An end to mobile notspots?

We find out about the backup SIM that works with every UK network

- Andy Aitken, Honest Mobile

It's excruciatingly annoying when you can't get a mobile signal but others around you can. That shouldn't be a problem for customers of Honest Mobile's Smart SIM, however, which can connect to all four of the UK's mobile networks, providing a backup signal when your primary network is showing no bars (read how Barry Collins got on with it on the opposite page).

It doesn’t only work in the UK, either, but in more than 180 countries. And it costs from £3.75 per month. We spoke to Honest Mobile's co-founder, Andy Aitken, to find out how it works.

PC Pro: Tell us how your business started...

Andy Aitken: We launched back in 2019 as a challenger MVNO [mobile virtual network operator]. We were the first MVNO to be net-zero, we were first to be a B Corp. We've always had really amazing customer support, and we focused on that. We have a loyalty discount, so your bill gets cheaper the longer you stay on our “normal” product. And we still run that - we’ve got thousands of customers using our “normal” SIM card, as it were.

We're always speaking to customers. The one thing that consistently came up was “love what you're doing, but the thing that’s always frustrated me about my phone is not having a signal”. What is the point of having a £1,000 phone in your pocket if it’s got no signal? And how expensive it was to use your phone abroad, and particularly post-Brexit, when the EU roaming charges generally came back in.

And so last year we launched Smart SIM, which was our second product, and that is now the product that's grown ten times quicker than the traditional MVNO and it’s now what we're really focused on.