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In Europe less and less people buy subsidized phones.They want their subscription as cheap as possible and without any string attached. It might not be a good d

by aikah 11y ago

In Europe less and less people buy subsidized phones.They want their subscription as cheap as possible and without any string attached. It might not be a good deal if you want an Iphone though,so they should keep that option for Apple customers. But when you can get an android phone for 50€ there is very little reason get a 2/3 years contract. However : > Under the new plans, customers will pay $50 for 1 gigabyte (a price increase for both groups) and $65 for 3 gigabytes (a price cut). The 2 gigabyte plan is being discontinued, so customers will have to choose more or less. It is fn. expensive when compared to EU prices. Why is that?

joesmo 11y ago
"It is fn. expensive when compared to EU prices. Why is that?" In the US, there are only 4 major cell phone carriers and their plans are so similar in price, it might as well be a monopoly.
- rhino369 11y ago
  Does Europe have 4 major competitors in each country? I seriously doubt it. It's probably the opposite. They have three or less true operators and they each have more spectrum at a lower cost. The cheapest option would be a single carrier regulated by government. But they might not upgrade as fast. So we might have super cheap 2g instead of expensive LTE A.
  - joesmo 11y ago
    I forgot to mention the two year contracts which rendered competition essentially meaningless until about two years ago or so.
  - IkmoIkmo 11y ago
    We've got 3 major ones in the Netherlands. There's over a dozen carriers but they all use one of these networks. Not super familiar with the rest of Europe but the larger countries have 4 operators as far as I know, like the UK, Germany, Spain, France... but there's also plenty of smaller countries that have four, like say Greece. Sweden afaik has even 5, and the Ukraine iirc has 6. Anyway it probably has to do with density. I was flabbergasted when I studied in Canada and ended up seeing phone bills that were like 3x my own back home where we have only 3 operators. But it's pretty easy to cover the size of the Netherlands cheaply, as for Canada or say the US... different story. (although in Canada regulation also played a big role, it wasn't a very competitive market)
MrRadar 11y ago
> It is fn. expensive when compared to EU prices. Why is that? US carriers have to cover a land area 1/3rd greater than the total land area of Europe[0] and they have just barely half the population to spread the costs over[1]. Also there are no inter-state roaming fees in the US, from what I understand most European carriers have roaming fees outside of your home country. That doesn't explain the entire price gap, but even in a perfect world US phone plans would still be more expensive than European plans just on that basis alone. Additionally, Verizon's main selling point is they have the largest coverage area so their plans are always the most expensive. T-Mobile, Sprint and many MVNOs offer much cheaper service (with less coverage). For example you can get 100 minutes/unlimited texts/5 GB of 4G LTE data for $30/month on T-Mobile prepaid, 300 minutes/unlimited texts/2.5 GB data for $35/month on Virgin Mobile (uses the Sprint network), or unlimited minutes/texts/2.5 GB 4G LTE data (throttled to 8 Mbps) for $35/month (with autopay discount) on Cricket (uses the AT&T network). [0]: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28land+area+of+usa+-+land+area+of+alaska+%29+%2F+land+area+of+europe http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28land+area+of+usa+-+l... (excluding Alaska since it's huge and almost nobody lives there) [1]: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+usa+%2F+population+of+europe http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+usa+%2F+p...
jlg23 11y ago
"It is fn. expensive when compared to EU prices. Why is that?" EU prices vary a lot and some parts of Europe are not much cheaper than the US. The Digital Fuel Monitor has a nice comparison: http://dfmonitor.eu/downloads/DFMonitor_1H-2015_Europe_mobile_internet_divide_is_widening.pdf http://dfmonitor.eu/downloads/DFMonitor_1H-2015_Europe_mobil...

by aikah 11y ago

joesmo 11y ago

"It is fn. expensive when compared to EU prices. Why is that?" In the US, there are only 4 major cell phone carriers and their plans are so similar in price, it might as well be a monopoly.

rhino369 11y ago
Does Europe have 4 major competitors in each country? I seriously doubt it. It's probably the opposite. They have three or less true operators and they each have more spectrum at a lower cost. The cheapest option would be a single carrier regulated by government. But they might not upgrade as fast. So we might have super cheap 2g instead of expensive LTE A.
- joesmo 11y ago
  I forgot to mention the two year contracts which rendered competition essentially meaningless until about two years ago or so.
- IkmoIkmo 11y ago
  We've got 3 major ones in the Netherlands. There's over a dozen carriers but they all use one of these networks. Not super familiar with the rest of Europe but the larger countries have 4 operators as far as I know, like the UK, Germany, Spain, France... but there's also plenty of smaller countries that have four, like say Greece. Sweden afaik has even 5, and the Ukraine iirc has 6. Anyway it probably has to do with density. I was flabbergasted when I studied in Canada and ended up seeing phone bills that were like 3x my own back home where we have only 3 operators. But it's pretty easy to cover the size of the Netherlands cheaply, as for Canada or say the US... different story. (although in Canada regulation also played a big role, it wasn't a very competitive market)

MrRadar 11y ago

> It is fn. expensive when compared to EU prices. Why is that? US carriers have to cover a land area 1/3rd greater than the total land area of Europe[0] and they have just barely half the population to spread the costs over[1]. Also there are no inter-state roaming fees in the US, from what I understand most European carriers have roaming fees outside of your home country. That doesn't explain the entire price gap, but even in a perfect world US phone plans would still be more expensive than European plans just on that basis alone. Additionally, Verizon's main selling point is they have the largest coverage area so their plans are always the most expensive. T-Mobile, Sprint and many MVNOs offer much cheaper service (with less coverage). For example you can get 100 minutes/unlimited texts/5 GB of 4G LTE data for $30/month on T-Mobile prepaid, 300 minutes/unlimited texts/2.5 GB data for $35/month on Virgin Mobile (uses the Sprint network), or unlimited minutes/texts/2.5 GB 4G LTE data (throttled to 8 Mbps) for $35/month (with autopay discount) on Cricket (uses the AT&T network). [0]: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28land+area+of+usa+-+land+area+of+alaska+%29+%2F+land+area+of+europe http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28land+area+of+usa+-+l... (excluding Alaska since it's huge and almost nobody lives there) [1]: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+usa+%2F+population+of+europe http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+usa+%2F+p...

jlg23 11y ago

"It is fn. expensive when compared to EU prices. Why is that?" EU prices vary a lot and some parts of Europe are not much cheaper than the US. The Digital Fuel Monitor has a nice comparison: http://dfmonitor.eu/downloads/DFMonitor_1H-2015_Europe_mobile_internet_divide_is_widening.pdf http://dfmonitor.eu/downloads/DFMonitor_1H-2015_Europe_mobil...