A Phone Call That Means Everything

For a lot of Indian students, the hardest part of moving to the UK isn't the lectures or the weather. It's the quiet moments in a new flat, thousands of miles from a home where dinner is being made without you. India is now the single biggest source of international students in the UK, with more than 185,000 studying here, and for most of them, a phone call home is the one part of the day that still feels familiar.

That call matters. It's not a convenience, it's a lifeline; a way to stay close to parents, siblings and friends when everything else around you is new. The SIM card in a student's phone ends up carrying more weight than most people realise.

A Provider Built With That in Mind

Lyca Mobile wasn't built as a general UK network that happened to add international minutes later. It was founded in 2006 by British-Sri Lankan entrepreneur Allirajah Subaskaran, with staying connected across borders as the whole point from day one. That heritage still shows: alongside its mobile network, the wider Lyca Group runs Lyca Radio and Lyca TV, both aimed squarely at South Asian audiences in the UK. It's a company that has spent two decades building around communities who call home often, not treating it as an afterthought.

In the UK, Lyca runs on EE's network, so students get the coverage and speed of one of the country's strongest networks, alongside the international features that made Lyca's name in the first place.

The Plans Built Around Calling India

Lyca offers two student plans designed specifically around staying in touch with India, both available as a physical SIM or eSIM:

The detail worth pointing out is the roaming data. Most UK SIM plans only include free roaming data in the EU, leaving India out entirely. Lyca's student plans include 12GB of roaming data usable in India as well as the EU, which is unusual among UK providers and genuinely useful for anyone travelling home for the holidays who still wants to stay online.

Not Just India: A Similar Story for Chinese Students

China is the second-largest source of international students in the UK, with well over 120,000 studying here, and Lyca has built a similar offer for that community too.

With over 1,300 minutes to China included, plus a small allowance of roaming data usable while actually in China, it's a plan clearly designed with Chinese students and their families in mind rather than bolted on as an afterthought.

Lyca's Reach Beyond the UK

Lyca Mobile operates as a mobile virtual network operator in around 18 countries, and had already grown past 15 million customers worldwide by the mid-2010s. That scale matters for something practical: a provider built to serve people who move between countries tends to design its plans, and its customer support, around exactly that kind of life, rather than around a single domestic market.

To be fair to students weighing up their options, Lyca isn't the only UK provider with India-focused plans; Lebara, in particular, competes hard in the same space. But between the two dedicated student plans, the India roaming data, the China bundle, and a company history built around diaspora communities rather than added onto one, Lyca has earned its place as one of the small number of UK networks that genuinely understands why that phone call home matters.

Getting Set Up

If staying close to family back home is the priority, it's easy to see why so many Indian and Chinese students choose Lyca first. You can check Lyca Mobile's current student and India/China plans here and get set up as a physical SIM or eSIM before you land, and it's worth also running a free coverage check for your university address, since Lyca runs on the EE network.

Wherever you're calling from, and whoever's waiting to pick up on the other end, the right SIM shouldn't be one more thing to worry about.

If you are already using Lyca Mobile, we would love to hear about your experience, comment below.