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

chris_yo

redux wrote: »

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

You are very optimistic to believe that people are so organised and able to accurately predict future usage patterns. The reality is that a lot of people either overestimate their usage (and pay more on a monthly rate), or underestimate (and pay more when they exceed their monthly limit). It has been estimated that this problem costs UK mobile users £5bn a year, with 75% of people being overcharged an average of £200 a year! So this isn't a rare thing, it's actually quite common.

In my own case, I had reasonably accurately estimated my regular monthly usage, but found that in those months where I had a few longer calls I would get hammered. My monthly contract charged 40p/minute after the minutes were used, and so a mere 60 minutes of extra talk cost me £24. Obviously that did not happen every month, but it did happen enough to justify switching. I switched to the 321 PAYG tariff on 3 - now if I talk for an extra 60 minutes, I get charged an extra £1.80 - huge difference. The take home message here is to check your mobile tariff, and do not trust your future usage estimate - there will always be some months where there is an emergency, or a friendly call that overruns, any situation where you exceed your limit, and you will pay dearly for something that should be dirt cheap.

redux

chris_yo wrote: »

You are very optimistic to believe that people are so organised and able to accurately predict future usage patterns. The reality is that a lot of people either overestimate their usage (and pay more on a monthly rate), or underestimate (and pay more when they exceed their monthly limit). It has been estimated that this problem costs UK mobile users £5bn a year, with 75% of people being overcharged an average of £200 a year! So this isn't a rare thing, it's actually quite common.

In my own case, I had reasonably accurately estimated my regular monthly usage, but found that in those months where I had a few longer calls I would get hammered. My monthly contract charged 40p/minute after the minutes were used, and so a mere 60 minutes of extra talk cost me £24. Obviously that did not happen every month, but it did happen enough to justify switching. I switched to the 321 PAYG tariff on 3 - now if I talk for an extra 60 minutes, I get charged an extra £1.80 - huge difference. The take home message here is to check your mobile tariff, and do not trust your future usage estimate - there will always be some months where there is an emergency, or a friendly call that overruns, any situation where you exceed your limit, and you will pay dearly for something that should be dirt cheap.

Did you read the headlined thread title?

You are an exact example of someone who confirms my point - you are not going to be paying less while roaming in Europe than at home.

Anlashok

It's just a question of market segmentation and (older) people attached to branding.

My uncle tops up on Vodafone PAYG in £50 blocks.

He doesn't accept that he would get identical mobile coverage on Sainsbury's mobile. He pays 40p per minute on Vodafone instead of 8p per minute on Sainsbury's.

chris_yo

redux wrote: »

Did you read the headlined thread title?

You are an exact example of someone who confirms my point - you are not going to be paying less while roaming in Europe than at home.

Roaming in Europe costs 19p per minute. In the UK, additional minutes over my allowance cost 40p per minute. In that situation, I would pay less while roaming in Europe than in the UK. Most people don't have the time to monitor their daily phone usage and always get the cheapest minutes, resulting in 75% of people being overcharged a total £5bn a year for mobile calls.

redux

chris_yo wrote: »

Roaming in Europe costs 19p per minute. In the UK, additional minutes over my allowance cost 40p per minute. In that situation, I would pay less while roaming in Europe than in the UK. Most people don't have the time to monitor their daily phone usage and always get the cheapest minutes, resulting in 75% of people being overcharged a total £5bn a year for mobile calls.

I replied to a post in which you said you are now on Three and paying 3 pence a minute.

Perhaps you are not, but that is the intended context of my comment that such usage is not more expensive at home.

My first comment on the thread suggests that not many people nowadays will exceed their minutes, and also mentions 3 pence a minute on PAYG mobile, or VoIP rates under a penny.

There is nothing to stop you mixing usage, using bundled minutes on one phone, then callback or VoIP or cheap PAYG if you are at risk of exceeding that bundle. For example, if you have a call to make that you expect to last half an hour or more, and you have some choice of when to make it, try to use VoIP over wifi, or at least callback.

My overall point is that sometimes MSE concentrates a bit too much on producing a melodramatic headline, and doesn't in the same place review all of the ways to reduce spending (such as I'm suggesting). The headline is only true for some users, but leaves out saying so.

redux

The article says this without any qualifying comment at all:

It is also more expensive for UK mobile users to make an international call to a number in another European country when they are at home than when they are travelling in a third European country.

Most UK brands now have cheap international calls when calling from here, either as standard or optional free add-ons, with some starting from a penny or two a minute, and under 10p to most European mobiles, so such broadside generic comments just add to confusion and dilute the simple point they are trying to get across, which is check your tariffs.

They mention an example of calling Italy for 10 minutes from an O2 PAYG phone. £15, compared to £1.80 if the same SIM was roaming in Sweden. They don't mention a good option for that O2 user here might be O2's calling card, which would make a 10 minute call from here to an Italian landline for 10 pence, via an access number which is free to call from O2. I believe O2's calling card still isn't yet in the MSE Callchecker either, but I can't check as it's offline at the moment.

chris_yo

redux wrote: »

I replied to a post in which you said you are now on Three and paying 3 pence a minute.

Perhaps you are not, but that is the intended context of my comment that such usage is not more expensive at home.

Yes, if you switch to 3's PAYG 321 at 3p per minute then UK calls will be cheaper than roaming. But there are many people who are not on such a contract, and who end up being billed at a higher rate. The fact that I switched specifically to avoid this kind of problem does not mean that the problem does not exist. And it's not really accurate to complain about MSE highlighting this problem, and to use PAYG 321 as an example of a tariff where this problem does not apply, because O2, Vodafone, EE, T-Mobile, Virgin and Tesco all charge a basic rate that is higher than the 19p per minute for EU roaming:



Yes people could use bundles to lower the costs, but that relies on people understanding their tariffs and usage, and being proactive enough to buy bundles in the first place.

My first comment on the thread suggests that not many people nowadays will exceed their minutes

The Billmonitor report found that 29% of people exceed their monthly minutes. 52% never exceed their monthly minutes, usually because they massively over-buy ("The fear of "bill shock" was so great that customers typically bought four times more talk time than they used."). Only 19% have the "right" level of inclusive minutes for their usage.

There is nothing to stop you mixing usage, using bundled minutes on one phone, then callback or VoIP or cheap PAYG if you are at risk of exceeding that bundle. For example, if you have a call to make that you expect to last half an hour or more, and you have some choice of when to make it, try to use VoIP over wifi, or at least callback.

Good advice, of course there is nothing to stop people doing this, but it requires people to plan in advance and understand the details of their tariff and daily usage, which many people just don't have the time for.