At last week's event hosted by Lithium, I caught up with Robbie Hearn and Mike Fairman about giffgaff. A community run (but privately owned) mobile operator using O2's network in the UK. The idea is that with no call centres and a SIM only product (you will need to bring your own unlocked mobile phone) giffgaff can provide a cheaper, and better mobile service.
The pricing is competitive and they appear to have gone down the "unlimited" data route, offering unlimited data to anyone committing to a monthly spend. Everyone (else) knows that data isn't really free or unlimited, so it stands to reason that they may need to change this position as they attract more data intensive users. This may or may not prove to be a problem.
To test out the community I asked some questions in the giffgaff forum and got some answers (quickly) but can't help feeling that the community sourced feel to the answers is a little light weight. For example I was told by one member (chopitup) that:
Giffgaff currently (and I probably think never) want to get into the mobile internet market
Now I don't want to get into some flame war with chopitup but if giffgaff don't want to get into the mobile internet then they might want to get out of mobile while they are at it. The good news is that in the end 14 messages got posted with member rjheald making the most sense:
You may be right but this is a PAYG network so with no contract to tie you in you are free to leave anytime.
I ordered my SIM using rjheald as my introducer (and getting an extra £5 in the process) and my SIM arrived quickly.
For those of us that don't like talking to businesses and just want things to work (read this) giffgaff has done a great job so far, and if it does slip up... you can always leave.
If you are thinking about giving them a go, send me an email and I'll get a SIM in the post!
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