - Unlimited Calls/texts/Data (up to 60GB/month) - Customer Support isn't great in my experience, but might be worth a look

that's very expensive in my mind