O2, my experience (O2)

Member Name: mdhughes03

Product:	O2
Date:	18/08/09 (87 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good value for money

Disadvantages: Not always great service

I have been with 02 for five years now as a pay as you go customer and am satisfied with the service I receive from them. I originally joined them when I applied on their website for a sim card-I already had a good phone and just wanted a cheaper, more useful payment plan than I was getting on the Orange network. The offer at the time was you could request up to four 02 online sim cards via their website. This offer seems to be permanently available.

The O2 online tariff I use works as follows. You top your phone up for the first time with at least ten pounds. The date you do this them becomes your "Anniversary date". If you top up with ten pounds again by the anniversary date in the next month, you receive 200 free texts each month. There are other tariffs available but since texts are my thing this was the one for me. If you do not top up within this timescale, you do not lose your allowance as such, you basically pay for each text at the normal rate until you make the top up-then the new top-up date becomes your anniversary date.

The rates for calls to 0845 numbers and mobiles is 25p/min. Landline calls and calls to other O2 mobiles cost 25p/min for the first 3 mins then 5p per min afterwards. Texts are 10p and picture texts are 25p each.

Additional benefits.
There are other perks to this tariff, the first being reward cashback. Basically, every time you top up, O2 will give you 10% of the amount back. This is awarded to you quarterly-you receive a few text messages from a month or so before to inform you of the amount due. You are then given a number to text the word "Reward" to. The amount due is added to your balance within 48 hours. Again you receive a text as confirmation that this has been done.

O2 Surprises.
Every time you top up, O2 gives you another benefit: O2 Surprises. This essentially is a code to use in an online game. The code is texted to you immediately after you top up and you are reminded of the website to visit. You then go to the website and play a game using the surprise code and are awarded an extra benefit. At the moment the game is "Hook a Duck" where you are presented with a graphic of a pond containing ducks and have to click on one to check your prize. The prizes are usually more free texts, picture messages or call time and you are guaranteed to get a prize of some sort. However, there are holidays and I pods and the like available to (unfortunately I always end up with call time though!)

The negatives

I have had some problems with O2, the main one being the coverage I get is not always as god as with some other networks. Generally I am fine in cities and towns but in the Lake District (and I mean towns, not up the side of a mountain) I cannot get a signal at all.

O2 also say that you get priority tickets for the O2 venue in London. However, the one time I have tried to take advantage of this, I texted the number stated immediately that I got the notification and was told that I was too late to contact them about priority tickets. Therefore my experience of this service is that there is no preferential treatment for being an O2 customer.

My other problem is that I have never yet successfully been able to download the WAP settings for my last two phones. This would enable me to access the internet from my phone and can apparently be done easily on the website. However, I think that the problem has been that the phones which I have been unable to do this on have not been O2 branded phones. Since I'm not too fussed about having the internet access, I haven't chased O2 any further on this matter.

Summary: I'd still recommend it for a basic text package