Mobile Network Comparison

Giffgaff have just cut their international calling prices by an average of over 60%. This move follows hotly on the heels of the recent EU roaming charges price decrease. That meant that the amount you have to pay to use data or send and receive calls and texts when travelling in you at was drastically slashed. Now, these changes at Giffgaff mean that the price it costs you to call abroad when you’re at home in the UK has been reduced significantly.

The changes are part of a massive overhaul including over 220 reductions in international calling prices. The cost of sending a text internationally has been cut to HP the matter where in the world you’re trying to get in touch with. And, overall, giffgaff claim that the average price reduction across all countries is a massive 66%.

The changes come in a very Giffgaff way, following a user consultation. Since the founding of the company, their ethics have always said that they should be member run and listen to their users. A recent member consultation showed that, on the whole, Giffgaff users thought that international calling could be much more competitive. Even though it wasn’t meant to explicitly cover international calling, the April 2013 consultation found it was quite an important item on the agenda for a significant number of giffgaff users. Just a few months later, this is the result.

Some of the calling tariffs that have been slashed include China is now only 2p per minute for a call to a mobile and the same price for called to a landline. India’s the same price at just 2p to both mobiles and landlines. Calling halfway round the world to Australia is only 2p for a landline call.

If you have friends and relatives in the United States, it is much cheaper to call them there is the called friends at home in the UK and it’s only 3p per minute to both mobiles and landlines. And there are plenty of other low rates, such as 2p per minute to landlines in Poland, Ireland, Spain and Romania and 3p per minute to mobile phone numbers in Hong Kong and Canada.

With its diverse population, the UK handles a huge number of international mobile calls every year. In fact, the total amount is currently estimated at about 2.5 billion international mobile minutes which means there’s a huge amount of savings on offer with these new price cuts.

Do you use your mobile to call abroad frequently? Do you know of any other networks offer significantly better rates than giffgaff’s new international pricing? And will you be making the most of these price cuts by calling friends and family abroad from your giffgaff mobile?

Vodafone have demonstrated the contempt they feel for their users by massively increasing their call prices on PAYG and couching the rise in terms of making things “easier” for their customers. They have decided to round all outgoing call costs to the nearest minute and instead of rounding to the nearest minute or saving customers a few pence by rounding down, they have arrogantly made the decision to always round up so they get more revenue.

As a result, there are no possible scenarios where customers will pay less than they currently do. Yes, Vodafone have publicised the price gouging in terms like “pricing just got simpler” and “no more complicated pricing”. Excuse us if we explain why we think they’re taking the piss just a little…

Not only does this demonstrate unprecedented greed, but it also belies an utter lack of respect for their customers. Effectively, Vodafone are saying that their customers are too stupid to work out how much they are spending on their calls or how much their credit is worth. As one user put it:

So, I’m too thick to work in seconds as well as minutes, and Vodafone are therefore making life easier for me. To reward themselves for being so helpful, they are, in effect, going to charge me more for my calls.

In any case, this is beside the point as we have been unable to find a single Vodafone customer requesting this change. There is nothing on their user forums to suggest that anyone found by-the-second billing to be overly complex. Most networks charge in this manner and customers are used to it. Furthermore, there nothing to suggest that people judge their remaining PAYG airtime credit in terms of “minutes remaining” rather than the more straightforward figure of pounds and pence. Indeed, this is how the credit is represented to customers implying this is the way in which it ought to be considered.

It’s purely disingenuous behaviour on Vodafone’s part as they attempt to dress up a price rise as a customer-friendly service. As if people are stupid enough to fall for that. Utterly pathetic.

All this from a company that reported an operating profit of £12 billion just a couple of months ago at the end of March 2013. Apparently that’s not enough and now they want to resort to tricks like this to scrape off more cash from their millions of customers. Nothing escaped the price rise – even voicemail calls are subject to these new terms unilaterally introduced by Vodafone.

As a result, if you regularly make several short calls – perhaps to ask to be picked up, to be let in or to arrange somewhere to meet – you’re existing credit has been massively devalued. Call costs are in some cases going to rise by over 90% and current airtime credit will be worth around 50% less for several customers.

On customer forums, the price increase has been met with outrage and ire. In response to the claim from the Vodafone Tech Team that the change was made in order to make things “simpler”, Funboy responded:

Please don’t patronise us. This is being introduced to make more money for Vodafone pure and simple. It doesn’t make anything simpler other than the fact that PAYG customers will essentially pay more for calls.

Gronk991 went on to say:

Simpler? Maybe slightly. More expensive? Potentially much more. Communicated in a reasonable manner? Certainly not.

I am sorry but this is a joke, it is price hike and nothing else and you are treating us as idiots in trying to call it anything other than that.

