Our friends? Ofcom have been slammed for not cutting the cost of mobile calls.  Visit

 www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/07/ofcom_mobile/   for full details.

See this Early Day Motion on the price of mobile phone calls.


Quote:

EDM 848 CHARGES BY MOBILE PHONE OPERATORS 25.10.2005 Campbell, Gregory That this House notes a recent survey by OneCompare.com which indicates that many mobile phone operators have charges that automatically, and without warning, rise considerably for contract phone users who exceed their monthly limit of inclusive text or talk minutes, in some instances by more than 100 per cent. per text or per minute; and calls upon the companies concerned to review their rates and to make all such charges clear in advances to all users.

Cross network calls are still a rip-off. Only if you are on a 'contract' package do you get cheaper calls to other networks.

Also, with pay monthly you have to know how many minutes you need. Use more than the inclusive minutes and you pay high rates, roughly the same as with pay as you go, especially where cross network calls are concerned. Use less, and your average pence per minute on your inclusive minutes is more. Of course, if minutes outside 'free' ones were charged at lower rates than at present, may give people less 'incentive' to move up to a tariff with more minutes.

Most contracts provide a new handset. If you don't want one, it's usually a case of you have to 'buy' one through the 'line rental' payments (as that's effectively what you're doing) or go on pay as you go.

Why do we have to have this nonsense? I don't buy it! I would like to pay a fixed monthly line rental in return for lower priced calls (to other networks as well).