They couldnt sustain the offer its been changed for the worse  read this http://ovivomobile.com/1379/blog/imp...vivos-service/ carefully.

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The maximum revenue share for 0843 and 0844 is 4.3 pence per minute, and only about 2 pence per minute for 0845, so they are not out of pocket there.

Any idea what 081 and 089 numbers are used for?


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The maximum revenue share for 0871, 0872 and 0873 can be as much as 8.5 pence per minute, which makes it look like they are cutting it a bit fine. However, revenue share for 0870 numbers is zero pence per minute, which probably evens things out a bit.

Additionally, their call price is rounded up to the next minute, but their onward payment of revenue share might not be, so they get to pocket the difference there as well.

Dave wrote on Mar 26^th, 2013 at 11:48pm:


I think it can last if you consider how the bottom is dropping out of the market generally on other SIM only deals.

Of course I must express an interest as one who ported my Vodafone number to them last July and who is still with them.  The phone and text service has worked impeccably throughout and the only potential issues have been with the data where they changed the underlying APN very early on indicating that they had also changed data network supplier.  I also sometimes wonder if the data throughput is as fast as on a fully paid for product although they assure me that it is.  Unfortunately I do not have another data enabled phone of the same model with a Vodafone SIM card in it to compare in the same location at the same time of day.  I also only use data from time to time in modest amounts.

The main reason they had to cut their allowance on the launch offering was because although they stated a 500MB data cap per month they hadn't put in place the system architecture to enforce this or cut customers off at 500MB.  Data hogs and downloading criminals all soon realised this and made a beeline for their network so they had to cut limits to put them off until they had physically capped their offering and started to charge beyond the data allowance.  They also upped the price of their SIMs from £5 to £15 but offset this with an extra £10 calling credit for out of bundle call or data use (including overseas roaming).  The credit is valid indefinitely.  This would have also put off people like foreign tourists who might have bought their SIMs and then thrown them away at the end of their holiday, which would be bound to lose them money in set up help costs and postage and SIM card cost etc.

When you consider that Virgin is now doing a £12 per month SIM only deal with a rolling one month contract with 1200 minutes of calls and 1200 texts and 1GB of data you can begin to see how if the advertising model works that the real cost to Ovivo of 150 minutes of calls and texts and 500MB of data might be offset.

The man behind the company, Darisuh Zand, has a long history in the mobile phone industry in the major companies and seems to have credible backers and know what he is doing.  If the free model doesn't work out then I am quite sure they will instead offer an extremely low cost and competitive pay as you go option.

Also bear in mind that they offer a free of charge fully itemised call history (for free calls and calls you are charged for) and full itemisation of data block use on your account through the online portal which none of the major networks offer to their Pay As You Go customers in the UK.

If he reads this I am sure it will come as a surprise to Dariush to find me defending his product since I have been amongst the harshest critics of the initial cuts in their data and calls allowance and things like them not sending out automated SMS messages to change the data settings on your phone to their network and expecting customers to set these manually.  It should be noted that they do now have enough customers that they now send out these automated data settings messages to their new customers.

All I can say is I have had eight free months of service so far and the service is still going and that their telephone customer services staff are always extremely polite and helpful.

I do think their data only SIM for laptops needs work since it now doesn't seem to offer nearly as much for the same SIM card purchase pirce compared to their smartphone SIM

In general I think the service is really intended at lighter data users since for heavy date users the need to persisently look at ads or click the Skip Ad button (which oddly seems exceedingly hard to click compared to any other buttons on web page) would probably get to anyone who was a heavy and regular user of data.

Dave wrote on Mar 27^th, 2013 at 12:44am:


I think people are now less inclined to a deal with an included so called but not actually "free" handset than they have ever been and are more inclined to buy the SIM separately than they ever were and this is precisely why the SIM only deals are becoming more competitive (which by the way they have always been on the continent where new handset prices have not been subsidised as much as they are in the UK).

Phones4U and CarPhoneWarehouse now sell only unlocked phones, even their PayAsYou Go phones.  Phones4U even lets you Upgrade your phone to another one after only six months with a Pay As You Go Network at a lower price than if you were a brand new customer for that phone.  This is because the networks pay them a small bonus towards such an upgrade to try to retain their customers.

