Help with pay as you go SIM please

[Flossyfloo]

My DD has started walking back and forth to school by herself so I wanted to give her a phone just in case of emergencies etc.

I have 2 old phones she can have, very basic ones that are yonks old. One was on a 3 contract, the other was on an O2 contract.

So what is my best option? 30 day contract, 12 month contract or load a tenner on to a new SIM and see how long it lasts (which I expect to be for a while as DD is going to be given strict instructions to only contact me when she needs to and not to mess about with the phone at other times)? I've only ever had phones on long contracts so not sure how this PAYG stuff works.

PAYG is definitely the way to start off - if you find she's using it up quickly then you might look at getting a second line on your existing contract, but these start around a tenner a month for SIM only, so you have nothing to lose with a PAYG SIM.

Thanks Brie. I've just managed to find one of the old phones and a charger for it! I've ordered a free SIM from tesco mobile but I've got a feeling my old phone is locked to 3 so not sure it's gonna work. Does anyone know how you can tell if a phone is locked to a network?

put the sim in and see if it works, if it does it isn't locked.

depending on what the phone is, you might find an unlock code online, failing that, there is bound to be a place in your local market which will unlock it for a fee. Round here it's about £10, for an older phone.

If you can find the charger for the o2 phone, it might work with the Tesco sim, I think Tesco are still using o2.