Cell/Tmobile in Europe. . .

tim (moved to sweden) wrote:

"chancellor of the duchy of besses o' th' barn"
wrote in message
[]
And that's off peak. How much is a peak call?

It costs a bomb, um, about 30p

That _is_ expensive.

[]
PAYG pricing has remained stable in the UK for around the last 5 years,
except for t-mobile, who have substantially raised their prices.

But not in the rest of europe. When I bought my German PAYG
it was 1 euro a minute all day, now it is substantially cheaper.

Was it that price in 2000?

I didn't realise there was a game on. You're claiming that the companies
don't make money because they charge a 'few cents' and I'm ascertaining
what that means exactly.

It means that they don't make any money on these calls.
You only have to look at the accounts of the smaller companies
to see that they don't charge enough for calls, their ROI is
appalling.

I don't have a quibble about the economics of PAYG for the companies-
certainly the ARPU is low, but personally, I think the companies are
making a mistake if they only concentrate on ARPU.

I'm simply questioning the cost of the calls, because it tends to work
out on average to be quite a bit higher than the 'headline' rate.


I pay 2p connection to landlines from my mobile, regardless of the
length of the call, so for a 20 minute call that's 0.1p a minute.

Landline infrastructure is (mostly) already paid for.

Doesn't stop mobile companies charging a ton to call them though. The
reason it's so cheap for me is because the provider I use doesn't charge
for 0800 (free) calls, and you can play the system and use third parties
to make the calls.

Voice calles are also not bandwidth limited.

However, I pay a £15 monthly subscription charge (which admittedly
includes 1500 offpeak free minutes, which are in addition to the calls I
mentioned above). The point is, the conditions are important when you
make such a claim.

what claim?


The 'cents' thing, as above.

"Mobile companies don't make enough money on basic call costs"?

They don't.

I agree they don't make much, compared to contract users. I don't know
if its 'not enough' though.

The UK providers would be quite well off if they hadn't stupidly bid
such high amounts for the 3g licenses.

Fine. I think it's a lot simpler to say it costs 15p for the first 5
minutes, and 5p thereafter. I would leave it to individuals to decide
whether or not that is "a few cents a minute"- that's all.

But this is single country specific. It wouldn't have made the general
point.

But I thought that your general point was that PAYG was really cheap- a
few cents a minute? It makes sense to look at some examples, and a lot
of European PAYG SIM's have been more expensive than the ones we've
mentioned.

--
David Horne- www.davidhorne.net
usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk

tim (moved to sweden) wrote:

"chancellor of the duchy of besses o' th' barn"
wrote in message
[]
And that's off peak. How much is a peak call?

It costs a bomb, um, about 30p

That _is_ expensive.

[]
PAYG pricing has remained stable in the UK for around the last 5 years,
except for t-mobile, who have substantially raised their prices.

But not in the rest of europe. When I bought my German PAYG
it was 1 euro a minute all day, now it is substantially cheaper.

Was it that price in 2000?

I didn't realise there was a game on. You're claiming that the companies
don't make money because they charge a 'few cents' and I'm ascertaining
what that means exactly.

It means that they don't make any money on these calls.
You only have to look at the accounts of the smaller companies
to see that they don't charge enough for calls, their ROI is
appalling.

I don't have a quibble about the economics of PAYG for the companies-
certainly the ARPU is low, but personally, I think the companies are
making a mistake if they only concentrate on ARPU.

I'm simply questioning the cost of the calls, because it tends to work
out on average to be quite a bit higher than the 'headline' rate.


I pay 2p connection to landlines from my mobile, regardless of the
length of the call, so for a 20 minute call that's 0.1p a minute.

Landline infrastructure is (mostly) already paid for.

Doesn't stop mobile companies charging a ton to call them though. The
reason it's so cheap for me is because the provider I use doesn't charge
for 0800 (free) calls, and you can play the system and use third parties
to make the calls.

Voice calles are also not bandwidth limited.

However, I pay a £15 monthly subscription charge (which admittedly
includes 1500 offpeak free minutes, which are in addition to the calls I
mentioned above). The point is, the conditions are important when you
make such a claim.

what claim?


The 'cents' thing, as above.

"Mobile companies don't make enough money on basic call costs"?

They don't.

I agree they don't make much, compared to contract users. I don't know
if its 'not enough' though.

The UK providers would be quite well off if they hadn't stupidly bid
such high amounts for the 3g licenses.

Fine. I think it's a lot simpler to say it costs 15p for the first 5
minutes, and 5p thereafter. I would leave it to individuals to decide
whether or not that is "a few cents a minute"- that's all.

But this is single country specific. It wouldn't have made the general
point.

But I thought that your general point was that PAYG was really cheap- a
few cents a minute? It makes sense to look at some examples, and a lot
of European PAYG SIM's have been more expensive than the ones we've
mentioned.

--
David Horne- www.davidhorne.net
usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk

"chancellor of the duchy of besses o' th' barn"
wrote in message
news:1gvcbl9.4mue9g13i5feuN%this_address_is_for_sp ...
tim (moved to sweden) wrote:

"chancellor of the duchy of besses o' th' barn"
wrote in message
[]
And that's off peak. How much is a peak call?

It costs a bomb, um, about 30p

That _is_ expensive.

Seems fair to me as part of the package. I have no other
costs for using it..
It wasn't that long ago this price was the norm (back in the
days when mobile companies made reasonable profits)

PAYG pricing has remained stable in the UK for around the last 5 years,
except for t-mobile, who have substantially raised their prices.

