pay monthly mobile phone contract

[Mattk]

My son has a pay monthly mobile phone on vodafdone that i pay for !!!!

The contract is up early next year and i do not want to renew as it has proved to be far more expensive than first thought ! Ideally I want to get him a new pay as you go phone and use the same sim card so he can retain his number and contacts etc etc.

I know very little about these things.How do I go about this and is it even possible? I have heard the term 'unlocking' mentioned - is this what i need to do ?

 

Any help here much appreciated ! thx

[kifaru]

Unlocking is simple, look it up in any search engine. Unlocking in most countries in NOT illegal, but even if it is, who cares? If it's your phone, you should be able to do what you want with it. But also, if you want to stay with vodafone (use them myself) they should be able change the firmware (updateable software on your phone) to change it. Just call them and ask. If they won't, unlock it and tell 'em to stick it. I'm not sure by what you mean when you say "pay monthly" and "pay as you go". If by "pay monthly" you mean you pay for all calls without a limit (cost wise) and you want to change to a pre-paid contract where you pay for credit in advance, then go for it, but if it's vice versa, (I hope not) it'll cost you more, as you said, you pay for it.

[smudge]

I think the 'Pay As You Go' system is a much better idea for kids. If you set up a mobile phone allowance for him, he'll soon realise that it costs money to text & phone his mates - especially when his allowance/credit runs out & he can't use it, until the next top up from you is due!

[robbieh]

Unlocking your phone will mean that you can release the phone from just being usable on the vodafone network . This can be done using programs freely downloadable from the internet (for nokia at least) or visit a market stall and pay �5 or something. I don't think you need to bother woith this however.

I think the best option, if you have to keep the number, would be to stay with vodafone. Just phone vodafone on 191 (i think) and tell them you want to stay with them and go pay as you go at the end of the contract. I'm not sure whether they will send you a new sim card or not but you can at least stay on the same number.

If you want to change service providers as well as onto a pay as you go, ie o2, i think you will find it very hard to keep the same number. However o2 do offer good terms on their pay as you go whereby topping up with �10 credit a month will give you 300 free texts every month on top of whatever you can get out of the �10 credit. So whilst you may be saving time and money by not texting your new details to everyone immediately by staying with saem sim card and number, in the long run o2 might work out a lot cheaper. If he has, for example, 100 people on his adress book, then hes still got 200 free texts in his first month plus 300 in all of the following months. I'm not aware of vodafone offering free texts, might be worth looking into.

One thing to be prepared for is that whilst you can get the very latest phones for free on contract (arguably you pay for it in the contract), pay as you go phones are often quite old models and reasonably expensive when compared to what you pay for on contract. If he wants a really decent phone on pay as you go, it'll cost a small fortune

[robbieh]

oops, and there were some paragraphs in there originally too!

[sammy snake]

If you want to go with another service provider and still keep the same number, you need to ask vodaphone for a code/number that you then give to your new provider in order to keep the same number.  When i switched from Vodaphone to Orange, Orange provided me with a letter that I just had to sign and post to vodaphone to get the code. I then gave the number to Orange and I kept the same number.  I think it is a PAC code or PAT code, something like that.

[Dagman]

We went to Orange with our old phone. They sort the your number for you to go on the new phone. and give a tenner's credit for your old phone. Just tell them what you want and they'll sort it.

[THFCUK]

to cancel your contract mobile you have to give the company one months notice, i am also with o2 but its called genie or o2 on line to get the sim card with the free 300 texts you have to log on www.o2.co.uk and go to shop where there are all the tariffs you can choose.  i was on contract but with the amount of texting i do i found this sim card cheaper.