On 18/07/2019 07:02, Someone Somewhere wrote:
On 17/07/2019 20:44, wrote:


Ones where the credit rolls over and you don't have to make a regular
calls to keep them alive, aren't quite as common as you claim. The
networks hate them because they tend to get used in "glovebox" phones
were they have all the costs of maintaining the number and the billing
records, for virtually no revenue.

Oh come on, its costs them precisely £0.00 to maintain a number, its
simply
data in a database.



And you are qualified to say that how?Â* Who supplies the database, and
on what license terms (hint: it's often on a per slot basis) - and
that's before we get to the overall costs where there may not be a net
gain per subscriber, but they have to be paid anyway - the radio
network, the data centres, the backhaul, the support staff, customer
services, Ofcom, etc etc etc.

Ok, answer me this -if the networks hate PAYG so much, why does it still
exist..?

--
Ria in Aberdeen

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On 18/07/2019 14:33, MissRiaElaine wrote:
On 18/07/2019 07:02, Someone Somewhere wrote:
On 17/07/2019 20:44, wrote:


Ones where the credit rolls over and you don't have to make a regular
calls to keep them alive, aren't quite as common as you claim. The
networks hate them because they tend to get used in "glovebox" phones
were they have all the costs of maintaining the number and the billing
records, for virtually no revenue.

Oh come on, its costs them precisely £0.00 to maintain a number, its
simply
data in a database.



And you are qualified to say that how?Â* Who supplies the database, and
on what license terms (hint: it's often on a per slot basis) - and
that's before we get to the overall costs where there may not be a net
gain per subscriber, but they have to be paid anyway - the radio
network, the data centres, the backhaul, the support staff, customer
services, Ofcom, etc etc etc.

Ok, answer me this -if the networks hate PAYG so much, why does it still
exist..?

They don't hate it - they, like any other business, like less those who
spend less than others.

Plenty of PAYG customers spend reasonable amount of money. They like
those customers.

Those customers who think it's reasonable to spend £1/year on having an
"emergency phone" cost the operators more money than the revenue they
provide (for reasons we've been in and out of at least twice in the last
month). For obvious commercial reasons they like those customers less.

In message , at 14:33:56 on Thu, 18
Jul 2019, MissRiaElaine remarked:

if the networks hate PAYG so much, why does it still exist..?

PAYG exists, like it always has, to fill a gap in the market for
customers who want a phone but aren't credit-worthy enough to qualify
for a contract (and thus present a risk they are walking out of a shop
with £500 of brand new phone and will never be heard of again).

The problem for the networks (and this is true of many kinds of
discounted market-priced rail tickets as well) that credit-worthy
cheapskates[1] see an opportunity to abstract revenue from the system
by reducing their expenditure via a carefully chosen SIM-free phone
plus tariff package.

As I think I mentioned before, the first and most egregious example that
came to light was "glove box phones" which very likely only send £10 of
revenue to the networks in their entire lifetime.

Networks have tried hard over the years to introduce their equivalent of
"standing charges" to fight back a little bit. One I'll be writing about
later (in more detail) in another subthread, is the O2 requirement that
PAYG phones wanting to use the tube Wifi are topped up at least once a
month.

[1] And I'll happily admit I'm one of those.
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 14:33:56 on Thu, 18
Jul 2019, MissRiaElaine remarked:

if the networks hate PAYG so much, why does it still exist..?

PAYG exists, like it always has, to fill a gap in the market for
customers who want a phone but aren't credit-worthy enough to qualify
for a contract (and thus present a risk they are walking out of a shop
with £500 of brand new phone and will never be heard of again).

The problem for the networks (and this is true of many kinds of
discounted market-priced rail tickets as well) that credit-worthy
cheapskates[1] see an opportunity to abstract revenue from the system
by reducing their expenditure via a carefully chosen SIM-free phone
plus tariff package.

As I think I mentioned before, the first and most egregious example that
came to light was "glove box phones" which very likely only send £10 of
revenue to the networks in their entire lifetime.

