Plusnet v BT Mobile v EE

Marc

Marc

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My contract with EE comes to an end next moth (2 iPhone 11s) and I have no interest in upgrading so I chatted with someone at EE with regards to moving to sim only. I was rather disappointed with their offer as they seem to want to push very high data plans. eg:

unlimited data for £25pm
120GB for £25pm

we barely touch our current allowance of 30GB so don't need anywhere near what they're offering. Then they came back with 3GB for £17pm so 2.5% of the data for only £3 less.

Am now looking at other options and 2 other providers use the EE network, BT Mobile & Plusnet. Whilst BT Mobile prices are similar to EE and both are on 24 month contracts, Plusnet are offering 20GB for just £10pm.

How are Plusnet able to be so much cheaper when they use the same network? Anyone here use Plusnet and can give me the benefit of their experience?

TIA
 
I was with EE for a couple of years, but was very underwhelmed with their service and coverage. For many years prior to that I was with Three because I always found the opposite and where I used to travel a lot they were the best I'd known.

However, as I recently moved house I'd taken up the best broadband deal at the time which was BT. They offered me a mobile phone deal of only £6.00pm on top of my broadband package. This gives me unlimited texts and calls, but just 1GB of data (which I never use as I can use the BTFON app for WiFi coverage) when I'm out and about - which isn't very often anyway.

As they use the same network as EE, coverage still isn't good enough where I live and find I use WiFi calling a lot, but I can't complain about the price.
 
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Sky said:
I was with EE for a couple of years, but was very underwhelmed with their service and coverage. For many years prior to that I was with Three because I always found the opposite and where I used to travel a lot they were the best I'd known.

However, as I recently moved house I'd taken up the best broadband deal at the time which was BT. They offered me a mobile phone deal of only £6.00pm on top of my broadband package. This gives me unlimited texts and calls, but just 1GB of data which I never use as I can use the BTFON app for WiFi coverage when I'm out and about (which isn't very often).

As they use the same network as EE coverage still isn't good enough where I live and find I use WiFi calling a lot, but I can't complain about the price.
Click to expand...
I used to be with 3 but found their coverage poor so I guess it depends where you live. I've been with EE for about 7 years and it's very rare that I have any issues with coverage. Up until this time, I've been happy with their service.
 
Indeed. I went with EE because everyone told me they were the best for signal coverage here on the island, but in my area and experience that's most definitely not the case. :(

If it wasn't for the WiFi calling facility, I'd have no signal at all.
 
Marc said:
My contract with EE comes to an end next moth (2 iPhone 11s) and I have no interest in upgrading so I chatted with someone at EE with regards to moving to sim only. I was rather disappointed with their offer as they seem to want to push very high data plans. eg:

unlimited data for £25pm
120GB for £25pm

we barely touch our current allowance of 30GB so don't need anywhere near what they're offering. Then they came back with 3GB for £17pm so 2.5% of the data for only £3 less.

Am now looking at other options and 2 other providers use the EE network, BT Mobile & Plusnet. Whilst BT Mobile prices are similar to EE and both are on 24 month contracts, Plusnet are offering 20GB for just £10pm.

How are Plusnet able to be so much cheaper when they use the same network? Anyone here use Plusnet and can give me the benefit of their experience?

TIA
Click to expand...

Often the MVNOs like Plusnet don’t offer full network services like Wi-fi calling, 5G etc
 
Just be careful with EE. Like you, my contract was up and I went to "Sim only" and got a good deal, but......

I no longer have WiFi calling, or visual voicemail. Neither of these were mentioned at the time, but I did chop £60 a month off of my bill as the phone was now "mine". I have an iPhone XR, which is still a great device, but isn't 5G compatible.
 
Ricardodaforce said:
Often the MVNOs like Plusnet don’t offer full network services like Wi-fi calling, 5G etc
Click to expand...
Good point on the wifi calling although I've never needed it yet. Given I have an iPhone 11, 5G isn't really an issue
Jelster said:
I no longer have WiFi calling, or visual voicemail.
Click to expand...
I don't even know what visual voicemail is.
 
Marc said:
I don't even know what visual voicemail is.
Click to expand...

On my iPhone if I went to VM on the phone it would show a list of messages, and from there I could either select and listen to it, or delete it. Now I have to make a "call" get any idea of who left a message and what it was. And, even if I know who it was (as I missed their call) I still have to make a call to delete it...
 
Jelster said:
On my iPhone if I went to VM on the phone it would show a list of messages, and from there I could either select and listen to it, or delete it. Now I have to make a "call" get any idea of who left a message and what it was. And, even if I know who it was (as I missed their call) I still have to make a call to delete it...
Click to expand...
Ah, see what you mean now. TBH, it's not that big a deal to me. With my fingers, I often struggle to even touch the play button. It's that rare that I get a voicemail that I'd rather save a few quid a month.



ETA: Just checked and I've had 18 voicemail messages since I got the phone 2 years ago.
 
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I'm with BT BB, and as such I get a discount on the sim only mobile deal.
£6 / month unlimited texts & calls, just 2Gb data which I never even get close to using, month by month.
 
I've been with plusnet for several years. The only real issue is that they don't support short codes so some bank services and other services can be more complicated if they don't realise and expect you to reply to a short code (which you can't)

Perfectly happy with them otherwise. They do offers for new customers so if you are continuing customer you can usually save money taking up offers every so often. I was paying a whole £10 a month to start with. Now it's under £7 for the same unlimited calls, texts and 4GB of data.
 
I have been with ee for some time. When virgin was on that network I went down the usual road of asking for the PAC code saying that I was leaving and they put me on to the retentions team and I got a good discount.

Tried again this year ( moving to bt ) and all I got was “sorry that you are leaving - have a nice day” or words to that effect.

