[3GScottishUser]

From Mobileburn (21/01/2006):

T-Mobile will announce to the media next week that it plans to revolutionise contract tariffs for mobile phone users in the UK. In an amazing move, the network will offer a considerably more flexible list of talk plans aimed at covering all aspects of customer talk time and SMS needs.

From March 1st, T-Mobile will offer 2 options for new customers connecting to a new talk plan. The first package will be called Relax and will have a choice of 6 tariffs. The plans will no longer be described by inclusive minutes. The monthly line rental cost per month will instead fill that gap. The Relax tariffs will include the Relax 20, 25, 30, 35, 50, and 75, each offering a large increase on previous offerings in the monthly allowance.

The brand new set of tariffs available on 18 month connections only will certainly attract the bargain hunter. The Flext plans will incorporate an element of 'mix and match' into it. A monthly line rental will be charged, but a higher amount of usage credit will be available to be put towards calling, texting, picture messaging, and voicemail. The Flext tariffs will be labelled in the same way as the Relax plans, but will differ in usage allowed.

With the Flext 20 plan, the line rental cost will be £20 ($35 USD) per month, but a £34 ($60 USD) usage allowance will be included. So while call prices are charged at 20p per minute and texts at 10p each, with £34 worth of credit the customer will be able to mix and match their usage. 170 anytime, cross network minutes or 85 minutes and 170 text messages in this instance would be available. The Flext 35 will offer a massive £180 usage cost per month to subscribers, enabling customers to have an allowance of 900 minutes per month or 1800 text messages, or a mixture of both.

T-Mobile has also said that after 6 months, if the user has not been getting the most from their chosen talk plan, it will perform an account 'health check' and move them down to a lower tariff if needed. While this is normal with some operators, T-Mobile UK has had a policy of downgrading tariffs only after 11 months.

T-Mobile are rolling out a £10 million ($17.7 million USD) month long advertising campaign in March to push their new product. With the network's parent company also sponsoring the World Cup in Germany this year, T-Mobile's customer numbers are set to explode.

http://www.mobileburn.com/news.jsp?Id=1956

[Ben]

I like the usage allowance idea very good - though I'd like to see it extended past calls and texts to include all calls, MMS, 3G Services and purchases. If £20 buys £34 of credit, I'd like to see that credit being able to spent in literally whatever way the user sees fit.

The offer of flexing minutes with texts is only a tiny step up from Vodafone's Extras Packs IMHO.

[3GScottishUser]

With £35 a month now buying 900 X/Net mins or 1800 texts on T-Mobile and the same buying either 1000 X/Net mins and 150 SMS on 02 the cost of mobile use really has plunged.

Looking at the above it's probable that most folks would be able to safely budget that they won't go outwith the package price unless they bought content.

Now that we have these options from mainstream networks opportunities for new entrants look very bleak. If you can get a good deal on a proven product why would you gamble?

[Ben]

That's true, though I believe the new entrant should now be considered as Wi-MAX-like technology startups, not Hutchison who are pretty well integrated into the mobile scene now. The big risk is not that mobops will have to give away the store in order to get that golden £35/month line rental, but that £35/month will simply become a vastly overpriced tariff in a world where consumers are paying £10/month for Wi-MAX-like broadband/VoIP. One way or the other the price of mobility is going to fall as more and better ways of wireless communication come into force.

So, the current tactic appears to be convincing customers that the existing price points for tariffs are 'value for money'. I believe the mobops aren't competing with each other at this stage, they're just gearing up for a bigger battle and hoping to see off any new-tech challenges that might emerge to threaten their huge 3G gambles.

[solo12002]

Oh

Have I missed something here??

T _ Mobile call charges 20ppm and charging for voicemail now. and this is a good deal?

Users will get a credit to spend as they wish, but call charges likely to be higher, and T-Mobile will do a health check, sould just like O2 who claims to do one, only you get the first one after you leave the network.

