How to switch to EE, step by step?

[Roke]

I had posted https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/SIM-cards-Porting/How-to-order-a-Trial-SIM/m-p/1359070/highlight/true#..., https://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Pay-As-You-Go/How-to-order-a-Trial-SIM/m-p/1694383/highlight/true#M332..., and https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Pay-as-you-go/How-to-order-a-Trial-SIM/m-p/2746533/highlight/true#M1..., and received functional trial SIMs via all of them, so I was able to evaluate their abilities — most could connect solely to 3G, with, even then, differing ability to connect to that.

In the case of EE, per https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/SIM-cards-Porting/How-to-order-a-Trial-SIM/m-p/1360880/highlight/true#..., I've ordered 2 x 10 GBP trial SIMs for my Fairphone 4 (although I've solely tested them in my brother's FP5). However, unlike the others, the EE SIM was able to load arbitrary URIs via LTE and LTE+ (see https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/SIM-cards-Porting/How-to-order-a-Trial-SIM/m-p/1360880/highlight/true#...)!

Consequently, I would like to switch from my current provider, SMARTY (which piggybacks off Three) to EE. However, https://ee.co.uk/help/mobile/getting-started/keep-my-number/transfer-my-number-to-ee appears rather non-specific to me. Specifically, I would like to have 5 accounts under a family plan managed by one person. You appear to provide the family plan, per https://ee.co.uk/mobile/family-account but I don't see any specifics about how it operates:

1. In a family plan, is each person's SIMs tied to a full account?
   1. Is each account able to separate from the family account at any time?
   2. Can each account be assigned multiple SIM cards? I ask because I've a smartphone, shall have a laptop soon, and have a rack-mount Teltonika RUTXR1 with a primary and backup SIM card slot, all of which I want to fill in a manner which assigns them to my account (because they're my SIM cards) rather than what SMARTY mandates, which is that each SIM be assigned to its own account, even though that's nonsensical for any vaguely advanced use case.
      1. If so, would multiple be able to be assigned to the same telephone number?
      2. Does using https://ee.co.uk/exp/migrate/link-your-products inadvertently create a kind of family account, or does it indicate that the previous worry shall not be of consequence?
         1. I'm rather uncertain how phone number  / SIM card to account assignment operates — considering that the details I enter when ordering a SIM card do not need to correspond to an existent account, is the purpose of that URI to link the SIM to the account when it is used? I ask because this is not how SMARTY appears to conduct their assignment — this is somewhat convoluted.

[XRaySpeX · Accepted solution]

The a/c you currently use is a PAYG a/c w/out any billing & cannot be transformed in a family a/c but in all other respects is similar to a family a/c. Remember I said & highlighted "contract".

You are overthinking the matter. An EE a/c just contains 0, 1 or more mobile nos. A mobile no./SIM is never an a/c itself other than the degenerate case of an a/c containing exactly 1 mobile no.

The idea of a "family" a/c is that parents (but not restricted to) can buy contract SIMs or phones for their kids (but not restricted to) & pay for them all on 1 bill. Also the parent may share data between them. In essence  a "family" a/c is a billing a/c.

[Roke]

In which case, @XRaySpeX, how does my own account tie into this? I'm used to the Microsoft family configuration whereby I merely join a family group with my personal account, and consequently can leave or rejoin at will.

[Roke]

So a family account would not involve me joining any kind of shared structure with my own credentials. Instead, were I to cease using my SIM owned by the family account, I would need to initiate a transfer to my own account, @XRaySpeX? That's not particularly versatile.

[XRaySpeX]

It doesn't! PAYG a/c's aren't family a/c's.

[Roke]

@XRaySpeX, I don't intend to use a PAYG. I only have a PAYG to test the network currently. My family shall all use automatically montly-paid (probably unlimited) SIMs.

[bristolian]

Pay-monthly lines need to be attached to a pay-monthly billing account, it can either be separate individual bill for each line or you can collate multiple phones onto a single bill.