T-Mobile Relax Pay As You Go

I am a dedicated pay as you go user - I don't want to be locked into a contract and I simply don't use my phone enough to make it worthwhile. Before switching to T-mobile, I'd been on PAYG tarifs with both Orange and Vodafone, neither of which were particularly satisfactory in terms of cost or customer service.

I bought a T-mobile SIM card on impulse (for a fiver - although they are now advertised at 50p, so I feel slightly cheated) after seeing their advert for 3p texts and talking to a surprisingly helpful salesman in store. I was later astonished to find that it was actually possible to speak to human beings at their call centres without waiting on hold for more than one or two geological ages, and moreover, human beings who actually knew what they were talking about and who ported my old number over to the new network with a minimum of fuss.

The automated phone menus turned out to be unusually user-friendly too - the T-mobile PAYG (Relax) system offers three different price plans, and I was able to switch to the one I wanted in a matter of moments.

These three plans are a key feature of T-mobile's PAYG, so here are the details:

EVERYONE
12p/min calls, 10p texts.
Pretty standard PAYG rates, useful if you make a mixture of calls and texts to various networks and landlines, but don't use your phone enough to warrant a contract.

MATES RATES
5p/min calls to T-mobile, 40p to other networks, and 20p to landlines.
5p texts to T-mobile, 10p to other networks.
Personally I hate this sort of plan as it only seems to benefit the network, and not me. It's not "Mates Rates", it's "Network Rates", and frankly I don't have a clue what network most of my friends are on, nor do I care. Of course, if you actually do pay attention to this kind of thing, and don't mind discriminating between friends based on their mobile network, or if you fancy trying to persuade everyone you know to switch to the same network at once, then maybe this is for you... but I'm steering clear!

TEXT APPEAL
20p/min calls to T-mobile and landlines. 40p to other networks.
3p texts.
Now this is my price plan, and for me, it's perfect. I almost never make calls from my mobile, so I'm not bothered by the high call costs. Those 3p texts are all that matters, and they are truly wonderful! This is the reason I switched to T-mobile, and the reason I'm staying with them for the forseeable future.