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It's not extortionate anymore when it starts at £18.99 a month, Tesco Mobile are doing 4G for £12.50 a month SIM-only or £17.50 a month with a free handset.
Not sure where you get the £100 price point from, but over 50% of phone sales have been smartphones for several years, and the average person spends over £36 a month on their mobile bill, which incidentally also equates to an overspend of £195 per year from being on the wrong contract. At the £36 a month price point, just about everything short of the £550 iPhone 5s is free on contract so to be honest most people should be getting a free £500+ phone with their contract. Or by switching to a more appropriate contract the average person could save enough money each year to pay for a second 4G contract *and* a new 4G phone.
Incidentally, UK's weighted average puts things 62% cheaper than Germany and 45% cheaper than the USA for heavy mobile users when all costs (contract + handset) are included.
It's not extortionate anymore when it starts at £18.99 a month, Tesco Mobile are doing 4G for £12.50 a month SIM-only or £17.50 a month with a free handset.
Not sure where you get the £100 price point from, but over 50% of phone sales have been smartphones for several years, and the average person spends over £36 a month on their mobile bill, which incidentally also equates to an overspend of £195 per year from being on the wrong contract. At the £36 a month price point, just about everything short of the £550 iPhone 5s is free on contract so to be honest most people should be getting a free £500+ phone with their contract. Or by switching to a more appropriate contract the average person could save enough money each year to pay for a second 4G contract *and* a new 4G phone.
Incidentally, UK's weighted average puts things 62% cheaper than Germany and 45% cheaper than the USA for heavy mobile users when all costs (contract + handset) are included.
I've always wondered about that statistic of being on the "wrong" contract. My contract with Three gives me 600mins, unlimited texts and unlimited data - I probably use less than 10mins a month and maybe only about 100 texts as everything is done via the data these days - so would I qualify as being on the "wrong" contract? Part of the reason I'm on said contract is the unlimited data and the phone that comes with it (Right now, a shiny new Galaxy Note 3 - hence why I'm particularly interested in the capabilities of CAT-4 LTE/LTE-A). At the Sim-free price of the phone and the equivalent SIM-only tariff, I end up paying nearly the same anyway over the 2 years.
In germany I can get a S4 mini for £100 cheaper than uk.
S3 LTE £150 cheaper.
£36 a month may be the average I take your word for it, but thats a LOT of cash to spend on a phone service. I pay O2 under £14 for 800 mins + unlimited landline calls. I suspect your £17 option is a package that is barely useable with minimum minutes and data usage.
Where is the £17 month option, I picked s4 mini on tesco mobile and the lowest is £23 month. which is the cheapest listed on this page.
£17 a month for 2 years is £408 for the phone, not cheap.
Yes people are buying 4G, but remember there is 10s of millions of people who dont have that spending power, some people cant even afford contracts at all and just have payg phones. Thats why I said the true barrier is the cost of the phone, eventually £100 phones will have 4G and when they do is when we start seeing mainstream adoption of 4G.
I have noticed lately tho my mobile signal is weak in my area, and some googling shows news stories about mobile networks supposedbly turning down 3g/2g signals to get people to sign up to 4g.
But I dont care about 4G adoption, not sure why we debating it either on a STM thread The main thing is 4G availability is increasing and competition is increasing which is a good thing, I think thats more the point you want to make.
Not sure where you get the £100 price point from, but over 50% of phone sales have been smartphones for several years, and the average person spends over £36 a month on their mobile bill, which incidentally also equates to an overspend of £195 per year from being on the wrong contract.
If the average is that high, must mean that people are getting lower tariffs then building the bill up with charges. I got the Three one plan + a 'free' Galaxy S3 a year ago, which gives unlimited data, text and 2.5k minutes or something, all for £29. Still paying that same price a year later and it's only been a couple of 0845 numbers on a couple of occasions that have pushed it over. Find it crazy that £36 is the average bill.
If the average is that high, must mean that people are getting lower tariffs then building the bill up with charges. I got the Three one plan + a 'free' Galaxy S3 a year ago, which gives unlimited data, text and 2.5k minutes or something, all for £29. Still paying that same price a year later and it's only been a couple of 0845 numbers on a couple of occasions that have pushed it over. Find it crazy that £36 is the average bill.
indeed.
Phones arent free either, they included in the package. Basically its a way to get the phone on credit with low/no interest rates, sometimes the phone is even subsidised.
One of my sister's upgrades her phone every 2-3 years on contract, but the phone she is getting this time is the iphone4s not the iphone5. Her boyfriend who incidently is the only person I know personally with a 4g phone has the s4.
