Mobile phone users 'overpaying by £200' per year

luci

Interesting, particularly about only 5% of users going over 500MB of data

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12996175

spaceboy

Everyone should switch to giffgaff.

Techhead_2

People seem obsessed with getting the latest handset with maximum minutes, data and texts, regardless of how much they actually use the phone or whether they will use the features.

Obviously, people are free to make that choice and whilst its not money saving behaviour; its not overspending.

gjchester

To be honest I think some of the premise of the whole research is wrong. As Techhead notes we all want the latest and greatest, but something thats not really though about is the subsidy and how many minutes we get.

I've an Iphone 4, I pay £35 a month for 18months and the phone was £169, It's now £199 for the phone and I'll use that as a comparison.

I get 300 minutes a month, I usually average about 2 hours (120 minutes) a month, so I'm "overpaying" and losing 60 minutes. However the next level down is just 75 minutes a month for £30 a month. If I was on that I'd have to pay for 45 mins a month. Now as my tariff is either 21p (landline) or 36p (mobile) per minute for an out of bundle call that would mean I would have to pay a minimum of £9.50 a month extra on the "cheaper tarrif".

Add on to that the fact the iPhone is £269 on a £30 a month contract and over the 18 months I'd be paying

£269 (phone) + (£30 x 18) + (£9.50 x 18) = £980 for the contract.

As it is I'd paying £829 for the year.

The cost of the out of bundle calls means in my case I could have gone with the the £40/ £45 / £50 a month contracts and as the initial phone cost is lower still be better off than the £30 a month contract. Vodafone don't do a 120 minutes a month contract so theres no way I could ever be on the right one..

Money saving is about value not pure cost.

Going for the lowest cost may be cheapest but it's not if you then have to pay extra for going out of the bundle, so it's not the best value. On the one had I'm "losing" a minimum of £12.60 or a max £21.60 by not using all my allowance, but then again I'm paying what seems best for me, no matter how much I may want to "save" as Vodafone don't offer a 200 minute tarrif theres nothing I can do.

lucylucky

I suspect if people were getting true unlimited web access the figure of 5% would greatly increase.

WelshBluebird

That billmonitor site is pretty poor really.

It doesn't take into account fair usage policies on data (like T-mobiles), it doesn't take into account things like the "magic number" thing that Orange have, it doesn't take into account data tethering and it got my bill totally wrong! (it said I averaged 30MB of data in the last few months, when I know that is wrong because I've gone over my data allowance by a small amount each month!).

lucylucky wrote: »

I suspect if people were getting true unlimited web access the figure of 5% would greatly increase.

Hugely agree with this.
There are many things I would like to do (stream spotify, stream live TV etc etc) but do not do at the moment because it would push me way over my data allowance. If I did do those things, I can assure you my usage would rocket.

Guys_Dad

Shock Horror! Living people paying well over £10 billion for life assurance!

Our researchers have just established that there are over 15 million people in the UK paying for life insurance and then not dying, so missing out on huge payments!

The point is that I pay for the amount of data, calls and texts that will comfortably ensure that I don't pick up swingeing charges for going over. The amount I pay is miniscule and the value to me outweighs the costs.

Of course people should check their use of mobile services, but, come on, do we really need all this nannying??

Tony5101

This headline is just the sort of vindication that the networks have been waiting for. They've been getting away with cutting "Unlimited" data down to a paultry 500mb per month, spouting that "most" people never get anywhere near this figure. I'm hoping that they don't latch on to this so called "research", and attempt to use it to their own benefit.

cgk1

spaceboy wrote: »

Everyone should switch to giffgaff.

Why? I pay Orange £15 a month for 1000 minutes, unlimited text and 500mb of data. I use about 800 minutes of calls a month, 300 texts and about 300mb of data. Why would it be to my advantage to go to Giff-gaff?

WelshBluebird

spaceboy wrote: »

Everyone should switch to giffgaff.

You mean the network that advertises their package as having actually unlimited data, yet accuse you of tethering (and thus breaking their rules) if you use over a certain amount?

spaceboy

WelshBluebird wrote: »

You mean the network that advertises their package as having actually unlimited data, yet accuse you of tethering (and thus breaking their rules) if you use over a certain amount?

Not sure about that. You arent allowed to use the giffgaff SIM with USB dongles.