why are phone calls so expensive in UK

drbesty

You have no idea how expensive a mobile network in the UK is to run, site rental for the mobile masts, site maintainence/upgrades, support, staff, retail site rental, it all adds up. Also people always want the latest and greatest mobiles for free, this enourmous cost has to be recouped somewhere

Guys_Dad

I pay £10 per month for 400 minutes, 1000 texts and unlimited land line calls plus free internet as well on Orange. 300 minutes, 1000 texts and unlimited land line calls on Vodafone. Sim only, of course.

That seems cheap enough to me - well on a par with India and no monsoon season either!

You can find good deals with mobiles if you move from PAYG and shop around.

nnj10

iinvestor wrote: »

in India and china, you can make phone call "locally"( in an area 3 times the size of UK) for 0.8 pence per minute on pay as you go.

In the UK the cheapest pay as you go is 8p per minute. 10 times the cost.


So why are pay as you go phone calls so expensive in UK? Considering most of them have call centres in India. How can they justify such high charges.

Could it be lack of competition. In India/ china they have over ten mobile service providers. Here we only have half that.

AFAIK, there is something called Mobile Call Termination Rate of 4.5p per minute, the originating network has to pay to terminating network.
I think that Jack-ups the price.
Ofcom is trying to reduce this call termination rate from 4.5p per minute to 0.5p per minute.
Hope this happens sooner rather than later.

boliston

Robert2009 wrote: »

Why is it fair to pay for a phone call that could be a sales call or nuisance call?

The minute I have to pay to receive a phone call is the minute people have to start using email or Royal Mail to contact me.

Then that is probably when the postie will knock on your door and ask you to pay for the letter he has in his hand.

Presumably if it was an unwanted call you would just hang up and incur only a very low inbound charge.

I'm on payg an pay 2.5p+vat/min for both inbound and outbound plus voip rates for outbound calls depending on the call type, but it suits me fine as I don't make or receive many voice calls so my typical bill is less than £10 per month.

I think that mobile operators often hike the price on outbound calls as they need to subsidise the cost of inbound calls as some people as against paying ANYTHING to receive a call.

Oscar_The_Grouch

I do find it funny to see threads like this and to watch people worry about "how we are all overcharged for our widgets in this country"!! Perhaps it's time that schools started teaching basic economics (and I don't mean the cookery lessons) to pupils.

One of the main reasons that the cost of PAYG phone calls is so high is because the market can stand the price.

Exhortation

Oscar_The_Grouch wrote: »

One of the main reasons that the cost of PAYG phone calls is so high is because the market can stand the price.

Yep, basic economic principles at work. As long as the UK consumer is willing to pay then the networks will continue to charge what they can. The only way prices will go down is if either a new provider comes in with an aggressive pricing policy and starts stealing other companies' clients in droves, or, demand goes down. Sorry, there is a third option, of course; UK or EU legislation.

Guys_Dad

There is another way of cutting phone costs,of course, and that is for people to cut down on the fatuous, unnecessary repetitive pointless and trivial calls that plague my otherwise peaceful train journeys - calls that only stem from the boredom of people who can't be bothered to bring a book or newspaper!

(C'mon - you secretly agree with me. My calls are, of course, always important, essential and relevant ! )

Exhortation

Guys_Dad wrote: »

There is another way of cutting phone costs,of course, and that is for people to cut down on the fatuous, unnecessary repetitive pointless and trivial calls that plague my otherwise peaceful train journeys - calls that only stem from the boredom of people who can't be bothered to bring a book or newspaper!

(C'mon - you secretly agree with me. My calls are, of course, always important, essential and relevant ! )

Very true. Worse still, are the people who think that the "Quiet Zone" carriages on trains don't apply to them.

[Deleted User]

You can't compare the cost of anything between the UK and india/china. Even textbooks cost less.. its just normal market forces. The phone networks wouldn't survive if they charged UK prices in India.. however the UK consumer is use to being fleeced and will tolerate the prices more

Standard economic differences between emerging markets and the west.. it's not just the price of phone calls that are effected

Old_Gold

It amazes me that some people will quite happily pay 25-40p a minute for calls but they do. Most of us are paying far less either by payg or contract.
So far though the discussion here is comparing payg rates with India or China but what about the comparison of landline rates?