The Phone Co-op, which has carried The Co-operative brand since September, offers mobile services.

It doesn't do pre-pay and instead offers Pay As You Use. This is post-pay and for a modest £2 per month standing charge offers two options:

Option 1: Calls to landlines and 03 numbers at 4 pence per minute and calls to mobiles at 11.5 pence per minute.
Option 2: Calls to landlines, 03 numbers and mobile networks at 7 pence per minute.

The minimum charge is 1.2 pence which is about 10 seconds' worth of call time.

As with other services minimum charges are invariably equal to the first whole minute, this 1.2 pence can offer quite a saving, particularly when calls go to an answering service for which you don't wish to leave a message, or for which you want to leave only a short message.

Plus, of course, there is call itemisation, albeit online only. There is no need to top up, so you don't have to be concerned that your call might drop part-way through.


Data bundles are available: 500MB for £3 and 1GB for £5. Cost outside the bundle is 20 pence per MB, or if you don't have a bundle, then the cost is 7.2 pence per MB.

I'm not sure whether they forbid tethering to a laptop. The T&Cs page doesn't feature any for mobile services.