Noodle offers a unique alternative to lengthy mobile-phone contracts and expensive pay-as-you-go call charges. Here's how it works.
As a fully paid-up member of the Grumpy Old Men clan, I have a particular hatred of mobile phones. As gadgets go, mobile phones have to be one of the most annoying plagues ever invented: noisy, invasive and impolite -- and don't get me started on those infuriating ringtones!
Hence, I haven't had a mobile phone for over five years -- ever since I left my last banking job in early 2002. Although other journalists are shocked to learn that I don't own a mobile phone ("How do people get in touch with you?"), I've gotten along quite happily without one, thanks very much.
One reason why I've steered clear of mobile phones for more than half a decade is that choosing one requires incredibly complex buying decisions. With hundreds of phones and thousands of tariffs to choose from, it's all but impossible to find the best tariff to suit your needs. However, mobile-phone tariffs generally fall into two distinct categories:
1) Contract deals, where you sign up to a monthly package of calls and texts in return for a monthly payment. The problem with contract deals is that you're tied in for a minimum of twelve, or even, eighteen months.
In addition, you may be paying for a bundle of services which you simply don't use (seriously, do people really send five hundred texts a month?). For instance, The Carphone Warehouse claims that mobile phone users waste £30 million a year by being on the wrong tariffs. Also, if you have a poor credit rating, then you may find it difficult to get a contract deal with most providers.
2) 'Pay as you go' (PAYG), where you're not tied into a contract and simply pay for each call as you make it. However, PAYG call rates are sky high, and can mean paying 25p to 30p a minute for calls.
However, with the launch earlier this month of Noodle Telecom, there is a 'Third Way' for mobile-phones. Noodle offers a hybrid of contract and PAYG tariffs, in that you don't have to sign up to a lengthy contract and you also don't have to pay excessive PAYG call charges. Here's how it works:
- You buy a Noodle SIM (or Subscriber Identity Module, a removable smart card for mobile phones) from www.noodle.co.uk or by calling 0870 175 7678 or 07700 090 000. If you don't already have a mobile handset, then you'll need to buy one separately.
- You agree to a minimum three-month contract which costs £4.95 a month, but the first two months are free. There is no bundle of 'free' minutes or texts included in this fee.
- However, domestic and international call rates are much lower than comparable PAYG tariffs. Also, Noodle charges by the second, without rounding up to the minute. For example, calls to UK landlines cost 7p per minute; texts cost 8p; cross-network calls cost between 7p and 15p per minute; and most international calls (including to China, Poland and Turkey) cost 8p per minute.
- You can make money by receiving calls, as Noodle refunds a proportion of the money it receives from other networks' termination charges. Depending on your cross-network usage, you could bank up to 2p per minute from incoming calls, which you can transfer into your bank account via PayPal.
- If you've had difficulty getting a contract mobile phone because of a poor or non-existent credit history, Noodle can help you to build a positive credit rating with a 'virtual' contract using its voucher scheme.
- You can also use your Noodle SIM to make cheap international calls using VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) using a normal GSM mobile handset. This service costs 8p per minute.
In summary, Noodle takes things back to basics by combining the lower per-minute call charges of a contract deal with the flexibility of a PAYG agreement. This seems quite attractive to me, however, as always, you should shop around to find a package which suits your individual call patterns.
What may be good for many people may not be ideally suited to you, so check out comparison sites such as mobdeal and onecompare before signing up to a new tariff.
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