O2 forges 4G for £15 in new pay-as-you-go deals
O2's new Big Bundle PAYG tariffs include the option to enjoy 4G for as little as £15 per month, but check the limits on data.
4G is fast becoming affordable. As EE, Vodafone, Three and O2 duke it out for your 4G fees, O2 this week introduces new pay-as-you-go deals netting you extra-fast data for as little as £15.
O2's new Big Bundle PAYG tariffs cost £10, £15 or £20 per month, and the £15 or £20 options enable you to enjoy 4G speed.
The £10 Big Bundle gives you 100 minutes, 1000 texts and 500MB of 3G data. The £15 option doubles up to 200 minutes, 2000 texts and 1GB of 3G or 4G data. And the £20 deal doubles up again with 400 minutes, 4000 texts and 2GB of 3G or 4G data.
"O2's new big bundle deals are a move in the right direction," says Rob Kerr, mobiles expert at uSwitch.com, "but there are other good deals around, notably EE's current PAYG £15 deal with a one-off 10GB 4G data allowance thrown in for good measure."
While deals like these from O2 and EE come with pretty friendly price tags, they aren't necessarily a cheap shortcut to 4G -- having all that extra speed means you're likely to chew through more data than you think, so you could be stung with extra charges if you go over your allowance. If you do approach your Big Bundle limit, you can whack on an extra 100MB of data for £3, 500MB for £6, or for £10 you can bolt-on another 1GB data and 50 picture messages on top of your monthly allowance.
If cost is a factor and you don't do much video streaming and other data-sucking tasks, then this deal could well be worth it. If, however, you want to make the most of 4G's extra speed, we reckon 5GB per month gives you the leg-room -- check out our guide to the best 4G deals with a sweet 5GB of data.
In order to enjoy 4G speed, you do of course need a 4G phone like the new Samsung Galaxy S5, HTC One M8 or Apple iPhone 5S . Handily, once you're signed up, if your data needs changing you can switch between the bundles at any time, moving up or down the options each month. If you ever need extra time to chat, £1 gives you 50 extra minutes to other mobiles or 100 extra minutes to O2 phones.
Big Bundles launch on Thursday 29 May. If you're already on O2, text BIG10, BIG15 or BIG20 to 21300 to switch to the deal of your choice, or call 2202.