Networks have tried hard over the years to introduce their equivalent of
"standing charges" to fight back a little bit. One I'll be writing about
later (in more detail) in another subthread, is the O2 requirement that
PAYG phones wanting to use the tube Wifi are topped up at least once a
month.

I seem to recall that it's the same with Virgin itself: PAYG customers can
only use the Virgin Tube WiFi if they topped up their account with at least
£10 the previous month.



[1] And I'll happily admit I'm one of those.

On Thu, 18 Jul 2019 15:18:47 +0100
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 14:33:56 on Thu, 18
Jul 2019, MissRiaElaine remarked:

if the networks hate PAYG so much, why does it still exist..?

PAYG exists, like it always has, to fill a gap in the market for
customers who want a phone but aren't credit-worthy enough to qualify
for a contract (and thus present a risk they are walking out of a shop
with £500 of brand new phone and will never be heard of again).

The problem for the networks (and this is true of many kinds of

A problem they created for themselves so I won't be shedding any tears. They
wanted to attract as many people as possible and they did.

On 18/07/2019 15:18, Roland Perry wrote:

Networks have tried hard over the years to introduce their equivalent of
"standing charges" to fight back a little bit. One I'll be writing about
later (in more detail) in another subthread, is the O2 requirement that
PAYG phones wanting to use the tube Wifi are topped up at least once a
month.

A standing charge equals a contract. Making someone top up monthly is
effectively forcing them onto one in all but name.

[1] And I'll happily admit I'm one of those.

Ditto. My primary reason is I detest spending money unnecessarily (no,
I'm not Scottish, although I do live here..!) - why should I pay £xx a
month for a phone when I don't make many calls..? To me, a mobile is an
emergency device - if I break down in the middle of nowhere (not hard in
this part of the world) then I need to be able to contact someone.

If I want to ring a friend for a chat, or see how my mother is doing, it
can wait until I'm home. My landline package includes all calls to
landlines and mobiles, and is better value than any mobile contract I've
so far come across. I need the landline for broadband, so it makes sense
to use it and reserve the mobile for essential calls when away from home.

I really do wonder what all these people I see walking along the street
with their heads buried in their so-called "smart" phones are doing. Can
they really not survive ten minutes without checking FarceBuke or
Twitface..? How can they see what's on the screen anyway..? Whenever I
tried to use mine in daylight I couldn't see the thing at all..!


--
Ria in Aberdeen

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MissRiaElaine wrote:
On 18/07/2019 15:18, Roland Perry wrote:

Networks have tried hard over the years to introduce their equivalent of
"standing charges" to fight back a little bit. One I'll be writing about
later (in more detail) in another subthread, is the O2 requirement that
PAYG phones wanting to use the tube Wifi are topped up at least once a
month.

A standing charge equals a contract. Making someone top up monthly is
effectively forcing them onto one in all but name.

[1] And I'll happily admit I'm one of those.

Ditto. My primary reason is I detest spending money unnecessarily (no,
I'm not Scottish, although I do live here..!) - why should I pay £xx a
month for a phone when I don't make many calls..? To me, a mobile is an
emergency device - if I break down in the middle of nowhere (not hard in
this part of the world) then I need to be able to contact someone.

If I want to ring a friend for a chat, or see how my mother is doing, it
can wait until I'm home. My landline package includes all calls to
landlines and mobiles, and is better value than any mobile contract I've
so far come across. I need the landline for broadband, so it makes sense
to use it and reserve the mobile for essential calls when away from home.

It's unusual for a land line package to include unlimited calls, 24x7, to
both land lines and mobiles. Conversely, even quite cheap mobile packages
(eg, £7pm) include generous (eg, 1500) numbers of minutes, 24x7, to both
land lines and mobiles.

Consequently, many people now only use their mobiles, with no land line
phone installed (even if they have to pay for the line as part of their
broadband). With FTTP lines, it's the VoIP land line that's the cheap
optional extra (£2pm in my case).