I would have got the s4 mini or s3 mini but they both overpriced in this country, the s4 at the time I got my phone was a extremely high price so i got the s3, plus I need a fm radio on my phone which is removed on the s4.
My partner buys his phones outright, He's on 3 too and I think he pays something like £6.90 a month as he only uses about 100 mins a month
3 do the one plan sim only for £15, now that's fantastic value
And if you think about it O2 do their refresh service which to be fair is the same as all providers only O2 actually let you swap about more.
So on a £33 one plan you are paying about £18 a month for the phone - over the cost of 2 years that's £432 - which is not bad
Bear in mine that these phones are less when you buy them in 100 pcs (according to the internet) and then if you buy them in the 100.000's they come down to about £125 a shot!
So the unlocked markup is massive! The iphone 4S cost apple £81.87 to build and the 5 was £103 to build.
I've always wondered about that statistic of being on the "wrong" contract. My contract with Three gives me 600mins, unlimited texts and unlimited data - I probably use less than 10mins a month and maybe only about 100 texts as everything is done via the data these days - so would I qualify as being on the "wrong" contract?
Probably. You've not mentioned what tariff you're on or how much you pay so it's hard to tell. They don't seem to offer a comparable tariff anymore on their website but if you only use 10 minutes then unlimited data with that sort of usage starts at around £12 a month. Though you've also not said how much data you use so we don't know if you actually need unlimited data or not.
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Part of the reason I'm on said contract is the unlimited data and the phone that comes with it (Right now, a shiny new Galaxy Note 3 - hence why I'm particularly interested in the capabilities of CAT-4 LTE/LTE-A). At the Sim-free price of the phone and the equivalent SIM-only tariff, I end up paying nearly the same anyway over the 2 years.
You probably would, subsidies aren't nearly as good as they used to be, but part of the problem is most people who are entitled to a new top-end smartphone aren't actually getting one, yet continuing to pay as if they are.
---------- Post added at 17:16 ---------- Previous post was at 16:57 ----------
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Originally Posted by Chrysalis
In germany I can get a S4 mini for £100 cheaper than uk.
S3 LTE £150 cheaper.
Not so much "I found" prices but weighed averages across all major operators in each country. See how "Connection 9" costs £55 a month in the UK but an equivalent package would cost £142 a month in Germany?
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£36 a month may be the average I take your word for it, but thats a LOT of cash to spend on a phone service. I pay O2 under £14 for 800 mins + unlimited landline calls.
I think £48 a month is a lot to spend on a cable service that you can only use at home but yet, that's Virgin Media's ARPU. I've never paid them more than £25.
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I suspect your £17 option is a package that is barely useable with minimum minutes and data usage.
Well of course if you use more you can expect to pay more. Though 250 minutes and 500MB data is actually more than I got from Vodafone last year for £36 a month. Tesco Mobile insists 4G only costs £2.50 a month more than their existing non-4G tariffs.
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Where is the £17 month option, I picked s4 mini on tesco mobile and the lowest is £23 month. which is the cheapest listed on this page.
As you can see there are two 4G handsets for £17.50 a month, whichi is what I said, not £17.
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£17 a month for 2 years is £408 for the phone, not cheap.
Yet people not getting a new phone are paying an average of £36 a month so clearly the public's idea of "cheap" seems to differ from yours.
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Yes people are buying 4G, but remember there is 10s of millions of people who dont have that spending power, some people cant even afford contracts at all and just have payg phones.
Thats why I said the true barrier is the cost of the phone, eventually £100 phones will have 4G and when they do is when we start seeing mainstream adoption of 4G.
Some people can't afford food either, but the average person has no problem paying £36 a month for their phone. Just cause a few people can't afford food, do we consider food as "not mainstream"? As far as I see it if the majority of people can happily afford *twice* the cost of 4G, I don't see price as a barrier.
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I have noticed lately tho my mobile signal is weak in my area, and some googling shows news stories about mobile networks supposedbly turning down 3g/2g signals to get people to sign up to 4g.
Tinfoil hat time... While that's a whole new kettle of fish, yes there are margin cases where 2G/3G signals will theoretically have to be turned down to accommodate 4G but it is not widespread and it is not a deliberate ploy to get people to sign up. Mostly where there is no space for additional antennas the existing ones will have to handle the additional power load of the new signals as well as the new peak power that arises from resonance effects and so on that can cause arcing and equipment degradation. But that's pretty rare.
