EE looks at its call charges, hikes a bunch, walks off giggling UK telco EE will next month hike fees for people using their phones outside their price plans, with international calls increasing as much as 60 per cent. Under the new price plan that will come into force from 28 September, UK calls to mobiles, landlines and voicemail will increase from 40p to 50p per minute, while …
Surely this is a change in contract terms; so those with long contracts should be able to hand their 'phone back and walk. Price increases clauses in contracts should be for RPI increases not huge things like this.
Having said that: they have more expensive lawyers than you do.
Only skimmed the article, but it seems these are Out Of Bundle charges ... the equivalent of the Mortgage Base Rate *after* your special deal has ended.
The charges *in* bundle (i.e. the headline figure you signed up for) remains the same.
So as long as you stay in bundle, you won't notice.
Of course, commercially, most corporate customers will have negotiated the cheapest^H^H^H^H^H^H^HH smallest bundles possible .....
Vodashite had a clause that allowed them to change prices during the term of a contract and I imagine that EE do as well BUT these changes refer to out of bundle charges and anyone using them in anything other than an emergency probably deserves to be reamed.
It's always been cheaper to get on a plane and talk face to face than use a mobile phone OOB
"It's always been cheaper to get on a plane and talk face to face than use a mobile phone OOB"
That's not true. When GSM mobile phones first became common, the out-of-bundle charges were reasonable, and the bundle was just there to pay for the phone and/or give you a discount.
The modern approach of "if you use over your bundled amount then we're going to charge a punitive amount" came later.
To those who disagree with Mr. alain williams comment:
I'd be really surprised if the cost of services 'over the bundle' wasn't clearly specified in the original contracts. If this was the case, the contract would be saying, basically: "We will charge you whatever we want for services not included in the bundle", which would make the contract invalid in most (civilized) countries.
As much as I hate this, one can suspect our hand held computers, which sometimes get used as phones, are more geared, these days, for OTT services rather than pure voice. The market for voice is falling year on year, so it's bound to have hikes like this. (http://uk.businessinsider.com/ee-stats-on-decline-of-voice-calls-in-uk-2015-10?r=US&IR=T)
It depends does putting the price up increase or reduce the revenue/profit?
Seeing as the cost for an individual to make a call is very low (the Cost of Sale) then by reducing prices you might increase the take up and therefore increase overall profits.
We had a product with minimal cost of sale per user but a large yearly fixed cost for us to provide. We were barely breaking even, reduced the cost by 50% and now we have doubled the revenue paying for the service twice over.
"No - they don't *have* to. Making the same profit as last year isn't a right or a duty."
You get an upvote for that level of naivety. :)
Seeing as it's been some significant time since we've seen any news item on a company actively investing in their future on a timescale longer than "tommorrow". The fact that this is shortsighted seems utterly lost on most.
It's a shame that companies (or, tellingly, shareholders) don't take a longer view on making money. And while I'm wishing, I'd like politicians that represented the majority of humanity, instead of the majority of money (read: the monied).
Looks like I got out just in time, then. I was already paying over the odds for the service I was receiving, especially in the international department, so left just last month.
Good to see the sale to BT hasn't stopped them charging a termination fee for cancelling a contract whose minimum term finished some 4 years ago, and whose Terms and Conditions explicitly state there is no Cancellation Charge for leaving...
I'm now immune to EE's price shenanigans having previously been shocked by increase in texting price to 12p -- and not prepared to make voice calls at 30p a min.
Solution; keep EE existing number on locked iPhone for incoming calls. Put 3 Network SIMM in second phone for outgoing and enjoy calls at 3p a min and text at 2p *.
Though EE's "6 Month Web" deal at £20 was decent value, 3 Network's 1p a meg is more flexible and cheap enough that I'm happy to use mobile data for the first time.
I'll only keep EE as long as a friend keeps gifting me her old EE-locked phones.
* See also GiffGaff, Lebara, Lycamobile.
With a second mobile sim that has free 0800 numbers (giffgaff etc), use a company like 1899.com to get price per minute down to 1p (5p connection fee applies). You have to first phone a free 0800 number, then enter the number you want to call.
Quality isn't always great, but its good for call centre calls via mobile, where you're kept on hold for 10 minutes, so a 15p (10p+5p) charge, as opposed to £3.00 charge, then I just ask to be phoned back. The 1899 generated calls are billed separately/paid separately from your Mobile account.
Works well enough, can be a bit tedious at times though, when you just need to speak to someone quickly, where a three sim 3-2-1 sim is a better bet, where the call quality matters.
"With a second mobile sim that has free 0800 numbers"
All 0800 numbers are free from all UK mobiles since 1 July 2015. http://media.ofcom.org.uk/news/2015/call-charges-clearer-from-wednesday/
I can't believe this isn't common knowledge yet. I keep seeing stuff like "Call 0800 xyz free from your landline, or 0300 xyz free from your mobile." I had a small conversation with somebody who insisted that the 0800 number is not free from mobile, but the 0300 is (it isn't, if you're wondering, unless you have bundled landline minutes). After having this "debate" with the person in question, I found out that some of the leaflets she was handing out (but not all of them) actually said "0800 numbers are free to call from both landlines and mobiles."
"Solution; keep EE existing number on locked iPhone for incoming calls. Put 3 Network SIMM in second phone for outgoing"
Have you thought about unlocking the phone (call EE; they want £8.99 to do this) and porting your EE number to Three? It sounds like just the thing you need.
BT get involved and the prices go shooting up.
Considering they hiked landline prices twice in 6 months recently this isn't a surprise.
