GiffGaff why are they so cheap?

[Popsicle82646]

I'm currently with O2 and am paying £44 a month for an iPhone 12. Contract runs out next week.
Had a look around and GiffGaff are coming up massively cheaper than any other providers,
I can get an iPhone 16 for £32 a month 🤯
More internal storage than my current phone, just slightly less data per month which is fine as it turns out I didn't even realise until I looked on my history I don't even use nearly half of what I have currently!

So why are GiffGaff so cheap?
Is there a catch 🤣

I've used GiffGaff for years, never had any problems with phones or services and it's very easy to switch packages or upgrade things like goodybags. As far as I know they're cheap because they run off 02's network so they don't have the overhead costs of building towers, they don't have big call centres (their support is mostly online) so again lower overheads. It would be worth checking what 02 coverage is like in your area.

As PP said, all the cheaper phone companies run off bigger networks (e.g. Smarty and Superdrug both use 3) but with far fewer overheads. They’re smaller companies with smaller offices, smaller marketing campaigns, no infrastructure etc. I do wonder when the prices will eventually get jacked up but I won’t complain in the meantime! I’ve been on Smarty for years and have had no issues.

The iPhone 16 is over 3 years, historically phone contracts were only 2 years until recently (last couple of years they have started to increase in tenure).

the only real catch with the discount providers is that because they piggyback off someone else’s infrastructure, their traffic is deprioritised if it gets busy.

i used to be with giffgaff. Customer service is top notch, and dirt cheap. The only downsides were when I lived in the arse end of nowhere, I didn’t get as good a coverage as I’d like, and occasionally the call would drop out at busy times.

if that isn’t going to be a dealbreaker for you,then I’d really recommend them. And this was a couple of years ago now so,it might be that it’s sorted anyway.

Giff gaff use the o2 network. I just buy a phone and pay them£10 a month, for unlimited calls texts and 10gb data..works for me as l don't care about a new phone just buy refurbished.

All the cheap 3rd party networks are fine until something doesn’t work. Giffgaff have no in person staff you can phone and resolve the issue, you need to email and wait up to 24hrs for a response.

Been with GiffGaff for almost a year now, and very happy with them, even have EU roaming included. Was forced to leave 3 as our local mast was removed (long story) with zero notice, so had no mobile signal at home. Having got rid of our landline 7 years ago that was a problem 😡

3 were totally unhelpful with our situation and actually tried to charge us a penalty even though they told us to leave our contract with them as they could do nothing about the signal provision.

GiffGaff have been great and so cheap - only online support but very quick response and resolution to a couple of minor issues.

DH was with them for a while. It was cheap but it was almost impossible to get hold of him. If you called it would just go to answer machine. Used to drive me crazy.

I was with them for two weeks. In a heavily populated city I couldn't get any data despite having 2-3 bars and call quality was awful. I knew they were piggybacking on O2 so expected slightly better than I got. Same issue with 3 who I was with without problems for years then the data wouldn’t work, certainly neither gave me 5G and 4G didn’t work - about to try a vodaphone piggyback offering me a 56p a month deal.

They are fine, unlock your current phone and get a sim from giffgaff. I save up and buy my phone's outright

Been with Giffgaff for years, DH and all the DC are too. No problems. My SIM card went dodgy once and stopped getting any signal. To be fair it was several millennia old and I had cut it down from a big SIM to a micro SIM myself and it had carried on working a few years after that. Customer service helped me work out what was going on and once we realised it was dead simple to stick another Giffgaff SIM in my phone and port my number over.

We're not in a great signal area for any network but it has been fine and they support WiFi calls now so I have that switched on. Only an issue now in power cuts when we don't have WiFi but as I said, that's the same with any network here!

I love that the goodybags are flexible so if going on holiday I can just start a new one early to have the data to cover us while away rather than being stuck.

I buy a phone outright and then have SIM only. Same for the kids.