Give me my SIM again

Vodafone, Vodafone, Vodafone. You're no worse than any other mobile provider, I suppose. You did just fine giving signal to my old Sony Ericsson G502. With your 100 MB a month and the G502's Bluetooth modem capability, I could check email on my laptop as much as twice a week! And if I wanted to watch a video or something, there were always your mobile broadband TopUps, with which I could purchase as many extra 100 MB parcels as I liked.

But something has come between us. Dare I say, a secret Desire? As my first TopUp neared expiry at the end of my third week with the Desire (that's 200 MB and $20, if you're counting), I had to accept the inevitable - for the same money I could have had 1 GB in a 2degrees mobile broadband zone. And Vodafone, your customer service had just done something to annoy me, so off I went. 2degrees moved my number in just a few hours (on a Sunday night, too), and I bought my 1 GB and settled down with my new provider.

Since then it's been true love, or at least a case of "how on earth do I use up all this data?". I'm doing everything I can, including writing this entire blog on my phone. I'm even using the phone as a wireless hotspot for my Macbook, downloading updates and the like. There are still over 450 MB left after three weeks. Definitely a fairytale romance.

But not even 2degrees offer reasonable roaming fees. No one does at this end of the world; supporting customers over all that distance must be just too expensive. So once I get to London I'll be changing providers again, just for the month. (When this is possible, why would anyone roam at all? I don't understand.)

There are relatively good data allowances available to UK prepay customers. Just about every provider offers 500 MB for cheap, and some just hand it over for free when you top up. One, giffgaff, offers genuinely unlimited data along with an intriguing crowdsourced support model. (Sample giffgaff message board quote: "yes, the data is really unlimited, but they'll probably ring you if you get over 25 GB"). It's all terribly exciting and cosmopolitan.

But my month of travel includes five days in Europe, so domestic UK data isn't the only consideration. And who turns out to offer the only actual roaming data addon for prepay? Well... Vodafone.