O2: Perhaps not as essential as its gaseous namesake, but not bad (O2)

Member Name: CabbageBeans

Product:	O2
Date:	04/07/09 (23 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of tariffs and variants to suit your particular phone usage

Disadvantages: Offer little in the way of rewards for loyalty

O2 (formerly BT Cellnet) are one of the most subscribed to mobile phone network providers in the United Kingdom, and I have been a customer of theirs for the past six or seven years, having also had dealings with Orange and T-Mobile.

Overall I've been relatively impressed with the service I've had with the company - I can't say I've ever had any major misgivings over how I've been treated as a customer. That's not to say the company have bent over backwards to reward me for their custom - the relationship between myself the company feels very much like one of mutual respect, without any overall sense of warmth or loyalty (if a much better deal came along I wouldn't exactly have any quibbles at leaving O2).

For many years I was on O2 Pay As You Go - which I felt had very many strengths over its equivalent on other service providers. There are many different variants that give you advantages depending on whether you tend to use your phone predominantly for calls, texting, WAP, or frequent overseas usage - I had the texting variant, that gives you 300 free texts everytime that you top up £10, that for a frequent texter like I was myself, would really stretch your money that much further. Switching between the variants simply involves a call to O2.

For the past eleven months I had changed to a Pay Monthly contract, known as Simplicity - There is no phone provided as part of this, but for me this was perfect as I was very happy with the phone that I already had. Instead, I was given a new sim to put in my phone, and after a period of 24 hours for the contract to go through and for the sim to be activated, I was up and running. A range of tariffs are available, which at the moment are:
£10 gives you 150 free mins and 300 free texts
£15 gets you 300 mins and 600 texts
£20 gets 600 mins and 1200 texts
£30 gets 1200 mins and 2400 texts

The £20 and £30 ones give you a free 'Bolt On', such as unlimited texts or wap usage, and it was the £20 one that I went with when I first signed up (although the allowances have changed somewhat for the better since I joined up). Since then I've recently switched down to the £10 a month contract, which is pretty ideal for me.

Coverage wise, O2 are as good as any of the networks, perhaps possibly slightly better - there have been numerous times when friends' phones have not had any signal at all, whilst I've been able to achieve some kind of signal albeit somewhat weak - but this might just be more to do with my phone than the actual network.

The main advantage, and probably the real reason that I joined O2 in the first place and intend to stay for the near future, is that many of my family and friends also use the network - and so contacting these people with my phone works out therefore somewhat less than calling other networks (though this is probably more relevant for Pay As You Go, rather than for the contract deals with free minutes).

Summary: Decent mobile phone network