Electric Gates GSM

[Andrew]

What sim company do you all use and how much is it?
Think o2 are ripping us off again.

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

What sim company do you all use and how much is it?
Think o2 are ripping us off again.

If you’ve got decent EE cover just chuck an ASDA SIM in it.

I’ve got a couple of them used in remote meter readers, sending an update text once a day every day. Put £15 credit in last August. Checked the balance this week as I’d figured at 4p per text I’d be getting close to running out....

Nope. Balance £14.70. Winner, winner chicken dinner!

Edit - just checked, actually activated both SIMs in June. So I’m curious to know how each SIM has only used 30p of credit in 11 months.....hmmm

 

[A1an]

If you’ve got decent EE cover just chuck an ASDA SIM in it.

I’ve got a couple of them used in remote meter readers, sending an update text once a day every day. Put £15 credit in last August. Checked the balance this week as I’d figured at 4p per text I’d be getting close to running out....

Nope. Balance £14.70. Winner, winner chicken dinner!

Have you had to make a chargeable call from the SIM since August?

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Have you had to make a chargeable call from the SIM since August?

No. They’re each installed deep in the bowls of a data logger, since 12 June last year.

I don’t send them any texts but they send out a daily text message with meter info to a service provider. Probably should ring up Asda Mobile and speak to a human about the balance, just to satisfy my own curiosity.

 

[Steevo]

Running two on Vodafone Family which works out excellent value. Unfortunately Voda decided to discontinue it to new customers and stop existing customers swapping the numbers on their account.

 

[Pilgrimmick]

If you’ve got decent EE cover just chuck an ASDA SIM in it.

I’ve got a couple of them used in remote meter readers, sending an update text once a day every day. Put £15 credit in last August. Checked the balance this week as I’d figured at 4p per text I’d be getting close to running out....

Nope. Balance £14.70. Winner, winner chicken dinner!

Edit - just checked, actually activated both SIMs in June. So I’m curious to know how each SIM has only used 30p of credit in 11 months.....hmmm

Probably a standing order for £15 per month and you just have never noticed!

 

[Steevo]

Might be a good start:

https://www.uswitch.com/mobiles/com...uTGQSTFnd7a1u1nAP9T0ogVk2SNB8_KBoCJrsQAvD_BwE

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/cheap-sim-only-contracts#low



Or even:

https://www.1pmobile.com/

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Probably a standing order for £15 per month and you just have never noticed!

No just a one off top up at the start, to the best of my memory. Have to wait until 10am tomorrow to speak to a human. Will report back. Hopefully without egg on face.

 

[upnortheast]

Van trackers came with lycomobile sims in them. £10 seems to last about 12 months ish

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Or even:

https://www.1pmobile.com/

I like the sound if that and it’s an EE base network! Are they any good/ have you tried them?

Next cheapest per text message on bog standard PAYG without any monthly bundles is “3” at 2p per text.

From my post in the old “Low use SIM Card” thread from January:

Quick summary of PAYG standard SMS rates (per message to another UK network) *without buying a monthly etc bundle

EE 12p
Vodafone 14p
O2 15p
Three 2p
Asda (EE) 4p
Tesco (O2) 10p
GiffGaff (O2) 5p
Lycamobile (O2) 19p

So £10 on a Three PAYG gets you 500 messages. An Asda SIM gets you 250 messages, 200 messages on GiffGaff, 100 messages on Tesco, 83 messages on EE, 71 on Voda, 66 messages

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Van trackers came with lycomobile sims in them. £10 seems to last about 12 months ish

Bloody expensive per text. The most expensive of all of them

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

I like the sound if that and it’s an EE base network! Are they any good/ have you tried them?

Ughh. No actually. If it sounds too good to be true it usually is. Need to read the fine print....

https://www.1pmobile.com/terms-and-conditions.taf

1. TOP-UP REQUIREMENT
   1. In order to remain a customer, you must top-up your 1pMobile phone/account with at least £10 once every 120 days (4 months) with effect from the Commencement Date.
   2. If you fail to top-up by the next top-up due date (which is shown in your account area),
      • we will close your 1pMobile account,
      • your mobile number will be disconnected,
      • and any unused credit will be lost.
      • If you have ported a mobile number to us then the number will be returned to the issuing network provider and may not be retrievable.
   3. The current minimum topup is £10

So that’s £30 a year. For my data loggers which send a text once a day every day that’s £30/365 = 8.2p per text. Not so cheap.

