giffgaff is a new virtual mobile phone network operator, sitting on the O2 network (in fact the company is actually part of O2), but with an innovative business model, and hence tariff.  Firstly, no call centres (some will celebrate this single point), in fact they have very few staff at all, and will be relying upon other customers to help in the online forums (the main route to support).  When an existing member is thanked within the forum, they will earn kudos, which adds up, along with many other things into giffgaff points, which add up to hard cash (or at least credit).

However, as well as keeping costs down, they are keeping the tariff simple, and encouraging individuals to recruit their friends and family onto the same tariff…

• Calls, SMS, MMS, call forwarding, and even video calls between giffgaff users will be free (as long as you topup £10 every 3 months, and only calls up to 60 minutes will be free)
• UK landlines and mobiles (and voicemail) will cost 8p/min
• UK SMS will be 4p each (possibly showing a more accurate figure than other networks)
• MMS will be 16p each
• Video calls will be 50p/min

That’s the general stuff out of the way, now let’s look at the two exciting bits…

• Freefone calls (0800) will actually be free!
• Data will be free for 6 months!

Wow, it’s really good to see a network returning to the Orange / T-Mobile ways of many many years ago and providing freefone numbers for free.

The reason for free data is partly to gauge the interest in the service, partly to allow them further discussion on what pricing to set.

If you want a SIM, head over to the giffgaff website and order one, and let us know how you get on!

Some content courtesy of Dan at The Really Mobile Project.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 9:38 am and is filed under Gadgets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.