For one it's completely counterproductive to reduce 2G/3G signal levels since 4G as deployed in the UK is incapable of handling phone calls. And since all major networks *only* sell 4G with unlimited phone calls 4G relies even more heavily on their 2G/3G networks to provide a satisfactory user experience.
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But I dont care about 4G adoption, not sure why we debating it either on a STM thread The main thing is 4G availability is increasing and competition is increasing which is a good thing, I think thats more the point you want to make.
Derp
---------- Post added at 17:32 ---------- Previous post was at 17:16 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Qtx
If the average is that high, must mean that people are getting lower tariffs then building the bill up with charges. I got the Three one plan + a 'free' Galaxy S3 a year ago, which gives unlimited data, text and 2.5k minutes or something, all for £29. Still paying that same price a year later and it's only been a couple of 0845 numbers on a couple of occasions that have pushed it over. Find it crazy that £36 is the average bill.
Or just lazy and ignorant and don't care about such trivial amounts of money.
Same way some of us protest every single bank charge and demand they be refunded, while most people pay hundreds of pounds a year don't bat an eyelid. Or some of us religiously pay off our credit card bills in full every month to avoid interest, while others pay thousands of interest a year and just don't care. Meh.
Incidentally the figures are from research done by Oxford university on behalf of the OFCOM accredited Billmonitor.com
Spoiler:
Analysis of phone bills by academics at Oxford University found that approximately three-quarters of all mobile users were on the wrong contract and that the average consumer could save approximately £195 per year.
The average mobile phone bill in the UK is currently £439 per year, indicating that consumers are paying 44 per cent too much.
Users who were willing to keep their current mobile phone and switch to a new “SIM-only” contract could save an average of £250 per year.
The research also indicated that customers spend £3.5bn on calls, messaging and data services that were outside the contracts they were paying for.
“We found that people consistently over-estimate how many minutes they need by a factor of about four,” he said. If people chose a cheaper tariff that provided still provided a sufficient buffer, significant savings could be made.
More than half of people were on a tariff that was “too large”, costing a total of £2.6bn, while 29 per cent were paying punitive rates for services outside their contract allowances (£1.53bn). A further £750m was wasted by people who were getting the right number of minutes for phone calls but were not taking advantage of better rates, for instance on longer contracts.
Prof Holmes also said that a significant proportion of customers could not only cut their annual bills but also get a new mobile handset at the same time. Half of those who wanted an Apple iPhone 4 could typically save a total of £156 per year, for instance.
Approximately half of all users who were on the correct tariff had negotiated a price that was not advertised. As such, they too often had far more minutes than they needed, but a smaller tariff would still be more expensive.
---------- Post added at 17:34 ---------- Previous post was at 17:32 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chrysalis
One of my sister's upgrades her phone every 2-3 years on contract, but the phone she is getting this time is the iphone4s not the iphone5
Chances are then she's paying over the odds for at least 1 out of every 3 years unless switching tariffs multiple times, which most people don't do.
---------- Post added at 17:35 ---------- Previous post was at 17:34 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by everyday
Bear in mine that these phones are less when you buy them in 100 pcs (according to the internet) and then if you buy them in the 100.000's they come down to about £125 a shot!
Ermm not quite.
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So the unlocked markup is massive! The iphone 4S cost apple £81.87 to build and the 5 was £103 to build.
Also not true. You may be looking at teardowns that consider only the pure component cost.
Those components don't assemble themselves magically on a circuit board just by being thrown in the same box.
Probably. You've not mentioned what tariff you're on or how much you pay so it's hard to tell. They don't seem to offer a comparable tariff anymore on their website but if you only use 10 minutes then unlimited data with that sort of usage starts at around £12 a month. Though you've also not said how much data you use so we don't know if you actually need unlimited data or not.
You probably would, subsidies aren't nearly as good as they used to be, but part of the problem is most people who are entitled to a new top-end smartphone aren't actually getting one, yet continuing to pay as if they are.
---------- Post added at 17:16 ---------- Previous post was at 16:57 ----------
Not so much "I found" prices but weighed averages across all major operators in each country. See how "Connection 9" costs £55 a month in the UK but an equivalent package would cost £142 a month in Germany?
I think £48 a month is a lot to spend on a cable service that you can only use at home but yet, that's Virgin Media's ARPU. I've never paid them more than £25.
Well of course if you use more you can expect to pay more. Though 250 minutes and 500MB data is actually more than I got from Vodafone last year for £36 a month. Tesco Mobile insists 4G only costs £2.50 a month more than their existing non-4G tariffs.