You need to effectively send 9 or more texts every single day to get an effective 1p per text rate (3000 texts per year).

Top marks to them for marketing and headline grabbing rates though!

 

[How much]

any one got any experience with machine to machine sim cards they are what i assume are used in smart metres and machine control loads of suppliers if you search mtom sim but not much on cost .


https://www.emnify.com/pricing

 

[upnortheast]

Bloody expensive per text. The most expensive of all of them

Not sure how they work, They are constantly " talking" to the server when the vans are moving. Each comm can not be 19p or the top up would last a lot less time than it does ??

 

[Andrew]

I like the look of the asda one.

Currently paying £10/month with o2.

Sends about 2 texts per month but recieves 1-2 per day. Makes 4-5 calls per day (rings 3 numbers in turn until answered) every time the intercom button is pressed. Also recieves about 20-30 calls per day (ring to open) but they never connect - it’s done via caller id.
When it’s making a call and it’s not answered, are they charged or not? If so is it for a full minute or part thereof?

 

[Steevo]

Ughh. No actually. If it sounds too good to be true it usually is. Need to read the fine print....

https://www.1pmobile.com/terms-and-conditions.taf

1. TOP-UP REQUIREMENT
   1. In order to remain a customer, you must top-up your 1pMobile phone/account with at least £10 once every 120 days (4 months) with effect from the Commencement Date.
   2. If you fail to top-up by the next top-up due date (which is shown in your account area),
      • we will close your 1pMobile account,
      • your mobile number will be disconnected,
      • and any unused credit will be lost.
      • If you have ported a mobile number to us then the number will be returned to the issuing network provider and may not be retrievable.
   3. The current minimum topup is £10

So that’s £30 a year. For my data loggers which send a text once a day every day that’s £30/365 = 8.2p per text. Not so cheap.

You need to effectively send 9 or more texts every single day to get an effective 1p per text rate (3000 texts per year).

Top marks to them for marketing and headline grabbing rates though!

Sorry, no experience at all...only did a quick Google to come up with the links. Glad you read the small print before anyone else jumped in head first.

It's surprising there aren't any specialist providers for such things....though I guess they'd probably never make any money.

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Not sure how they work, They are constantly " talking" to the server when the vans are moving. Each comm can not be 19p or the top up would last a lot less time than it does ??

Probably data, which is 12p/MB. They probably won’t be sending very much data. Only ones or tens of kbytes. So could see how the top up could last.

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

When it’s making a call and it’s not answered, are they charged or not? If so is it for a full minute or part thereof?

No. Only once the other side answers or it goes to voicemail. Then the minimum call charge gets ticked.

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

I like the look of the asda one.

Currently paying £10/month with o2.

Sends about 2 texts per month but recieves 1-2 per day. Makes 4-5 calls per day (rings 3 numbers in turn until answered) every time the intercom button is pressed. Also recieves about 20-30 calls per day (ring to open) but they never connect - it’s done via caller id.

Put £10 on the Asda job. Stick it on the £5 voice/text bundle for the first 30 days.

Should be just enough for the outbound call volumes (5/6 days per week or 7 for the call volumes?)

If it’s all good make it an auto-recurring bundle.

 

[Andrew]

Put £10 on the Asda job. Stick it on the £5 voice/text bundle for the first 30 days.

Should be just enough for the outbound call volumes (5/6 days per week or 7 for the call volumes?)

If it’s all good make it an auto-recurring bundle.

That’s what I was thinking. Calls never last more than 30 seconds so 5 mins per day, 5 days per week for 4 weeks = 100 mins. That gives spare minutes for weekends.

Will give it a go when we get round to it, £20 left on it at the moment then got the hassle of swapping numbers!