MSE News: Revealed: It costs more to call and text at home than it does from Europe

Former_MSE_Helen

It costs more to make calls and send texts while in the UK than it does when travelling in Europe, MSE has found...

Read the full story:

Revealed: It costs more to call and text at home than it does from Europe




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Pincher

I have studied at the feet of an ultra cheapskate.
She is so tight that she comes to my place to do her downloads over my Wi-Fi, because she has a limited broadband at home, and Starbucks is too slow.

PAY? She does everything over Skype, which is on the handset anyway. This makes it vital to have free Wi-Fi in the hotel room when travelling. If you have to pay for Wi-Fi, change the hotel.

By the way, Holiday Inn only pretends to charge you for Wi-Fi. What they really want is to force you to register for their IHG Rewards program, and then you get the Wi-Fi key code for free.

You are free to call her mobile number, which is free for her, but not for you!

zerog

And what's wrong with registering for IHG rewards? For starters, I paid for 4 nights and received 8 nights free.

If you're concerned about privacy, then you shouldn't be staying in hotels anyway. You can always register in a fake name.

jbtapscott

It is not just UK consumers who suffer from this. We are in Greece for a number of months each summer and therefore have a Greek (Vodafone) Sim for making local calls. However, if we want to send texts / make calls to the UK it is considerably cheaper to use our UK (Sainsburys Mobile) mobile phone than the Greek one (eg. it is roughly a quarter of the Greek phone cost for each text to the UK when sent via out UK phone).

It would certainly seem the case that mobile phone operators, while complying with the EU rules on roaming, are keeping "home" calls more expensive.

minislim

the mobile phone networks have over the last few years have been taking the mickey out of their customers.

considering the general price of mobiles hasn't actually gone up much (not even the iphone has actually risen).
the costs of mobile phone contracts and buying a phone on your contract have been going up and up.

then we've had mid term price hikes.

which when the regulator clarified the rules the majority of networks just changed their terms and conditions to get around them. not adhere to the original rules.

and now this.

i think its time government intervention was called for.

Ezmondino

This is nothing new TBH, for quite a few years it's been cheaper for me to text abroad than at home. It's varied in the EU from 5p-10p when at home it's been 12p-14p. I'm now on 3's 123 deal though which is only 2p a text in the UK - or just use Whatsapp via Wifi

[Deleted User]

minislim wrote: »

when the regulator clarified the rules the majority of networks just changed their terms and conditions to get around them. not adhere to the original rules.

and now this.

i think its time government intervention was called for.

Wishful thinking. Wont happen UNLESS you are a big Tory /Lib Dem cash paying supporter.

jnm21

What concerns me is that the EU having done something useful (unlike destroying football transfers, regulating the shape of bananas, threatening to make the UK ditch our 3 pin plug, etc.) plans to break it all by going 1 step further - they plan to abolish roaming charges (and the caps), but as this article shows, that will increase costs again (for most)!

redux

MSE_Helen wrote: »

It costs more to make calls and send texts while in the UK than it does when travelling in Europe, MSE has found...

Read the full story:

Revealed: It costs more to call and text at home than it does from Europe

I don't think this melodramatic headline will represent many actual cases.

Bundles are fairly cheap and now have so many minutes in them that the majority of people with significant amounts of use will have chosen a bundle larger than they expect to need.

Low users who rely on simple pay as you go without bundles can find call rates from 3 pence a minute, or under a penny a minute using callback, or quarter of a penny a minute using wifi.

[Deleted User]

In Denmark, where I spend parts of the summer, prices are extremely competitive amongst the mobile phone providers. I have a Danish SIM card regularly calling landlines in the UK and Portugal paying just 1 øre per minute. The equals ONE penny for a nine minute call. There is a call charge of 99 øre (11p) per call, but if you talk any length of time, that works out quite cheap. 30 minutes to London thus costs me 1.29DKK (99 øre call charge + 30 x 1 øre). That's roughly 14p for the half an hour. Short of Skype, that's a pretty good deal, I think. If I was to use the same phone network provider (Lebara) calling from the UK to Denmark, it would cost me 7p per minute to a landline! That equals £2.10 for a 30 minute call.
Quite a shocking difference. :eek:

moneysavingnoob_3

Bundles are fairly cheap and now have so many minutes in them that the majority of people with significant amounts of use will have chosen a bundle larger than they expect to need.

True.
So why don't we get refunds for what we don't use?