Mobiles2day – Mobile Industry News

T-Mobile UK is revamping it’s portfolio of tariffs from 1st February 2010. Existing Combi, Flext and U-Fix tariffs will be replaced with new 18 and 24-month deals. We are not sure at this moment that T-Mobile will still offer 12 months tariffs or not. It looks like telco is moving away from short pay monthly contracts, it has already stopped selling them online, though you can still get them via phone or in the shop.

Here are highlights of new monthly plans:

• Customers can get fixed minutes and text deals on the following monthly costs – £10, £15, £20, £25, £30, £35 and £40 (24 month contracts)
• The deals will also be available on 18 month contracts for an additional £5 per month.

Tariffs range from 100 minutes and 100 texts for £15 per month to 1,200 minutes and 500 texts for £35 a month. Customers will pay £5 more for 18-month tariffs than 24-month deals allowing equivalent monthly airtime. Customers will now get a Flexible booster in addition to their text and minutes as part of their contract, which they can change each month. The flexible boosters include:

• Unlimited texts
• Unlimited internet
• Unlimited landline talk
• Unlimited T-Mobile talk
• Euro talk & text
• USA & Canada talk
• Europe &Amsterdam talk

Customers can ALSO buy another booster in addition to the one with their contract for only £5 extra a month.

T-Mobile is also dropping its ‘Solo’ SIM-only brand from March 1 for a range of ‘SIM-only’-branded propositions at new pricepoints. Rolling one-month deals start at £10 per month for 100 minutes and 100 texts,  and rise to £25 per month for 900 minutes and 500 texts.

Twelve-month SIM-only deals allow 600 minutes and 500 texts for £15 a month, and rise to 1,200 minutes and 500 texts for £25 per month. All unlimited text bundles have been removed.

SIM-only customers also get to select a free booster, and opt in for further bundles at £5 a go.

Existing Solo plans (affording 300 minutes and unlimited texts for £15 a month, 600 minutes and unlimited texts for £20 a month and 800 minutes and unlimited texts for £25 a month) are available until March 1.

Following out earlier post about T-Mobile including 08* numbers into Flext bundles, here are further details about Flext revamp.

From April 2009, T-Mobile’s popular Flext tariff will be refreshed to give more value to customers. New benefits will include: International calling and texting, 08 numbers and unlimited web’n'walk access.

Flext customers can now take advantage of the following features as part of their monthly allowance, without incurring extra charges:

* The inclusion of over 50 of the most popular international calling destinations, so customers can use their allowance to call or text friends and family abroad
* Calls to our most popular 08 numbers, including telephone banking, key utility and customer service lines and premium rate numbers
* Special offer of unlimited web’n'walk access to enable customers to enjoy the whole internet on their phone
* The inclusion of access to voice mail messages as part of the new Flext package
* A free weekly text alert to be able to keep track of spending and detailing their remaining credit during the month

You should be signing up for 18 months contract with T-Mobile, credit includes 92% of the most popular international calling destinations, to over 50 countries:
Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Channel Islands, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Isle of Man, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad & Tobago, Turkey, USA

Also 89% of most popular 08 numbers are included (Flext inclusive 08 number calls are to numbers starting with 0800, 0808, 0845, 0844, 0843, 0842 and 0870. Calls to numbers starting with 0500 are included too.)

This is a good news if you have relatives or friends abroad, you can call or text them and it will be included in your monthly allowance. T-Mobile website doesn’t mention at what rate international calls will be charged (deducted from allowance). Probably details will be announced later, closer to launch.

Source: T-Mobile

From 3rd April, O2 introduces new iPhone tariffs, which will enable you to get iPhone for free! Sounds nice but downside is you have to sign up for 24 months contract or pay almost £45 per month on 18 months contract.

iPhone proved to be very popular among UK punters, O2 sold over million iPhones.

Below is the table with new iPhone tariffs:

Apple prepares OS update for iPhone and iPod Touch in June, version 3.0. Update will bring long-awaited features like MMS support, copy-paste support and many others.

Source: O2 Press Release

According to Mobile Magazine website T-Mobile is planning to include calls to some 08* numbers to minutes included in Flext tariffs. At the moment it is reported that calls to 0800, 0845 and 0870 (excluding premium rate lines) numbers will be included as part of the bundled minutes.

T-Mobile follows announcement by BT that calls to 0800 numbers will be free for its BT Mobile customers on 4th February 2009. Offer will be available to customers who are upgrading and will be available to new customers later on. Minimum Flext tariff is £35 a month.

The new tariffs also allow customers to make international UK to Europe calls that are deducted from their bundle.

This is really good move from T-Mobile, we hope that other mobile operators will follow. It would be nice if T-Mobile also included 0844 numbers, these were included in bundled minutes before but withdrawn later in 2006.

Source: Mobile Magazine

BT today became the first UK mobile company to make calls to 0800 numbers free for its BT Mobile customers. The landmark decision won immediate support from consumer groups that believe companies should stop charging for calls to freephone 0800 numbers. Consumer Focus and BT today called on the big mobile operators to follow their lead and give customers back the £50m a year they are charged for calling 0800 numbers from mobiles.
Mobile companies such as Orange charge up to 25p a minute for dialling the numbers, which companies set up in an attempt to let customers call them for free. Vodafone charges up to 20p a minute and O2 15p.

Other mobile companies also charge high rates for calling ‘free’ 0800 numbers, with 3 charging 15p a minute and T-Mobile 10p.

However, BT Mobile is scrapping all charges for its Consumer customers who dial 0800 numbers and similar 0500 numbers from May 1, despite the loss of tens of thousands of pounds in revenue.

BT announced in February last year that it was switching all its helpline numbers to 0800, making it free for all of its 14m customers to call them from any landline.

Consumer Focus, which incorporates the former National Consumer Council, is calling for mobile companies to give customers a fair deal by ensuring that calling an 0800 number from a mobile is free – the same as if you call the number from a landline.

Audrey Gallagher, of Consumer Focus said: “Scrapping unfair charges on 0800 calls from mobile phones is good news for BT customers. With so many consumers using mobile phones rather than landlines to contact essential services, find information and seek help, it is more important than ever that they do so for free across all 0800 numbers. Consumer Focus calls on mobile phone operators to follow BT and stop making money out of 0800 calls.”

John Petter, managing director of BT’s Consumer business, said: “We think mobile customers are irritated by having to pay high rates to call ‘free’ 0800 numbers, so we have put our own house in order by making it free for any BT Mobile customer to call these numbers.

“We have all called an 0800 number from our mobiles and experienced the frustration of the message telling us that the call will be charged at standard rates.

“A customer with Orange would pay £7.50 just to make a 30-minute call their insurance company or bank and sort out a few issues. But if they made that call from a landline it would be free, so we can’t see the need to have this huge difference in price.

“We had already made calls into BT free for our 14m landline customers and we are happy to back Consumer Focus and other consumer organisations in their efforts to address this anomaly. We also recently announced that calls to 0870 and 0845 numbers would be included in call packages for BT landline customers, so it is a good time to be calling these organisations from a BT landline or mobile.”

Source: BT Press Release

This is good news, whether other mobile operators will follow or not, that is the question! We hope they do!