giffgaff, SMARTY, iD Mobile, VOXI, Lebara and 1pMobile — the same radio waves as the big four, with the savings coming out of the support desk rather than the network.
Fifteen notes · written July 2026 · no prices published · nothing for sale
Four companies own mobile masts in Britain. Every other brand buys capacity wholesale and resells the same radio waves under a different name.
| Mast owner | Brands renting its signal |
|---|---|
| EE | 1pMobile |
| O2 | Tesco Mobile, giffgaff, Sky Mobile |
| Three | SMARTY, iD Mobile |
| Vodafone | VOXI, Lebara |
One sentence covers it: the landlord decides your coverage; the brand decides your price, your support and how soon you get new features. Complaints always go to whoever sends the bill.
A cheaper brand is not a weaker network. The transmissions are the same ones the landlord's own customers are using, from the same masts, at the same power.
One technical caveat deserves mentioning: at genuinely saturated masts, the owner's customers can be given priority over rented traffic. In ordinary daily use it is invisible.
Check the landlord's coverage map rather than the brand's advertising, weigh the indoor predictions, and test for a month before committing.
Most of these sell rolling monthly plans and nothing else, which is an advantage — there is nothing to unwind if you change your mind.
giffgaff — on O2. Entirely online with a member community and no telephone support, by design. Consistently competitive on mid-size allowances, and the cheapest reliable way to test O2's coverage.
SMARTY — on Three. Run by Three itself, so it carries the host's full performance including its speed advantage in towns. A deliberately simple rolling grid, with discounts on some tiers where allowance goes unused.
iD Mobile — on Three. A retailer's brand competing hardest on price per gigabyte, with data rollover on some tiers. Satisfaction scores have trailed the leaders in some years, so keep correspondence in writing.
VOXI — on Vodafone. Leaves selected social and video apps outside the allowance, which can dramatically increase usable data. Check the current exempt list, because it changes.
Lebara — on Vodafone. Built around international calling on inexpensive rolling plans. Check the specific countries you ring rather than the headline count.
1pMobile — on EE. Charges per minute, per text and per megabyte on the widest network in Britain. Unbeatable for very light use, expensive quickly above that.
Handset finance is generally unavailable on these brands, so phones are bought outright. That is not a drawback: an outright handset plus a cheap SIM is usually the lowest total cost available anywhere in the market.
It also removes the end-of-term trap entirely, because there is no device element left to keep paying for once the phone is yours.
Several of these brands sell prepaid credit alongside bundles, and one sells nothing but per-unit billing — charging for exactly what you consume on EE's masts.
For somebody making a few calls a week that arrangement is the cheapest in the country. For anyone with a normal data habit it climbs quickly, so work out a typical month before assuming.
eSIM support here is broad but not uniform — several of these brands added it after the mast owners, and it can still depend on your handset model. Check before you order rather than after.
These are mobile propositions and generally do not sell broadband. What you give up in bundling you get back in a lower monthly mobile price, which for most single-service households is the better trade.
Broadband, where you need it, comes from a fixed-line provider or one of the mast owners — a separate decision decided by your street rather than your signal.
Roaming follows the brand's own terms and never the landlord's, even though the signal is identical. This trips people up constantly — read your own roaming screen and treat the landlord's European policy as irrelevant to you.
| Condition | What it actually does |
|---|---|
| Tethering cap | Limits sharing data with a laptop on some plan generations |
| Traffic management | Queues extreme outliers at saturated masts; ordinary heavy use never notices |
| Fair use abroad | Ends the unlimited part at a published figure, then charges per gigabyte |
Two free adjustments often remove the need for a bigger tier: drop video quality one step inside the streaming app, and push backups, photo sync and app updates onto home Wi-Fi.
| Figure | What it really is |
|---|---|
| Introductory price | Real, time-limited, and useless for comparing networks |
| Standard price | What applies once the discount ends — this is the price |
| Out-of-contract price | The same again, on a handset you already own |
| Whole-term cost | Upfront plus monthly times months — the only fair comparison |
| Yearly cost | Monthly times twelve; ask for it, because it is rarely offered |
The free spend cap takes about a minute in the app and prevents charges beyond your allowance entirely. Almost nobody switches it on.
| Reason | Behind it |
|---|---|
| A mid-term increase | Since January 2025 it must be stated in pounds and pence before you sign |
| An introductory discount ending | The commonest cause; the duration was stated at purchase |
| Charges beyond the allowance | Only possible where no spend cap was set |
| A minimum term ending | Not a rise: a fall that failed to happen |
| An add-on renewing | Single-period purchases occasionally repeat |
| Move | Effect |
|---|---|
| Switch to SIM-only once the term ends | Strips out the handset payment |
| Cut the allowance | Where three months of usage shows the tier is oversized |
| Buy a one-off add-on instead of upgrading | Covers a heavy month without repricing the year |
| Negotiate with rival quotes in hand | Take a switching code first |
| Leave | The exit position is itemised before you commit |
Apps and dashboards here are lighter than the mast owners'. Several brands are online-first and one runs entirely without telephone support as a deliberate choice, which is part of why the price is what it is. Decide before you buy whether that matters to you.
| What you see | Usual cause | Cure |
|---|---|---|
| An older handset dropping calls | 3G has been switched off nationally | Turn on 4G Calling; if the phone cannot, it has reached its end |
| One room always poor | Building materials blocking radio | Turn on Wi-Fi Calling |
| Full bars but nothing loads | Too many handsets on one mast | Nothing on the phone helps — it is capacity, not coverage |
| A whole street out for hours | Mast work or a local fault | Check the status page with your postcode |
If a problem keeps returning, log dates, times and what failed for a fortnight, then complain in writing with the log attached and ask what goodwill applies to the recorded period.
Every fault and every complaint goes to the brand that bills you, never to the network that owns the masts. That brand raises infrastructure faults with the landlord internally.
Joining. Check coverage before price. Buy the new plan, text your old network for the code, hand it over, and leave the old SIM in until the number moves — usually one working day, with no gap.
Leaving. Switching runs entirely on text messages. No conversation is required and none can be insisted upon.
| Text | To | Result |
|---|---|---|
| PAC | 65075 | Your number moves across. Free, back in minutes, valid thirty days |
| STAC | 75075 | The account closes and the number is given up |
| The reply | — | Itemises any early-exit charge and handset balance before you commit |
Your network cannot refuse the code, sit on it, attach conditions, or make a retentions conversation a precondition of leaving. If a complaint stalls, write it down, keep the reference, and escalate free to the Communications Ombudsman at eight weeks or on a final response.
On rolling plans there is usually no exit charge at all, which is exactly what makes these brands the sensible way to test any of the four networks before committing to a longer term.
In a sentence: the same radio waves for less, with the saving coming out of the support desk rather than the network — a very good trade for most households.
Ring us and we will go through it with you. Nothing is offered for sale at any point.
We hold no arrangement with any network, take no commission and sell nothing at all. If your question is not answered here, telephone and ask.
How we are placed. thurlowvance is an independent information service for mobile customers in the United Kingdom. We are not a mobile network. We have no affiliation with, endorsement from, appointment by or connection to Three, EE, O2, Vodafone, Sky Mobile, Tesco Mobile or any other provider, and no commercial arrangement with any of them. We do not sell, supply, arrange or broker SIM cards, contracts, handsets or services of any kind, and we take no commission from anybody. Everything here is general information; a provider's own current terms always take precedence.
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