As you can see there are two 4G handsets for £17.50 a month, whichi is what I said, not £17.
Yet people not getting a new phone are paying an average of £36 a month so clearly the public's idea of "cheap" seems to differ from yours.
Some people can't afford food either, but the average person has no problem paying £36 a month for their phone. Just cause a few people can't afford food, do we consider food as "not mainstream"? As far as I see it if the majority of people can happily afford *twice* the cost of 4G, I don't see price as a barrier.
Tinfoil hat time... While that's a whole new kettle of fish, yes there are margin cases where 2G/3G signals will theoretically have to be turned down to accommodate 4G but it is not widespread and it is not a deliberate ploy to get people to sign up. Mostly where there is no space for additional antennas the existing ones will have to handle the additional power load of the new signals as well as the new peak power that arises from resonance effects and so on that can cause arcing and equipment degradation. But that's pretty rare.
For one it's completely counterproductive to reduce 2G/3G signal levels since 4G as deployed in the UK is incapable of handling phone calls. And since all major networks *only* sell 4G with unlimited phone calls 4G relies even more heavily on their 2G/3G networks to provide a satisfactory user experience.
Derp
---------- Post added at 17:32 ---------- Previous post was at 17:16 ----------
Or just lazy and ignorant and don't care about such trivial amounts of money.
Same way some of us protest every single bank charge and demand they be refunded, while most people pay hundreds of pounds a year don't bat an eyelid. Or some of us religiously pay off our credit card bills in full every month to avoid interest, while others pay thousands of interest a year and just don't care. Meh.
Incidentally the figures are from research done by Oxford university on behalf of the OFCOM accredited Billmonitor.com
Spoiler:
Analysis of phone bills by academics at Oxford University found that approximately three-quarters of all mobile users were on the wrong contract and that the average consumer could save approximately £195 per year.
The average mobile phone bill in the UK is currently £439 per year, indicating that consumers are paying 44 per cent too much.
Users who were willing to keep their current mobile phone and switch to a new “SIM-only” contract could save an average of £250 per year.
The research also indicated that customers spend £3.5bn on calls, messaging and data services that were outside the contracts they were paying for.
“We found that people consistently over-estimate how many minutes they need by a factor of about four,” he said. If people chose a cheaper tariff that provided still provided a sufficient buffer, significant savings could be made.
More than half of people were on a tariff that was “too large”, costing a total of £2.6bn, while 29 per cent were paying punitive rates for services outside their contract allowances (£1.53bn). A further £750m was wasted by people who were getting the right number of minutes for phone calls but were not taking advantage of better rates, for instance on longer contracts.
Prof Holmes also said that a significant proportion of customers could not only cut their annual bills but also get a new mobile handset at the same time. Half of those who wanted an Apple iPhone 4 could typically save a total of £156 per year, for instance.
Approximately half of all users who were on the correct tariff had negotiated a price that was not advertised. As such, they too often had far more minutes than they needed, but a smaller tariff would still be more expensive.
---------- Post added at 17:34 ---------- Previous post was at 17:32 ----------
Chances are then she's paying over the odds for at least 1 out of every 3 years unless switching tariffs multiple times, which most people don't do.
---------- Post added at 17:35 ---------- Previous post was at 17:34 ----------
Ermm not quite.
Also not true. You may be looking at teardowns that consider only the pure component cost.
Those components don't assemble themselves magically on a circuit board just by being thrown in the same box.
Not quite? Okay so when you own a mobile network and know how much you pay for such handsets (as my partner does as he owns one in the UK) THEN come back and agrue with me - until that point go away!
I know exactly what each component costs AND the cost to assemble. I know more than you credit me with!
Trolololol. So your "partner" is "on 3 too and I think he pays something like £6.90 a month as he only uses about 100 mins a month" and also owns a mobile network? I'd be surprised anyone who owns a mobile network actually still feels the inclination to be ripped off by the country's smallest network, let alone actually pay for a mobile service.
Anyhow, you realise mobile networks in the UK don't actually buy handsets direct right? Therefore even *they* don't know how much they cost originally. Only one or two networks have direct relationships with manufacturers and even then only with one or two manufacturers. The vast majority of networks' phones are bought through distributor networks, where the distributor takes care of sourcing the phones from manufacturers, delivering them to stores, and in some cases even fulfilling customer orders. Most networks do not do any of this themselves.