I was thinking about EE as my next contract because of Vodafone's shocking CS but I guess that's off the cards now. BT are simply the worst company ever (well, tied first place with Microsoft)
So the pregnant/fat one on the sofa is illustrating the size of something with disbelief or anger, and the skinny dumb looking one with the vacant stare, piggy nose and the checked shirt is ignoring the pregnant/fat one in favour of something more interesting on her landfill Android.
What's that got to do with the story?
The girl in the foreground is the daughter, racking up huge phone bills chatting to and texting her mates.
The woman on the sofa is her mother, already fed up with the vast phone bills her daughter is racking up, and now about to get even more frustrated due to EE's price hike.
C'mon, let your imagination roam a little! Even if we can't afford to on our mobiles anymore.
"The woman on the sofa is her mother, already fed up with the vast phone bills her daughter is racking up"
What business is it of the mother's? It's the daughter's phone, it's the daughter's problem. There's taking parenting too far, and there's micromanaging their every second of their life.
I visited the UK a few months ago and bought EE SIMs with a 1 month package for my families unlocked US based phones - what a joke, I'll never use EE again. Service was intermittent at the best of times and most of the time non-existent - I visited two EE stores to try and resolve the problems and each time was met by staff who had only the vaguest idea how cell phone service works.
I ended up using my Project Fi phone (which worked perfectly) as a hot-spot so that everyone could communicate through my phone.
Welcome to Britain. Home of the shittest customer service, anywhere in the world.
Our regulators Ofcom (for Fixed/Mobile Telecoms), Ofgem (for Energy) are manned/funded by ex-employees/Energy Companies/Telcos respectively.
They are Narcissistic Organisations that only care about their own continued existence, so every solution agreed/put forward involves even more complication, or use of technologies (pointless G.fast) that are designed to bamboozle, obfuscate the market even more, hence reinforce their (regulator) roles.
Politicians are technically illiterate, (just read the comments by Prospective Prime Minister Andrea Leadsom) regarding the Internet, to hold either regulators or Telco incumbents to account.
FTTP even in places where its 'obviously' more economically viable long term, is never the solution, if BT/EE can help it. It would make the Broadband speed and contention issues that vast numbers of customers experience, far too easy to pinpoint, against the Telco's own backhaul, as opposed to the local loop/mast.
Bamboozled, Obfuscated 'upto' speeds suit both the Regulator / and BT/EE (Sweetie). That's what we have, shit as it is. Best to bring a book next time, if you visit anywhere in the UK, yep - just anywhere really.
Let's compare this:
EE: £17.99 2GB Unlimited [Minutes] Unlimited [texts]
Mine: £17.00 50Gb Unlimited [Minutes] Unlimited [texts] +++
1. I can call landlines in approx 100 countries, fully comp
2. I can call mobiles in US/Canada, fully comp
3. I have 35days/year roaming (data, voice, text) included in Europe, US, Australia
http://shop.ee.co.uk/sim-only/pay-monthly-phones
http://mobile.free.fr/*
Click on "Le forfait sans engagement en détail" on the 15€ 99/19€ 99 offer ... I took 19€ 99 for the conversion ... I live in France ... EE's rates look like what our rates were ... before free mobile came along and scooped up every Frenchman with a working pair of braincells or calculator handy ...
Its not just the mobile phones which are a rip-off. @Hans1, like you I live in France and pay 36€ for my ADSL connection. I find that with telephone and TV bundled with this that it is unmatchable value compared to any offer available in UK once your low price period ends. I have also found that the 0€ mobile offer is sufficient since you have unlimited texts. Even if you exceed the 2hours of voicecalls/month the charges are so reasonable, they are not worth worrying about.
I can't wait for the offer of a free upgrade to freebox mini with its built in femtocell.
Um.. I'm not one of those "Britain is the best" jingoistic Brexit voters, but the prices both of you quote are huge.
You can get unlimited mobile data and texts for £15 a month, and broadband for less than £20
I believe what you both say, but you are certainly comparing expensive deals!
"... before free mobile came along and scooped up every Frenchman with a working pair of braincells"
I'm with Orange. My everything bundle costs €70 a month. Why do I pay more?
Easy. I have watched Free and Orange arguing over who is responsible for a faulty setup for SIX months. Free said the box worked fine, it was Orange. Orange said the line worked fine, it was Free. Turned out to be a faulty ADSL filter, though it took half a year (paying all the while for nothing) plus a lot of hassle before that got identified as the cause.
And just this week? Woman has moved into a new place and her SFR box isn't working with the phone line. Rinse, repeat, recycle.
I have to analogue phone line. My phone is VoIP from the Livebox. It's a 4.7km long overhead line. I live rural. If I had a broadband contact with somebody else and there was a problem with the line [*], how long do you think it would take Orange to consider looking at the line of a subscriber that isn't even paying them? I rely on having connectivity, I pay through the nose so I can feel that I won't be dicked around by two companies mostly uninterested in me. In my experience, French customer service is very friendly but mostly useless, so minimising the excuse potential is good. I might have gone with Free if I was in an urban area, but out here it's too risky. Besides Free quote me a single megabit. I get a reliable two off Orange. Degroup test. Don't remember the URL, you give it your phone number and it gives you all the offers that are available.
* - we're techies, we know that if the line isn't approx -48V at rest then something is wrong.
What's Free's coverage like? How much 3G/4G is there? What is the performance like?
The French telecoms regulator seems to have some issues with their investment strategy in the past. http://www.fiercewireless.com/europe/free-mobile-faces-probe-over-3g-network-coverage
EE, despite being obscenely expensive, does at least spend a lot of their cash on their network.
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