Some customers of O2 UK’s (Virgin Media) Pay As You Go Data SIMs (mobile broadband) have recently been surprised to find that they can no longer top their plans up with extra data. The reason for this appears to be because the mobile operator quietly removed them from sale during early August 2024.
Just to recap. O2’s PAYG Data SIMs allowed customers to choose from a selection of plans, each with a different allowance and expiry period. For example, you could pay £3 for 1GB (GigaByte) but that had to be used within a 24-hour period, or alternatively you’d pay £10 for 2GB lasting 90 days, then £20 for 8GB lasting 90 days or £30 for 12GB that lasted for 12-months.
The plans had some advantages for those who only needed infrequent access to data, and you can still buy preloaded O2 data SIMs via Amazon, but by modern standards they perhaps weren’t particularly good value for money and these days data-only SIMs can feel a bit redundant (i.e. it’s often cheaper to simply buy a regular mobile SIM and just not use the calls/texts side).
However, if you visit the same page on O2’s website today, then the operator simply says, “we no longer sell data only SIMs for Pay As You Go” and directs customers to take one of their Pay Monthly or regular PAYG mobile SIMs instead (oddly this is done alongside the picture of a 5G SIM, but PAYG on O2 doesn’t support 5G). Credits to Julian for spotting this development.