But not in the rest of europe. When I bought my German PAYG
it was 1 euro a minute all day, now it is substantially cheaper.

Was it that price in 2000?

About then.

I didn't realise there was a game on. You're claiming that the
companies
don't make money because they charge a 'few cents' and I'm ascertaining
what that means exactly.

It means that they don't make any money on these calls.
You only have to look at the accounts of the smaller companies
to see that they don't charge enough for calls, their ROI is
appalling.

I don't have a quibble about the economics of PAYG for the companies-
certainly the ARPU is low, but personally, I think the companies are
making a mistake if they only concentrate on ARPU.

what else is there?

I'm simply questioning the cost of the calls, because it tends to work
out on average to be quite a bit higher than the 'headline' rate.

That was my point. It used to be the case that the networks used
'special' features as a way of making people change to contracts.
But when they found that (a) there was a substantial number of
people who wouldn't/couldn't have a contract phone whatever
the restrictions were (b) competition caused the price of headline
costs down, so they had to offer the special features to PAYG
customers as a way of actually extracting enough revenue from
these customers

I pay 2p connection to landlines from my mobile, regardless of the
length of the call, so for a 20 minute call that's 0.1p a minute.

Landline infrastructure is (mostly) already paid for.

Doesn't stop mobile companies charging a ton to call them though.

Because they can. They don't own the landline infrastructure,
they can charge what they like for calling it.

The
reason it's so cheap for me is because the provider I use doesn't charge
for 0800 (free) calls, and you can play the system and use third parties
to make the calls.

Voice calles are also not bandwidth limited.

However, I pay a £15 monthly subscription charge (which admittedly
includes 1500 offpeak free minutes, which are in addition to the calls
I
mentioned above). The point is, the conditions are important when you
make such a claim.

what claim?


The 'cents' thing, as above.

"Mobile companies don't make enough money on basic call costs"?

They don't.

I agree they don't make much, compared to contract users. I don't know
if its 'not enough' though.

The UK providers would be quite well off if they hadn't stupidly bid
such high amounts for the 3g licenses.

but they have,

Fine. I think it's a lot simpler to say it costs 15p for the first 5
minutes, and 5p thereafter. I would leave it to individuals to decide
whether or not that is "a few cents a minute"- that's all.

But this is single country specific. It wouldn't have made the general
point.

But I thought that your general point was that PAYG was really cheap

No, just that it was really cheap for some types of calls. The
calls that many people who buy PAYG phones actually want
to make.

tim

"chancellor of the duchy of besses o' th' barn"
wrote in message
news:1gvcbl9.4mue9g13i5feuN%this_address_is_for_sp ...
tim (moved to sweden) wrote:

"chancellor of the duchy of besses o' th' barn"
wrote in message
[]
And that's off peak. How much is a peak call?

It costs a bomb, um, about 30p

That _is_ expensive.

Seems fair to me as part of the package. I have no other
costs for using it..
It wasn't that long ago this price was the norm (back in the
days when mobile companies made reasonable profits)

PAYG pricing has remained stable in the UK for around the last 5 years,
except for t-mobile, who have substantially raised their prices.

But not in the rest of europe. When I bought my German PAYG
it was 1 euro a minute all day, now it is substantially cheaper.

Was it that price in 2000?

About then.

I didn't realise there was a game on. You're claiming that the
companies
don't make money because they charge a 'few cents' and I'm ascertaining
what that means exactly.

It means that they don't make any money on these calls.
You only have to look at the accounts of the smaller companies
to see that they don't charge enough for calls, their ROI is
appalling.

I don't have a quibble about the economics of PAYG for the companies-
certainly the ARPU is low, but personally, I think the companies are
making a mistake if they only concentrate on ARPU.

what else is there?

I'm simply questioning the cost of the calls, because it tends to work
out on average to be quite a bit higher than the 'headline' rate.

That was my point. It used to be the case that the networks used
'special' features as a way of making people change to contracts.
But when they found that (a) there was a substantial number of
people who wouldn't/couldn't have a contract phone whatever
the restrictions were (b) competition caused the price of headline
costs down, so they had to offer the special features to PAYG
customers as a way of actually extracting enough revenue from
these customers

I pay 2p connection to landlines from my mobile, regardless of the
length of the call, so for a 20 minute call that's 0.1p a minute.

Landline infrastructure is (mostly) already paid for.

Doesn't stop mobile companies charging a ton to call them though.

Because they can. They don't own the landline infrastructure,
they can charge what they like for calling it.

The
reason it's so cheap for me is because the provider I use doesn't charge
for 0800 (free) calls, and you can play the system and use third parties
to make the calls.

Voice calles are also not bandwidth limited.

However, I pay a £15 monthly subscription charge (which admittedly
includes 1500 offpeak free minutes, which are in addition to the calls
I
mentioned above). The point is, the conditions are important when you
make such a claim.

what claim?


The 'cents' thing, as above.

"Mobile companies don't make enough money on basic call costs"?

They don't.

I agree they don't make much, compared to contract users. I don't know
if its 'not enough' though.

The UK providers would be quite well off if they hadn't stupidly bid
such high amounts for the 3g licenses.

but they have,

Fine. I think it's a lot simpler to say it costs 15p for the first 5
minutes, and 5p thereafter. I would leave it to individuals to decide
whether or not that is "a few cents a minute"- that's all.

But this is single country specific. It wouldn't have made the general
point.

But I thought that your general point was that PAYG was really cheap

No, just that it was really cheap for some types of calls. The
calls that many people who buy PAYG phones actually want
to make.

tim