The 30-day rolling contract comes in two variants. One is fully pre-paid which means you must "top up" in advance if you want to do anything beyond the contract services (e.g. international roaming). There's also a post-paid 30-day rolling contract, which you can only get if you pass their credit check.

T-Mobile UK just announced that they are going to merge with Orange UK. I've had terrible customer service from Orange in the past, so this is bad news for me. However, at least T-Mobile UK and Orange UK both allow you to connect to the internet without going through their proxies. And in any case, T-Mobile and Orange said that they'll keep their product lines and branding separate for at least 18 months.

Roger