In message , at 16:45:19 on Sat, 20 Jul
2019, Clank remarked:
You can have one-month rolling contracts, say £10 a month.
Some operators may call it PAYG but it's still a contract as far
as I'm concerned and I wouldn't touch one with a very long pole.

The difference between 30-day contract, and pay as you go, is very
simple - with PAYG you pay in advance, with the contract you pay
in arrears. (For the calls at least, if not the standing charge
- although these days most calls are covered by the standing
charge anyway so it does become slightly harder to discern the
difference.)

That may have been truer in the past, but nowadays there are many what
I've called hybrid deals, which are PAYG but billed monthly in arrears.

There is no "contract" in the mobile phone sense.

To complicate things further, the first mobile contract I had was paid
monthly in advance for the "rental and bundle" with "out of bundle"
calls paid monthly in arrears. I have no reason to believe today's
contracts are different.
--
Roland Perry