I had a o2 online sim deal which was good for the monthly charge, I dont think these offers will beat the likes of Thre fot mins, data charges and I dont think they will beat vodafone at all

[Hands0n]

For many Voda's STC is totally unbeatable, both on contract and PAYT. AFAIK noone else has even bothered to compete with it - small wonder really.

I have long been very suspicious of T-Mobile's tariffs and I'm not entirely convinced (yet) that this offering is much more than some flashy smoke and mirrors work (never mind how much you get, look how much you pay instead).

But maybe it is a step in the right direction by T-Mobile. They must be doing something right, having such a huge customer base (their own and MVNO). But for the life of me, I just can't see it :)

[3GScottishUser]

With business customers now getting free UK calls from Vodafone and 02 its only a matter of time before we will see an unlimited talk plan for about £35 - £40 a month.

All of the networks know that most customers wont use much more than 200 - 300 minutes a month. 3 admitted that very few customers paid for minutes in excess of their 500 + 750 minute plans. It looks like the gameplan for all the networks is the continuity of higher than average monthly payments now and this make sense when they have to cover the increasing cost of more complex handsets.

[Hands0n]

I [reservedly] like the notion of an "unlimited" Talk and Text plan. As always it is is out-of-bundle costs that can be restrictive to the customer. All you can eat Talk,Text, MMS, Videocall etc... ?? Better. They all seem to be heading to an increasing dependency on Content sales, so maybe that is a reasonable strategy. But for a lot of folk £35 - £40 is a lot of cold hard cash! This is unlikely to become the norm then. Rather it may just be an "elite club".

[maxspank]

There's a hella lot people who spend around £35-£40 on line rental and run out of mins on VF. But I can't see VF offering an unlimited amount of mins/texts when to get 1000 mins + 1000 texts at their standard rate is £115 per month altogether

[3GScottishUser]

With Stop The Clock on Vodafone it's possible to make over 3700 X/Net minutes of calls on a £25 a month contract deal. 200 mins divided by 3 = 66.66 multiplied by 57 (the max extra free talk time per call) = 3799.62 minutes!! Off peak and at weekends only but for many a scortching deal that can make the BT landline redundant.

Of course most customers won't want to stay on the phone for the full 60 minutes each call but the potential is there if they want to.

Just for fun I have calculated that on Anytime 200 (£25 a month on-line with STC) your calls cost just 0.0066p per minute (just over 1/2p). I wonder if anyone can come up with any cheaper call cost from a mobile to UK landlines and other mobile networks taking account of the monthly line rental, inclusive minutes etc.

[Ben]

Of course, that's the price with maximum STC usage. STC truly is a wonderful addition in that it gives an Anytime customer the equivalent of an off-peak priceplan whe using their handset in the evenings or at weekends, but it'd be almost impossible to time each call exactly and make every single call off-peak in order to get that 0.0066p price.

But perhaps what we are saying is that voice calling is now affordable and, even, value for money. As for unlimited tariffs, I just don't know if I can see that happening. On-net, maybe, that'd be nice, but the charge to the network of going off-net is very real and not something I can see them wanting to wrap in an 'unlimited' package.

Until handset subsidies are separated from monthly line rental costs, tariffs will continue to be misleading and hard, if not impossible, to decipher.

[Hands0n]

Handset Subsidies - as many will know I'm not entirely party to the notion that the subsidy reflects the typical SIM-free price that we see in retail.

Although a [apparently] very closely guarded secret I believe that the handset price to the mobile operator is almost notional, hence why they can effectively "give" them away as part of a contract. The latter of which is surely expected to make some income on the basis of calls made and thus network used.

I agree totally that without published transparency it will be impossible to truly understand what goes on behind those closed doors of the tariff office.

I would, therefore, like to see enforced transparency of tariffs. No doubt the mobile ops will say that their competitive edge would be affected by such transparency. I'd counter that such a sentiment is complete twaddle. Looking at how they operate it is a virtual Cartel given the lack of wide ranging difference in tariffs between operators. Only in recent times are we seeing such golden nuggets as STC from the more innovative (?) or perhaps forward looking mobile operators.