But one and the same Phones4U is also selling a very cheap SIM only deal from MVNO Lycamobile with Unlimited Calls, Unlimited texts and data (latter subject to a real world 3GB of use) in packs in their shops that you can then drop in to one of these unlocked phones.

All this is reliant on one thing, namely that there is more and more competition due to the MVNOs and the backbone capacity of the networks has been vastly upped to handle the data needs of high end customers.  As this happens the costs of more modest amounts of data on old 3G technologies (given that 4G is now launched by EE) falls.

So what is the real cost to Ovivo of their package per month per customer.  Probably only a £1 or £2 a customer as the average one does not use nearly all the data allowance.

Against that the information they hope to gather about your internet use habits and sell to advertisers for very targeted to the user's habits may be worth much more.  Look at how much websites pay to one another for new customer leads.  Without these payaments being then sites like www.topcashback.co.uk would not even exist.

The only think I am not convinced about is whether seeing a whole page ad that blocks your web browsing progress until you have at least ignored it (I can see eventually it is it is likely they will make you scroll to the bottom of the page and make you spend a minimum time on the advert page) is going to be acceptable to anyone using their smartphone a lot for internet use.  I don't use my mobile a lot so it is acceptable to me to have enough data and calls to use my Smartphone when I need to without worrying about the cost.

Of course I didn't know a deal like Virgin's 1200 minutes and 1GB and 1200 texts with no pesky ads and no long contract for £12 per month was going to come out.  I must say 1200 minutes is seriously attractive as it lets you cover more or less all your landline call use.

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Well they brought most of it back in a few weeks once they had come up with a strategy to stop abusive users exceeding the 500MB limit by making them pay to do so and by making the product unattractive to the tourist market by tripling the price of the SIM.

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I'm pretty sure they have a way to stop tethering but haven't tried yet.  If they didn't then how could they hope to sell any of their data only SIMs that only include 500MB per months compared to 400MB plus 150 mins of calls and 150 mins of texts on the Smartphone SIM deal.

Not sure about the fall in terminations rates and what the impact of that will be.

Dave wrote on Mar 27^th, 2013 at 5:50pm:


As a former Lycamobile customer I believe they had two different number blocks and an older one had this problem but that a more recent number allocation didn't

The main mobile companies frequently behave like the mafia and get away with as many anti competitive actions (eg no call or data history itemisation on Pay As You Go unlike many other EU countries where it is legally mandated by the regulator) as they can for as long as they can.  And it usually take sleep Ofcom years to adjudicate on such matters.

I'm pretty sure LycaMobile has these issues sorted now as they are one of the largest and most active MVNOs.

NGMsGhost wrote on Mar 27^th, 2013 at 12:16am:


I can certainly back up this positive report based on a month's experience with Ovivo.  I switched to them from iCard Mobile (which is itself an excellent service) because I was due for a topup and thought that, as a light user, the all-in package seemed excellent value in the long term.  The customer service is very prompt, and the usage info on the website portal is excellent.

bigjohn wrote on Apr 8^th, 2013 at 5:12am:


I do hope that the Skip or Ignore button will be larger than it was before as it was very difficult to successfully press it on my Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro Android phone.

The cynic in me said that this was because they wanted me to have to read the advert.  So with that in mind perhaps the Skip button should be a larger and easier to press button but one displayed right at the bottom of the page so you have to scroll down the whole page before you can use it.

To be honest I'm also finding Virgin's 1200 minutes, 1200 texts and 1GB of data offer SIM only offer for only £12 per month a very tempting alternative as it would then cover all of my current landline phone call use.    Or 1200 minutes of calls with unlimited data and unlimited texts for £17 per month or 2400 minutes of calls with unlimited and unlimited texts for £20 per month (I'm sure there is fair use limit in practice on the data)

See www.virginmobile.com/vm/paymonthlySimOnly.do

Although from past experience I do know that I tend to have issues making long calls from mobiles due to the phone getting hot and the reception quality never being as good as a landline.  On the other hand I find the ever increasing cost of  landline phone line rental absolutely disgusting and totally inexcusable.