Incidentally you claim the iPhone 5 costs £103 to build yet professional analytic company iSuppli - a dedicated electronics research company - say the cheapest iPhone 5 costs $207, and that's before R&D, distribution costs, packaging, marketing, business, legal and contractual costs, and profit for everyone in the middle:
So I suppose you now also own an electronics design research outfit whose primary purpose is to take phones apart to find out how much they cost, and you happen to do it better than the existing market leaders?
I may not know everything but I sure as hell know a professional electronics market intelligence company likely has more of a clue about its business than some randomer on a forum claiming their "partner" "owns a mobile network" and likes getting ripped off on his mobile phone (after all, he pays £6.90 a month £3 of service) (presumably because their own mobile network is too poor to provide the basic service required?). Clearly not the thriftiest of partners then.
one doesnt need to work for apple/samsung to know that the prices are inflated.
iphones single handedly turned apple fortunes round, they used to be a company that needed a loan of their main rival to survive and now they are one of the most valuable companies in the world (albeit whilst avoiding paying tax), smartphones make huge profit margins.
Plus as I already mentioned certian models are inflated in price in the uk, so someone is getting rich of that extra margin over here as well.
Does a s3 lte cost more to make than a s4? why was a s3 lte priced higher than a s4? (it may still be).
why is the s3 mini only slightly cheaper than the s3, and like wise for the s4 mini.
a galaxy ace which by todays standards is really obselete is still been sold for almost circa £200 in places on contract.
samsung circa 20billion profit a year.
apple slightly behind at around 18billion.
smartphones are fashionable, thats why they cost what they do, basic supply and demand economics.
eg. the vita has oled, better hardware and costs less than many phones.
Tablets are just as bad. I find them aweful devices to use as well yet they are popular, limitations that make them barely useable, but when we look at the cost of tablets and what you get vs say a laptop, its clear tablets must have a much higher margin than laptops.
Tablets are just as bad. I find them aweful devices to use as well yet they are popular, limitations that make them barely useable, but when we look at the cost of tablets and what you get vs say a laptop, its clear tablets must have a much higher margin than laptops.
Yeah its amazing how many people just buy tablets without thinking of what need/use they actually have for it, I waited a pretty long time before getting my tablet and my main reason was to use it as an e-reader but still have the option to do a bit more on it than just read books.
one doesnt need to work for apple/samsung to know that the prices are inflated.
We all know the profit margins on the hardware are high, yes, these are leading edge smartphones with some of the most advanced consumer technology in the world in them. R&D costs (which you don't see) are also high.
While I don't disagree they also make a crapton of profits on this stuff, certain companies have done professional analysis of how much the components and manufacturing costs - and as I say, they conclude the iPhone 5 costs over $200 for hardware alone before the cost of distribution and developing iOS are added on top. The S4 costs about $245 in pure components and manufacturing, the iPhone 4s cost between $196 and $254. Simply put, some loony raving "The iphone 4S cost apple £81.87 to build and the 5 was £103 to build." is horseshit.
Incidentally when you see the marketing for these new products a lot of emphasis is put onto the new software features, not the hardware. The only significant hardware change on the iPhone 5s was the fingerprint sensor, and that cost less than $15. Knowing a good few software developers and designers, it does irk me that some people seem to think software and design magically come for free and the only cost of making something is the physical hardware.
VM have been told (once again) not to make their services are "unlimited" and have "no caps" they said they believed when under STM customers could do things " at or close to their max speed"
What planet are they on.. anyway can't say more than that it's not public yet.
-65% reduction on the upload speed now? No thanks. Haven't used my connection all that much lately so hadn't been keeping track of the STM, went to upload some files this afternoon and was slapped down to 4mbps from 11.7 quick smart.
Over the years my upload has gotten slower and slower when you take STM into consideration so i've just cancelled all VM services. Sick of paying over the odds for an upload speed that isn't even as good as the competition without STM never mind with it.
Well I think unless they kill off STM it will cause lots more to leave. They certainly are not allowed to say it's unlimited with no caps anymore, however I am sure i've seen them being told before and it still showing as such on the website. As it is now. Also I like the " Proven by Ofcom" claim they make. This report I have says that whilst OFCOM did back VM, their data was also questionable and was also ruled against
I see their latest advertising spew is Offers Must Go! using the OMG! thingy, In my view people who were no doubt starved at oxygen at birth use "omg" in their vocabulary. SO not very encouraging to virgin going the same way.
It's not so much internet speech to me as people who have downs and just haven't been told yet.
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The main thing is 4G availability is increasing and competition is increasing which is a good thing, I think thats more the point you want to make.
