Mobile Network Comparison

The latest mobile network to massively raise their PAYG fees is Vodafone. They’ve hiked their PAYG rates up to 20% in response to the recent Ofcom reduction in mobile termination rates. The changes kick in on 14th July.

This is part of a recent trend that has seen 3 tack on a ridiculous charge for delivery reports on 6 June while ASDA Mobile’s rates shot up by up to 50% on 1 June and Orange also increased their PAYG fees substantially on 1 July. Even Virgin Mobile will massively increase their out of tariff prices on 25th July. It won’t be surprising to see other networks follow suit shortly.

Vodafone have gone from one of the cheaper main mobile networks to amongst the most expensive. Their new rates now look like this:

• Voice call charges have increased by a mighty 19% from 21p/minute to 25p/minute. This applies for all outgoing calls to UK mobiles and UK landlines. The minimum call charge has also risen to 25p. This means you’ll be charged 25p for all calls you make event hose that are shorter than one minute.
• The voicemail charge has risen from 20p/minute to 25p/minute.
• Texts have gone up from 10p to 12p per message so the cost for every UK SMS is a whole 20% greater.
• The price for sending MMS picture messages has leapt to 36p each.
• Premium rate 09 numbers are now an outrageous £2/minute, a massive 300% increase from the old 50p/minute price.
• Mobile data has gone up from £1/day to £1/25MB/day with a maximum charge of £5/day.

To see how this affects the prices compared to other networks, feel free to check out our comprehensive comparison chart. After this price change, Vodafone are now tied with Orange, T-Mobile and O₂ for the most expensive texts in the UK and only 3, Tru and Virgin Mobile charge more for calls. In fact, this means that Vodafone now charge over 3x as much as budget networks such as Giffgaff.

In fact, as an example, an average customer who usually makes about 40 minutes of calls, sends 150 texts every month will see their bill shoot up from £23.40 to £28.00. This is an increase of £4.60 or 19.7% which is pretty substantial. Of course, if you often use more than 25MB of data in a day (a few YouTube videos can easily reach this much), use picture messages or often make short sub-minute calls, you’ll be hit even harder.

Because of this, existing Vodafone customers will probably be very tempted to switch to a budget network like Giffgaff, ASDA Mobile or Tesco Mobile. You should read our guides to getting your PAC and porting your number if you want to quit Vodafone after this price rise.