Tesco Mobile launches free 4G

New and existing customers can now get 4G at no extra cost on Tesco Mobile pay monthly and SIM-only tariffs.

Tesco Mobile is now offering 4G for free to new and existing customers.

Previously the provider charged an extra £2.50 for users to try out the superfast service via a 4G bolt-on. Now the network is lifting the £2.50 surcharge and offering 4G at no extra cost on all its pay monthly and SIM-only contracts.

Existing customers that have paid the £2.50 levy recently will receive a credit on their monthly statement.

Tesco follows the Three network, which started offering free 4G in December.

Tesco Mobile was the first Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) to launch 4G back in October 2013.

It piggybacks off O2’s network, which means it has the same 4G coverage, but is able to set its own competitive prices. For more on how MVNOs work, check out MVNO: cut your mobile phone bill by ditching the big networks.

Tesco’s 4G deals

So with the £2.50 premium gone, what will Tesco’s 4G deals cost? Here are the best SIM-only deals on offer from Tesco Mobile on a 12-month contract.

So the cheapest deal will set you back £7.50 a month and gets you 500MB of data. The most data you can get with Tesco is 3GB and it will cost you £20 a month on a SIM-only deal.

If you want to get a 4G-ready smartphone included, you will need to take a look at Tesco’s Anytime Upgrade contracts.

These deals all last 24 months and separate the cost of airtime from the cost of the handset. They are meant to make mid-contract upgrades cheaper as you only pay for the outstanding cost of the phone, rather than both the remaining cost of the airtime and the handset.

Below are the costs of the general Tesco Mobile airtime plans which you can pair with a phone plan of your choice on Anytime Upgrade.

*Total monthly cost depends on handset chosen

The overall cost of a Tesco Anytime Upgrade deal will depend on what 4G handset you go for.

Tesco offers the HTC One, Nokia Lumia 925, Nokia Lumia 920, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy Ace 3, Samsung Galaxy Note 3, Blackberry Q5, Sony Xperia SP, Apple iPhone 5c, Apple iPhone 5s and will soon also add the Sony Z1 and the Moto X to its line-up. None of these handsets come with an upfront cost.

The Nokia Lumia 920 and the Samsung Galaxy Ace 3 are the cheapest 4G enabled handset to go for with Tesco Mobile. These handsets cost just £6.50 a month, so combined with the cheapest airtime deal of £9 will set you back just £15.50 a month, or for the top 3GB allowance of data you will be looking at a £25.50 monthly charge.

Make sure you're not paying over the odds for 4G by comparing deals with Recombu

How Tesco compares

At the moment EE, O2, Vodafone and to a limited extent Three all offer 4G. Below are the cheapest 4G SIM-only deals from each of Tesco’s competitors.

As you can see Three offers the cheapest SIM-only deal for 4G users, charging just £6.90 a month, followed by Tesco which charges £7.50, but you don’t get much compared to the cheapest deals available from other providers.

EE, Vodafone and O2 all offer unlimited minutes and texts and - apart from EE - more data.

However, Three offers unlimited data as well as 2,000 minutes and 5,000 texts on its One Plan for just £15 a month. No other provider offers unlimited data like this. EE offers 20GB but charges a whopping £61 for it! With Vodafone the maximum data plan you can get is 12GB for £36 and with O2 you can get 8GB for £31.

Below is a table showing the cheapest pay monthly deal, where a handset comes with no upfront cost, from the main 4G providers.

To get a 4G handset with no upfront cost Tesco has the cheapest deal on offer, but again the deal is lacking when it comes to minutes and texts.

Three offers unlimited data and a healthy amount of texts and minutes for £28.

Making 4G ‘accessible for all’

Tesco’s latest move means 4G is well on its way to becoming more affordable.

Simon Groves, Tesco Mobile's chief marketing officer, said: "As a network we hope that this move will challenge others in the market and encourage the industry to follow suit. We want to see 4G with no extra cost become the norm and networks making the very latest technologies accessible for all."

At the moment Three is the only other operator to offer 4G at no extra cost and also the only provider to offer unlimited data. However it has been slow to roll out and its 4G service is limited to just London, Birmingham and Reading.

EE (a partnership between T-Mobile and Orange) has the widest coverage as it was the first to launch 4G and is able to provide the superfast service in 160 towns and cities.

Vodafone has 15 areas up and running, while O2 has 13.

You will need to have a 4G-enabled handset and be in an area where there is 4G service to benefit from superfast speeds. However all providers expect to cover most of the UK by 2015.

Make sure you're not paying over the odds for 4G by comparing deals with Recombu

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