Mobile phone for kids - do on own or part of a deal

[MarillionFan]

DD1 is going to secondary school later this week. Was going to get her a mobile phone. Was wondering if most people who have phones for their kids do it as part of a family deal (ie. all on one network) or just get a separate one?

Opinions?

[eek]

DD1 is going to secondary school later this week. Was going to get her a mobile phone. Was wondering if most people who have phones for their kids do it as part of a family deal (ie. all on one network) or just get a separate one?

Opinions?

Whatever works out cheapest. Girls were on Vodafone as that got them a cheap iPhone 6, Mrs eek is on EE, I'm on 3 as I use a lot of data.

Girls are moving to BT or three next week. Not sure what to do with Mrs Eek as she doesn't use much data but there is little incentive nowadays for everyone to be on the same network - that's not how things work when even your cheapest contract has 200 free minutes and unlimited texts....

[northernladuk]

I know you've never smashed a screen but giving kids phones with glass screens? Why would you do that?

Kids got our hand me down Samsungs with a sim only contract to start off with. Just hunted around for the cheapest deal, which ended up being with a different network to ours. Worked OK for a while until peer pressure kicked in and they would only have the latest flagship ones

[eek]

I know you've never smashed a screen but giving kids phones with glass screens? Why would you do that?

Kids got our hand me down Samsungs with a sim only contract to start off with. Just hunted around for the cheapest deal, which ended up being with a different network to ours. Worked OK for a while until peer pressure kicked in and they would only have the latest flagship ones

Because they haven't broken theirs either.... Also it got them iphones which allows me to identify roughly where they are if I need to....

[TheFaQQer]

Tesco mobile with their insurance plan - had to claim twice for my elder daughter's phone. £25 a time and got a brand new / refurbished phone the next day.

Covers loss, accidental damage, theft and calls.

[northernladyuk]

DD1 is going to secondary school later this week. Was going to get her a mobile phone. Was wondering if most people who have phones for their kids do it as part of a family deal (ie. all on one network) or just get a separate one?

Opinions?

Kids not quite old enough yet, but plan is for old phone already owned and no longer in use and then PAYG tesco mobile so they can't run up a massive bill.

[eek]

Tesco mobile with their insurance plan - had to claim twice for my elder daughter's phone. £25 a time and got a brand new / refurbished phone the next day.

Covers loss, accidental damage, theft and calls.

given the cost you are probably better off with a protect your bubble insurance policy.

As for sim only contracts. Between the amazon gift cards and quidco cashback I suspect BT is going to be hard to beat if you have a bt landline... £16 a month for 20gb of data less £95 Amazon gift card + £60 from quidco if it works...

[meridian]

Eldest got a Samsung J3 for his 11th, with 3 sim-only. £150 for the phone outright, £9 per month for all you can eat minutes and texts and 4gb data.

Qustodio installed (and he knows it) so I can keep track of where he is and who texts him.

[TheFaQQer]

Qustodio installed (and he knows it) so I can keep track of where he is and who texts him.

Do kids still text these days? I'd have thought it was all SC / Viber / kik / WhatsApp rather than SMS

[FiveTimes]

Do kids still text these days? I'd have thought it was all SC / Viber / kik / WhatsApp rather than SMS

Its all snapchat which makes "policing" even harder as there is no way of seeing these snaps, the photos arent stored on the phone and can't be automagically uploaded to icloud for photo sharing

I suppose its all about trust