mobile phone bill :-(

Nebulous2

NFH wrote: »

There are all kinds of ways of arbitraging contracts etc. I'm not talking about that, but about the way that bundles have become the only way to pay a reasonable price per unit of usage for those average consumers who are not arbitraging.

Arbitraging is a very fancy word, for what exactly? Is an 'average consumer' incapable of using a cashback site? Or of emailing in a mobile phone bill to make a cashback claim?

NFH

cookie365 wrote: »

No, I haven't have I? Maybe that's because I'm talking about mobile phone prices. If you want a discussion about energy prices, pop over to the Utilities forum where I believe you'll find lots of people who care about such things.

No, you're being silly now. I am talking about what is wrong with mobile phone charges and what is right with energy charges. The correct forum for discussing the market with the problem is the forum for that market, not that of another market which doesn't suffer from the problem.

Earthworm

NFH: Your idea works when everyone pays for their phone up-front and un-subsidised. The only other way it works when phones are provided on a "loan" basis like O2 Refresh tariffs. What isn't as clear cut is the real cost of a minute. The fee paid between networks just makes up a small portion of the charge which in reality is built up of multiple charges the network face (maintaining masts, investing in the network/new products, customer service, advertising, stores and websites etc). Setting a minimum monthly fee for a plan guarantees a network a minimum value at a certain profit margin. If phones are subsidised how could networks make sure they recoup the revenue they need to support the mass of charges they pay?

While it would be good to just pay for what is used I think there are more important charges that could be tackled such as roaming outside of the EU and random multimedia charges.

When networks are being pushed to lower fees elsewhere such as stolen charges, EU charges and 08 calls it does make me wonder how much the networks are gonna start pushing back on us through other charges. These companies aren't going to drop their profit margins without a fight and it wouldn't surprise me if the main losers of lowering excess charges are users like you and me who rarely, if at all, ring 08 numbers through stealth charges elsewhere.

gjchester

Earthworm wrote: »

When networks are being pushed to lower fees elsewhere such as stolen charges, EU charges and 08 calls it does make me wonder how much the networks are gonna start pushing back on us through other charges.

Decreased handset subsidies, and either more monthly cost or less inclusive minutes/texts/data for the same current cost, along with higher out of call bundle costs is my guess.


The premium phone that you pay for has been brought in well by Apple, so lowering subsidies can work, and previously the free calls to voicemail were cut, and PAYG costs all rose after the networks were told to cut costs by the EU.


Think of a balloon animal, squeeze one part and another grows.

mobilejunkie

As usual. The crusaders achieved the same with credit cards and are hoping to do more with bank accounts so they won't be free any more (and before anyone says they aren't in effect, it depends on how you use them; it appears that the crusaders are more like communists who prefer to stifle choice and force the average to the lowest possible denominator to "protect" the unwary).

NFH

Earthworm wrote: »

NFH: Your idea works when everyone pays for their phone up-front and un-subsidised.

True. That should be the norm, as it is in many other countries instead of the unhealthy "buy now pay later" consumer debt culture that is prevalent in the UK and which typically costs consumers more overall.

In other many other countries, the norm is prepaid pay-as-you-go and consequently the networks ensure that their coverage and network quality is good including high bandwidth on data services. If customers can't use the service, the network receives no revenue, unlike the bundle model where networks receive revenue regardless of whether its customers can use the service. I'm not suggesting that we should all be on prepaid, but the norm should be postpaid charged by use as is common for tariffs offered to large corporates in the UK.

Time-limited usage-limited bundles are of no benefit to consumers over equivalent charged-by-use prices. They allow the networks to overcharge unreasonably in the following scenarios:

• Where the customer uses less than the bundle allowance (because the full bundle is paid for)
• Where the customer uses more than the bundle allowance (because disproportionately high punitive rates are typically charged)
• Where network quality is poor, particularly for data (because the networks receive revenue without customers using the service)

Nebulous2

NFH wrote: »

Time-limited usage-limited bundles are of no benefit to consumers over equivalent charged-by-use prices. They allow the networks to overcharge unreasonably in the following scenarios:

• Where the customer uses less than the bundle allowance (because the full bundle is paid for)
• Where the customer uses more than the bundle allowance (because disproportionately high punitive rates are typically charged)
• Where network quality is poor, particularly for data (because the networks receive revenue without customers using the service)

This is all very subjective opinion and bears little relationship to most people's actual usage.

I have several phones/contracts for family members all of them researched to match their actual usage. For example my son has a sim-only contract with unlimited texts, unlimited minutes and 1 GB of data at about £8 a month. He rarely texts, talks a fair bit and uses around 7-800 Mb a month of data. I don't complain that I am being cheated because he does about 30 texts a month and could use 1000s - I'm just glad that my costs are effectively capped. He uses an app to monitor his data and make sure he doesn't go over, which means this system really works for us.

You also have to take into account human behaviour. There is a huge psychological issue for using something you have to pay for as far as many people are concerned. My father was on payg and rarely used his phone. If he did phone he was constantly trying to get off the line and I rarely heard from him. He went to a contract with Tesco and a cheap phone at about £7 a month. Now if he has some spare time, hanging about waiting for my mother for instance he'll make a quick call or send a text. His costs have risen from about £20 a year plus phone to about £84 inclusive but the positive change in his behaviour and the increased contact from him is worth it, and he can certainly afford it.

Finally we have some multi-storey flats here with fixed cost heat and power, which matches what you have said about electric. By and large for most people it works well, though there are some anomalies, which you always get when you skew the market. For instance I have gone door-to-door in one of them and a guy came to the door with nothing on but a pair of shorts. As soon as he opened the door I was hit with a wave of hot air. He was taking the !!!!, just because it was possible, but most people don't.