My mobile phone cost me about £10 a few years ago. It is so basic that I have no voice message service. But I am now making plans to become self-employed (in the UK) and will need to use my phone much more, professionally, and will need to have voice mail. I'm not remotely interested in games, taking photographs, accessing the internet, or any of the things that phones can do nowadays beside sending / receiving messages and making phone calls / having voice mail.

So, knowing nothing about mobiles, I would really value your help on the following questions:

1. What phone would you recommend for what I want? (Inexpensive is good!) If you want to try and persuade me I'm missing out on some important service with my stipulations above, then please try to convince me.

2. What provider / tariff should I choose, bearing in mind I will be using my phone to be contacted for work and, at this point in time, I'm not entirely sure what level of use it will have (not very helpful to you, probably!). I get the impression that with tariffs, what you see is not necessarily what you get, and I know that some providers have better coverage / signals than others. I will mostly be leading workshops, giving lessons, travelling to gigs, so the phone will certainly not be glued to my ear all day.

I'm hoping that Mudcatters will come up trumps again. Thanking you in advance.

Stower.