These changes are the latest in a line of price hikes from Vodafone. Only back in September 2011 Vodafone announced that they would “simplify” contract bills by rounding up – again, note they decided not to round down – to the nearest £0.50. This equates to a potential rise of £5.88 a year and on average across about 9.5 million customers, meant that Vodafone benefited to the tune of about £28 million!

These latest price increases clearly reveal Vodafone as an out of touch company intent on pressing the self-destruct button. This is a cynical profiteering stunt and may well turn out to be marketing suicide. Only recently they were found to be still dodging tax payments in the UK. And this was following their last PAYG price rise in 2011 as well as their shameful support for ousted dictator Hussain Mubarak during the Arab Spring popular uprisings.

They evidently fail to realise that switching network is simpler than ever nowadays and people will vote with their wallets. Furthermore, by disrespecting the small PAYG users in this way, they will inevitably lose their big money-spinners such as massive corporate contracts too. Nobody likes to be taken for a fool.

Are you on Vodafone? Have you been affected by these changes? What do you make of them? And if you’re switching, who’s going to be your new mobile phone network?

Three Mobile have massively shaken up the UK market with a rather-appealing new pay-as-you-go tariff called 321. The new pricing is the height of simplicity and dirt cheap to boot with calls costing just 3p per minute, texts coming in at only 2p each and mobile data being exceptionally good value with a charge of only 1p/MB.

Compared to the competition, this is clearly far and away the best deal going as long as you are relatively light mobile phone user. While it is possible to get better value from bundles offered by some other mobile networks, the new pricing is hard to beat. To sweeten the deal even more, Three are offering hundred and 150MB mobile web browsing allowance for free every time you top up by £10 or more.

Previously, networks such as White Mobile were offering the cheapest rates available with calls being just 6p a minute and SMS text messages coming in at 5p each. However, they were rather unknown and untested option and only a brave user with transfer their main mobile number to them. However, now Three Mobile – which is a major high-street brand and one of the biggest mobile networks in the UK – is offering rates that totally crush those offered by White Mobile and their other competitors.

In fact, the treaty one tariff is at least half the price of that previously offered by White Mobile and pretty much an order of magnitude cheaper than the other major mobile networks such as Orange, Vodafone, O₂, and T-Mobile. It’s hard to think of a good reason why you’d pay 30p for calls on T-Mobile will you get the same thing to any number at any time on Three for just 3p. Likewise, why would you pay 12p for sending a text on O₂ when Three are offering you a price of just 2p? The data charges where things get really silly: budget operators such as ASDA Mobile will charge you 50p/MB for mobile data whereas Three’s new tariff is a almost-unbelievable 50x cheaper!

We really welcome the fantastic value offered by this new pricing structure. Hopefully it will really shake up the UK mobile market and encourage competition. The price cuts that they have introduced are pretty astounding and will only mean better value for consumers no matter what network they are on.

This move will only serve to cement Three’s place as one of the fastest-growing networks in the country. While other mobile operators in the UK are struggling to retain their existing users, Three gained over 1 million new customers in 2012. They also the biggest 3G network in the UK right now and have superb high-speed coverage and great data rates.

Is it too good to be true? Well the tariff has been live for a few days now and in our tests has been working fine at the rate advertised. The only catch, if there is any, is that tethering is not allowed on Three’s PAYG plans including this 321 tariff. This means you can only use your PAYG SIM in mobile phone devices and not dongles or tablets such as the iPad. You will also find your account is blocked if you share your phone’s Internet connection by tethering it to a computer or tablet.

So how do I switch?

Switching your phone to Three Mobile in order to take advantage of this great offer is really simple. You don’t even need to change your phone number.

First of all, just make sure that your handset is unlocked so you can use it on Three and that it supports the 3G network that Three uses. Pretty much any modern handset will be fine, but if your phone is particularly old it’s worth checking that it works on 3G as Three does not support 2G any more. If your handset is not unlocked, there are several guides online that make it quite simple or you can always take it to a shop and pay about £5 for them to do it for you.

If you are an existing Three Mobile PAYG customer, switching to the 321 tariff is as simple as calling customer services on 333 from your mobile phone. If not, you can just go to Three’s website and order a free SIM card which they’ll post to you in a couple of days.

Keeping your phone number is really easy as long as you get your PAC code from your existing mobile operator. We’ve got a full guide to switching mobile network and porting your mobile number to a new mobile network already published on the site.

And that’s all there is to it. Runs some quick calculations to see whether you’ll save lots of money by changing to this tariff and if so, get started switching over!

Will you save money if you start using Three’s 321 tariff? Or is your current network offering a better deal? Do you know of any network with better PAYG prices? And, if you think you can save money, are you switching over today?