Paul Beesley

So I needed a phone. A phone that the school doesn’t pay for, at least, and I thought I’d found a good deal with 3. £20 a month gets you a ‘free’ Sony K800i, 1100 minutes and texts and 300 “3 to 3″ minutes for calls on the same network.

Is there a catch. Well, sort of. The contract is great, it’s getting it that’s the problem because there’s an administration charge of £195 when you sign up (and that’s not missing a decimal!). That’s a pretty large barrier to entry and certainly not much of a carrot to attract customers with.

In the end I went with O2 and got an iPhone for £165 on top of the contract - less than the signup fee for 3!