BT business mobile contract nearly ended: Can anyone recommend a good deal anywhere else?

[NigellasGuest]

basically we need to re-contract or go to a new provider.
I've told them we will leave them if they can't give us a good new deal and they have come up with various options, but I'm thinking I should shop around a bit.

Does anyone have any suggestions where to look? I can't see the wood for the trees. I've looked on MSE but can't see anything - perhaps I just don't know where to look?

What are you getting at present and what are you paying ?

If you are after a new mobile phone, what would you be tempted by ?

Might be worth posting on the freelancer topic area, too, for ideas.

at present we have 5 blackberries, rental is £18.per month for each handset - it's a business contract BTW.
we get 3,0000 texts each (which we don't use) and 250 minutes each (we do use this).
they won't decrease the number of texts and increase the the number of minutes! But they are offering to credit our account with about £1k which effectively means halving the rental for the duration of the new contract.
Does that make sense?

oh, and we just want to stick with the blackberrries really.
not bothered with any new snazzy gear. Just want the monthly cost as low as poss!

Right, at least now it is clearer what you want, what you're paying, and what you get (even if some bits aren't wanted, but effectively being charged for).

MSE is mostly aimed at residential users, so won't be that likely to have deals for businesses. Yes, shopping around is perhaps the only thing you can do.

Business sections of each major network are worth trying (see if you can get an interactive chat session with someone, as the prospect [for them] of signing up a 5 user contract will be tempting [if they earn commission on top of a basic, or get no basic and only commission] and make a copy of it to a text editor as you go along, just in case there's no "e-mail the transcript" option at the end - you will be in your rights to have their offer in writing and it will help if you get 5 or more competing deals, to have the "fine print" like contract duration, cost inc/exc VAT, etc, etc).

I'll see what I can find out, and perhaps post a query on uk.telecom.mobile on your behalf (assume you wouldn't mind and there should be some other business users with their own 'best deal' info to share).

we have decided to drop one of the users so it will be a 4 user contract now.

Thank you so much for your help Networkguy - what a star!