I will be honest, I would port your primary number to a cheap contract monthly and just think of a lot of these new providers as data connections over going full hog for now. You can always port later but losing your primary number can be a bit of nightmare even if you get it back eventually.
I am more risk adverse though with larger impact things though and it will probably be fine.
Thatās a very good point, well made. I thought they were an MVNO but looking into theyāre not.
Thanks for the heads up 
Thanks but Iām not looking to port my main number. Iām very happy with smarty and have an excellent deal itās just a few dead spots where I am staying whilst away with work so I need a backup to use.
My switch from EE to Lyca went without a hitch.
Iād say make sure you know the phonetic alphabet if you need to speak to Customer Support on the phone. I had real trouble communicating over the phone.
But all in all, cheap and cheerful.
Letās hope my next switch goes just as smoothly tomorrow.
Bingo.
This time last year I had five EE SIMs, down to one now.
Definitely a āBoy. Byeā vibe to it. And not understanding what a MVNO is, not super common lingo, but if you work for a phone network you should probably know.
It doesnāt start anything and you can ignore it, but Iād request a PAC and then see if you get better offers.
Definitely should have just said what MVNO it was, ie Smarty, then they may have paired their braincells to understand 
But O2 likely wonāt price match them as theyāre not high street.
Not sure any of them could really match that, but uswitch sometimes have good O2 deals so just port out and port back in to one of the new deals.
These big networks donāt seem to realise theyāve got competition.
EE have always been pretty good with me but this year Iāve moved three SIMs away because they just donāt seem interested in customer retention any more.
Anyone know what percentage of UK mobile phone users are served via MVNOs?
Update: The following (from 2022) indicates around 30%: https://www.statista.com/statistics/387202/most-used-mobile-networks-uk/
I moved back to EE last week. Their network just seems so much better than the competition around Leeds.
O2 were terrible here.
Vodafone were better, and I very nearly renewed with them.
But EE just seem to be faster and more reliable.
EE are the only one that works at my work location. I was always very happy with them but Iāll be happier paying Lyca to use the same network at a fraction of the cost.
Iāve got two SIMs that say otherwise. Iāve not researched any further but maybe yours is an isolated case.
Ouch
For me to go down to 1gb itās something daft like Ā£15, I pay Ā£13.75 for 125gb doubled due to Volt 
Lemme check.
Not letting me view or not sure how to find the code.
Iām sure I used to be able to, but looking online doesnāt seem itās available any more.
O2 Open is the way.
Your volt benefits should continue after the 12 month if you happy with O2 that point in time.
Aye I no longer have it since moving, so will probably ride out the tariff as long as I can.
Do you get a text from the new network when youāve been moved over?
I just did the PAC transfer from Three to Lyca, but how do I know when itās been moved over and when I need to swap the sims? I put todays date in the form 
Itās been a very long time since I did this!
Meh, itās cheap, if itās terrible then Iāll just cancel it and go somewhere else.
The signal on Three is patchy at best, it feels like itās getting worse and their fake 5G isnāt enough to keep me anymore!
I did two recently to Lyca. No notification but they both completed around 4pm.
And everything is absolutely fine so far. I think Fishy is just unlucky.