They have become smug I think.
 
Jelster said:
Just be careful with EE. Like you, my contract was up and I went to "Sim only" and got a good deal, but......

I no longer have WiFi calling, or visual voicemail.
Click to expand...

All EE contracts include those so whatever the fault is it’s not because you’re on sim only. Have you asked EE to check if the services are still provisioned?

What happens if you text “iPhone visual” to 150?

Even EE PAYG now gets WifiCalling.
 
Marc said:
Am now looking at other options and 2 other providers use the EE network, BT Mobile & Plusnet. Whilst BT Mobile prices are similar to EE and both are on 24 month contracts, Plusnet are offering 20GB for just £10pm.

How are Plusnet able to be so much cheaper when they use the same network? Anyone here use Plusnet and can give me the benefit of their experience?
Click to expand...

Plusnet is the bargain basement offering and doesn’t get all the add on services, BT Mobile and EE direct tend to offer the same as each other.

If you would be happy with 10GB allowance EE will offer you unlimited minutes/texts and 10GB of data for £10 a month (choose the thinking of leaving option).

If you ring up and get a difficult adviser refer them to the current EE uSwitch offer.

www.uswitch.com

Multi SIM deal on EE

Best Multi SIM deal on EE
www.uswitch.com www.uswitch.com
 
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Of course Plusnet, BT & EE are all ultimately BT Group plc... Does it have to be on EE?


Cynically, I'm sure that all the elevated prices of BT Group plc are used to help pay for the sports rights for the BT Sport channel... Add in the little old ladies who still think Buzby works there so they're reluctant to move their landline anywhere else for a massive cash cow in the too-lazy-to-move demographic and they will hike their prices to whatever brings in the most money.

(Personally I'm counting the days until I can stop giving BT Group plc secondhand money via my broadband - local fibre for local people is in sight here)
 
I swap between all three depending on what deals and promo's their running, currently with Plusnet as they offer decent packages and BT and EE are not running any deals/ promo's that I'm interested at the moment and the bonus is they do one month rolling contracts so if I see something that interests me it's easy to swap. Having been with all three Plusnet have by far the best customer service, BT by far the worst and EE somewhere in the middle.
 
I’ve been with Sky mobile for a couple of years - seem reasonably priced and you get visual voice mail and Wi-fi calling. Uses the O2 network and I’ve not really had any coverage problems.
Nothing to lose by checking what they might offer you.
 
Just renewed my current sim only with EE, The Uswitch £10 for 10GB or IIRC EE directly has £15 for 25GB both with unlimited calls and texts.
 
I just renewed with EE on SIM only plan for my wife and will do so for my son in October and myself in December.

Never lost WiFi calling on the SIM only plans and cannot fault the service I have received from them.

We buy our phone from Apple and Samsung directly and just get the SIM plans. I have had our whole family on EE since we came back to the UK in 2015.
 
I'm on Smarty (basically 3 )

4GB £6
8GB £7
12GB £8
30GB £10
50GB £15
Unlimited £20
  • 1 month plan, cancel anytime
  • Unlimited calls & texts
  • Unrestricted tethering in the UK
  • Fast 4G & 3G data
  • No speed caps
WiFi Calling


 
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Cobra said:
I'm with BT BB, and as such I get a discount on the sim only mobile deal.
£6 / month unlimited texts & calls, just 2Gb data which I never even get close to using, month by month.
Click to expand...
We have the same deal
 
I was with BTinternet and EE mobile for years, then they put the prices up and wouldn't offer a better deal, so I changed to plusnet and got a good offer if I gave them both
Thankfully it was only a one year contract and that was the worst year ever, both mobile and internet kept dropping, at different times and as has been said no wifi calling. Every time I spoke to them they would say a setting had dropped #and the speed on the internet would be ok for a few days then drop to 3mps again.
Totally lost everything on the internet side including the phone line just after the contract ran out, rang them and it took a few days to sort, so in the meantime back to EE for mobile and phone,
About a week later everything went again, phoned EE, who I had just been activated with and they tested the line and yep it was dead, so they put in a ticket with openreach.
I was impressed when a short time later I got a call from an Openreach engineer to tell me he had tested the line and couldn't find a problem, although there had been a short outage but all ok now
I asked him who he was doing it for and got told PLUSNET !!! Seems they never cancelled the request they had put in

Been back with EE and not had any problems so far, customer services have always been very helpful
 
I've been with EE since 1999, 1 reason is because I've never had a problem with their service or coverage from home.
Another reason is up until last year, via CPW I always got a good deal with upgrades.
As all but Vodafone and CPW's network walked away from CPW I decided to buy my phone and go sim only with EE.
I looked into Three and Vodafone and I was suprised that Three's coverage is quite bad here.
I few people put me off Vodafone for various reasons so I decided it was a case of better the devil I know.
I took the 120GB for £25 for a 12 month contract.
My sister in law in Norfolk does not have broadband and when we are there I let my girlfriend tether to my phone.
I know 120GB is over the top for me but I'd rather have the extra amount of data just in case.
 
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I've been with Vodafone for about 10 years, currently paying £10/month for 10GB of data (I doubt if I even use 1 GB) with unlimited minutes and sms. TBH, the only reason I chose them is that Vodafone and O2 were the only networks that rose to the level of providing a weak, fluttery, signal in rural Dumfries and Galloway where my wife was living at the time. The rest didn't even try!

We're in Edinburgh now, which is a lot better but the deal still suits me well enough. I don't carry a phone, it's just a replacement for the landline.
 
Elmer_fudd25 said:
All the same company. BT owns them all.
Click to expand...

Not quite accurate, they are three separate companies who are owned by BT.

Each still runs separately with different terms and features/services offered. Might well change in the future but not as yet.
 
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