I have resently joined the GiffGaff mobile network from Tesco mobile. I had finished my 12 month Tesco contract and the iPhone 4s release was not enough to make me upgrade from my iPhone 4. I moved on to a 30 day rolling contract with Tesco but my minutes where reduced and now data limited. Having unlocked my phone I looked around for a better deal, that deal came from GiffGaff. Like Tesco mobile, GiffGaff uses the O2 network so coverage in my area is good with 3G most of the time.

The transfer from Tesco to GiffGaff was quick and easy, all done via the GiffGaff website. I had to cut down the sim from GiffGaff as the do not supply micro sim due to costs, a sim cut from ebay made this an easy process. GiffGaff is a PAYG network but you can buy monthly goodybags which are cheaper than Tesco and gave me more minutes and unlimited data. The only problem I have found so far is I’m unable to setup an automatic subscription to a goodybag, this means each month I have to purchase a new one ready for next months use. GiffGaff have said auto renewing goody bags are in the pipeline for early 2012, I hope that happens. I the meantime the MyGiffGaff iPhone app does make it easy to purchase credit and goodybags straight from the iPhone.

GiffGaff also operate a very nice referral scheme, giving the new referred customers a £5 free credit on activation of their sim and points the referring customer. These can be converted to airtime credit, cash via PayPal or donated to charity.

This weekend I upgraded my iPhone 4 to the new iOS 4.3 software update. I was looking forward to testing the new Personal Hotspot feature that allows an iPhone 4 to create its own Wi-Fi hotspot. I thought this would be a useful feature should I need to go online with the iPad (not 3G) when I do not have Wi-Fi access. After looking through all the iPhone settings and not being able to find the Personal Hotspot feature, I hit the net looking for answers and found them.

TechRadar spoke to Tesco, which confirmed that as it doesn’t support iPhone tethering it hasn’t enabled the portable Wi-Fi hotspot feature either. ”Tesco Mobile doesn’t currently support the functionality for personal Wi-Fi spots but plans to be able to introduce this soon for customers.” said the spokesperson.

I never required the iPhone tethering function and I don’t believe it was made clear that Tesco Mobile does not support it when I signup. It is probably in the T&C’s somewhere, but even on their website it is not included in the excluded features.

Screenshot of the iPhone 4 excluded features from the Tesco Mobile site.

I hope Tesco Mobile introduces this feature quickly and without additional charges. I pay for 1Gb of data per month and never use anywhere near that, as most of the time my phone is on a Wi-Fi network. If I want to use that data by turning my phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot on that rare occasion, I should be able to without charge.

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UPDATE: 26th November 2011

I have now moved to the GiffGaff network, they still have the same restrictions on tethering. So no Personal Hotspot use, but I now pay less and have unlimited data. See post here