Why are mobile tarrifs so expensive

nick1234

to some extent tho even in relative terms if its 1p in india it should be 5/6p p/m here in uk as things are approx 5 times more expensive, but this isnt the case. so to some extent they are just ripping us off.

reehsetin

the thing that makes me giggle is that its cheaper to ring abroad then it is someone in the UK on another network - e.g. orange charges 20p to call france but 35p to ring another network :confused.
they seriously cant make us believe its more costly to them for us to ring another network then france
yes i do realise they try and push groups onto the same networks but its just sillyness

LondonDiva

Orange is part of France Telecom, so you'd expect a preferencial rate.

My friend in the States pays to sned and receive calls or texts. She has the same type of free airtime I do, but when I call her, my call is deducted as part of her overall allowance:(

Anon

LondonDiva wrote:

Orange is part of France Telecom, so you'd expect a preferencial rate.

My friend in the States pays to sned and receive calls or texts. She has the same type of free airtime I do, but when I call her, my call is deducted as part of her overall allowance:(

I believe that the American model is slightly different as you say - they pay for airtime which is incoming and outgoing calls - as a result, if you call the US from the UK, you may pay for the call but so does the person you are calling. The costs could therefore actually be higher than they are now (scry thought).

Anon

kai666

Anon wrote:

I believe that the American model is slightly different as you say - they pay for airtime which is incoming and outgoing calls - as a result, if you call the US from the UK, you may pay for the call but so does the person you are calling. The costs could therefore actually be higher than they are now (scry thought).

Anon

same in russia, plus russia is so big you get roaming charges if you move too far away from your home city

redux

I don't think mobile calls are expensive.

Even without any cashback, retention, or phone-free options, there are plenty of tariffs now that work out under 5 pence a minute, including to other mobiles and some also to callthrough numbers that can reach more than half the world's phones.

Compare that to how recently BT rates for UK landlines were 8 pence a minute, and BT's rate to call European mobiles, over 30 pence a minute.

A roaming call home from Europe is at last a lot cheaper than €1 a minute from a phonebox, well on some networks anyway

eljmayes

kai666 wrote:

Surely though in relative terms a 1p call in India would be expensive for an Indian earning an average of £260 a year. It's only cheap if you go with your western money and make a phone call

I was in Russia last year, and with a russian sim card I could text the Uk for less than 5p, which I thought was really cheap. My girlfriends brother who earns a fraction of what i do thinks it is expensive, and rarely texts his sister in the UK.

why do you think a mobile network is not that expensive to set up? Why would BT's be more expensive? though don't BT piggy back onto one of the other providers hving sold their original network to o2?

But having said that I do agree that some areas of mobile phone costs are a complete rip off. How much does it cost the networks to send a text message? About 1p maybe? Yet they charge up to 12p, and how many thousands are sent a day?!?

Text message cost a fraction of one pence to the network- that why you are seeing provider offer a lot of texts in their deals lately, as they virtually free for the providers to provide.