Voxi review: A no-frills network with an unlimited twist

Voxi is another no-frills, no-contract virtual mobile network that goes big on bang for buck, but this one comes with the backing of Vodafone along with some interesting ideas. The most attractive are its Unlimited perks, giving you unlimited data for the biggest social media services on all plans, and the same for TikTok, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video and Netflix if you pay over £15/mth. Plus, unlike some other no-frills networks, Voxi offers phones on 30-month contracts, along with SIM-only deals.Voxi made its debut in this year’s Expert Reviews Mobile Network Awards survey and came away with the award for reliability. The Voxi users we surveyed rated it highly for speed, it scored well for value and customer service, and nearly 90% of Voxi users would recommend the network to a friend.

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Voxi review: What do you get?

Voxi offers good-value recurring plans without a long-term contract and, while these aren’t as cheap as some packages from Giffgaff, iD Mobile, Lebara or Smarty, they give you plenty of data for your money.

At the time of writing, the £10/15GB plan comes with double data, while the £15/30GB plan gives you 75GB to play with, and the £20/100GB plan is boosted to 200GB. Throw in the unlimited data on the aforementioned social media and streaming services and these deals look even better. It’s just a shame Voxi’s unlimited plan is comparatively expensive.

Voxi also offers its plans bundled with a 30-month contract on a selection of new and refurbished phones. The deals aren’t amazing – an iPhone 14 with 100GB data will set you back £51/mth over 30 months – but there is the odd bargain to be had, particularly if you’re happy with a reconditioned phone. Other networks give you a bigger choice, however, and the likes of iD Mobile can be less expensive.

Voxi doesn’t have any rollover features or family sharing options and some things aren’t covered under unlimited social networking, including making and receiving voice and video calls. Still, you can change, pause or cancel your plan at any time, although you will (understandably) have to keep making payments if you buy a phone.

Browse Voxi SIM-Only plans

Voxi review: Customer service

Voxi scored reasonably well for customer service in our 2022 awards survey. More than 46% of its users described themselves as very satisfied, while another 30% said they were fairly satisfied. Only 7% said they were unsatisfied. These scores put Voxi behind the winners, Sky Mobile and Tesco Mobile, not to mention the other top networks for customer service, including Smarty and EE. However, it’s comfortably ahead of the trailing group, including Virgin Mobile and its own parent, Vodafone. There’s room for improvement but it’s on the right track.

Ofcom doesn’t currently provide any figures for Voxi, but this should change as its user base grows.

Voxi review: Coverage, reliability and speed

Voxi runs over the same network as Vodafone and, with no speed caps, performance and coverage should be much the same. Looking atRootMetrics’ results for the first half of 2022, Vodafone’s UK median download speed (23.8Mbits/sec) has now slipped behind EE and Three (at 66.2Mbits/sec and 29.9Mbits/sec). It still delivers good 4G speeds in most areas, however, and some excellent 5G speeds where that’s supported.

Vodafone actually beats Three for speed in Wales and Northern Ireland and is seriously speedy in some urban areas, with median download speeds of over 50Mbits/sec in three UK cities. According to Vodafone’s own figures, its 4G coverage extends to reach over 99% of the UK population, and it now offers 5G services in over 127 locations, covering roughly 35% of the population. That puts it behind leaders EE and Three, both at around 50%.

It’s a similar story with 5G speed, where RootMetrics results show Three and EE at the top of the charts with approximately 200Mbits/sec and 150Mbits/sec median download speeds, and Vodafone at around 130Mbits/sec. This means Voxi won’t give you top performance, but neither its 4G performance nor its 5G speeds are slow. It’s just that EE, Three and any virtual networks running on them may be faster, depending on which services have rolled out where you live or work.

We didn’t get the data we needed from Voxi’s 5G customers to work out how satisfied they were with their connection, but we do have Vodafone’s data to work with. Vodafone’s results are slightly better than the average, with 51% of the 5G customers we spoke to either satisfied or very satisfied with their 5G connection. The main source of dissatisfaction for most customers (68.8%) was the lack of 5G coverage, which should improve with time.

Voxi had fantastic results for reliability in our Mobile Network Awards survey. Some 36% of users said that they always had a fast enough signal for web browsing, with a further 56% answering “most of the time”. Some 86% said they mostly or always had enough performance for streaming audio. And when it came to the toughest test, streaming video, 21% said their connection was always fast enough, while 55% said it was fast enough most of the time. These were, overall, the best scores we saw from any network in this category, winning Voxi our Reliability award.

Browse Voxi phones and contracts

Voxi review: Roaming

Like Vodafone, Voxi now charges for EU roaming, with a daily charge of £2 to use your inclusive minutes, calls and data. Outside this, charges aren’t horrific, at 60p to make a call and 36p to take one in most territories and data sold at 12p per MB. Voxi also offers global roaming add-ons for £15 to £25 with minutes, texts and data included. All the same, there are cheaper options, including Giffgaff, Smarty and Lebara, if you spend much time travelling outside of the UK.

Voxi review: Other services and spending caps

As a no-frills network, Voxi’s extras stop with its unlimited streaming and social media features. There’s no spending cap as such, but run through your allowance and you won’t be able to use any more data until your plan refreshes, or you splash out an extra £3 to get 1GB more. Unless you have some data allowance remaining, the free unlimited video streaming and social media features don’t work, and there’s no facility to refresh your allowance early.

Voxi review: Verdict

Voxi isn’t the cheapest or the fastest no-frills network, but its unlimited features give it a distinctive appeal and could mean real savings if you watch a lot of streaming video or are glued to your favourite social networks (as long as they’re the networks that Voxi supports). Voxi’s superb reliability scores also show that you’ll be able to do all those things in more places. Put it all together, and Voxi looks like a rising star.