Yes if you use Whatsapp, iphones with Facetime for calls (or texts via imessage), etc, but not plain phone dialling.
This is a good point - if your network supports WiFi Calling then your normal telephone calls can be routed via your home WiFi.
Unfortunately GiffGaff donāt currently support WiFi Calling
GiffGaff has āUnlimited UK calls and textsā.
So why would we need WiFi calling?
And Ofcom claims that O2 has good reception indoors and outdoors at my house.
Sometimes indoor mobile phone coverage can be patchy even in an area that the networkās website indicates has good coverage. Your contract may allow unlimited UK calls and texts but you canāt use these if you have no phone signal.
WiFi Calling ensures that you can still make & receive normal phone calls by routing these through WiFi if there is no mobile phone signal.
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Good point.
Iāve just posted to my neighbourhood chat room to ask them how GG/O2 works here.
Does anyone know whether Tesco does WiFi calling?
According to the Tesco Mobile website they do support WiFi Calling.
Whilst most modern smartphones support WiFi Calling it may not be available on some older phones.
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Both my son & myself are with Giff Gaff, for several years now, having been EE (or rather Orange) customers prior. My ex is still with EEā¦ 
Well, if I get my son a short-term deal at GiffGaff and it works out his phone calls are ok, then weāll know we whether itās good for when we move over.
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Yeah - you arenāt tied into a contract with GiffGaffās rolling plans so thereās no harm with doing that
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Take a look at Smarty - owned by Hutchison , itās basically Three.
Create a group and manage it and everyone gets 10% discount.
Mine Ā£7 for 2 gig which I hardly use so get a refund normally Ā£1.50 a month.
Other half Ā£7 for 8 gig no discount for unused
Daughter Ā£8 for 12 gig no discount.
Then deduct 10% so Ā£6.30 and Ā£7.20 for the group members.
So about Ā£20 a month for 3 of us.
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I recently switched to O2, Ā£8/month for 20GB data and unlimited calls and texts. EU roaming is included and also some freebies like 3 months free Disney+ and 3 months free Apple TV. Another benefit is pre-sale access to gigs in O2 venues. I was with EE previously paying nearly Ā£30 on a SIM only plan and the best they could offer me was 5GB for Ā£18/month. No-brainer really, the chap I spoke to said that since BT took them over their ability to offer deals has been greatly curtailed.
EDIT: Looks like you can get 30GB data with the Ā£8/month plan and 20% off each additional plan at the same billing address. You wonāt see these deals by just visiting the O2 website, instead go via moneysupermarket.
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by population perhapsā¦certainly not by landmass, which perhaps is part of the point of a mobile?
If where you you use phone 95% of the time, has excellent coverage, no probs.
as others have commented, if supported by the mobile providerā¦what is definitely more problematic is text - especially for on line verification. O2, last time I checked, do not support SMS over wifi. iOS handset sending a messge to another iOS handset have the benefit of iMessage - interaction with android where mobile coverage is poor, is problematic.
Technology doesnāt always advance as we are led to believe. Slight thread drift, but O2 had boostbox for the last ten years, solved some issues, but no longer supported with intro of 4G and 5G. Phone in the carā¦Nokia worked great with a handfree car kitā¦class 4 handset became class 2 when dropped into its cradle, charged the phone, simple 8 number one touch dialling IIRC. Nowadays faffing with touch screensā¦when there is a signal of course!
In answer to the original question, it depends on location, usage at home or on the move and a certain level of pot luck, ymmv. Itās a degree too clever to say based on hindsight, but if the original transmission licenses had been granted on the basis of a single transmission system for all different networks, then network coverage would never have been an issue; simples. Good luck trying to find the best!
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You need to check again, that was a must for me as I live in a mobile signal deadspot. SMS working just fine with wifi calling on O2 here.
Thanks Robert.
Interesting deal.
How do you find the coverage?
Round here, itās fine - so Bournemouth/Salisbury/Southampton/Winchester all good. The odd dead spot around the local villages - yes you Cranborne - but yes no complaints. Iām not a heavy user but daughter burns through her gig with TikTok etc without difficulty.
Iāve never had to deal with support, it just works. Plus itās backed by Three; I think ultimately the big networks are all kind of similar so just pick the sim deal that suits your needs.
Itās a 30 day rolling contract. Iāve been with smarty a long time. Just checked, 5 years.
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O2 family plan offers significant discounts (around 20-30% I think). My kids have unlimited data contracts for about Ā£23pm. And they have EU roaming. Others may be cheaper. Depends what you need.
My wife has GiffGaff for her work mobile and lots of features seem to be disabled (wifi calling for example). But that may be the specific contract.
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Was with Giff Gaff but moved three of us to Sky. The ability to roll over unused data is excellent but on balance I suspect weāre heading back to Giff Gaff.
GiffGaff does not support Wi-Fi calling, so itās not contract specific. We now live on the top of a hill with an excellent signal and no home phone so a non issue for us.
What does ānot contract specificā mean?
All of the above appear to be SIM only deals, ie, no handset included, so where are people sourcing their handsets?