I really do wonder what all these people I see walking along the street
with their heads buried in their so-called "smart" phones are doing. Can
they really not survive ten minutes without checking FarceBuke or
Twitface..? How can they see what's on the screen anyway..? Whenever I
tried to use mine in daylight I couldn't see the thing at all..!

I think many of them are just playing games. Or they're in WhatsApp. If
walking along, maybe they're using it for navigation?

On 18/07/2019 20:26, Recliner wrote:

It's unusual for a land line package to include unlimited calls, 24x7, to
both land lines and mobiles. Conversely, even quite cheap mobile packages
(eg, £7pm) include generous (eg, 1500) numbers of minutes, 24x7, to both
land lines and mobiles.

We're with Sky for FTTC broadband and landline (no TV). Monthly rate is
£35 all in, although I have to admit that was a 'negotiated' rate after
we threatened to leave ;-)

Who is the £7 a month with..? The cheapest mobile contract I can
immediately find just looking quickly was £10 with Three, for two of us
that's £20. Given that we *need* a landline to get broadband, it's a
no-brainer. Also, Three is a lousy signal around here anyway, so there
is little or no chance of using mobile broadband (my experience of it
even in good signal areas is patchy, so zero chance of video streaming etc.)

What do these people with no landlines *do* for their broadband..? They
haven't *all* got VM - even if we wanted that we couldn't have it, as
they don't serve this area and AFAIK have no immediate plans to. And as
I said, mobile broadband in my experience anyway isn't exactly speedy.

--
Ria in Aberdeen

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MissRiaElaine wrote:
On 18/07/2019 20:26, Recliner wrote:

It's unusual for a land line package to include unlimited calls, 24x7, to
both land lines and mobiles. Conversely, even quite cheap mobile packages
(eg, £7pm) include generous (eg, 1500) numbers of minutes, 24x7, to both
land lines and mobiles.

We're with Sky for FTTC broadband and landline (no TV). Monthly rate is
£35 all in, although I have to admit that was a 'negotiated' rate after
we threatened to leave ;-)

Who is the £7 a month with..?

Virgin (which uses the EE network):
https://www.virginmedia.com/mobile/sim-only/pay-monthly-sim



The cheapest mobile contract I can
immediately find just looking quickly was £10 with Three, for two of us
that's £20. Given that we *need* a landline to get broadband, it's a
no-brainer.

Luckily I no longer need an Openreach phone line to get broadband, and no,
I don't use VM. And my speeds are now much higher, particularly for upload:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/recliner/48256450187/in/dateposted/


Also, Three is a lousy signal around here anyway, so there
is little or no chance of using mobile broadband (my experience of it
even in good signal areas is patchy, so zero chance of video streaming etc.)

Yes, it's very location dependent.


What do these people with no landlines *do* for their broadband..? They
haven't *all* got VM - even if we wanted that we couldn't have it, as
they don't serve this area and AFAIK have no immediate plans to. And as
I said, mobile broadband in my experience anyway isn't exactly speedy.


They probably just use mobile data on their phones if out of WiFi range.

MissRiaElaine wrote:
On 18/07/2019 20:26, Recliner wrote:

It's unusual for a land line package to include unlimited calls, 24x7, to
both land lines and mobiles. Conversely, even quite cheap mobile packages
(eg, £7pm) include generous (eg, 1500) numbers of minutes, 24x7, to both
land lines and mobiles.

We're with Sky for FTTC broadband and landline (no TV). Monthly rate is
£35 all in, although I have to admit that was a 'negotiated' rate after
we threatened to leave ;-)

Who is the £7 a month with..? The cheapest mobile contract I can
immediately find just looking quickly was £10 with Three, for two of us
that's £20. Given that we *need* a landline to get broadband, it's a
no-brainer. Also, Three is a lousy signal around here anyway, so there
is little or no chance of using mobile broadband (my experience of it
even in good signal areas is patchy, so zero chance of video streaming etc.)

What do these people with no landlines *do* for their broadband..? They
haven't *all* got VM - even if we wanted that we couldn't have it, as
they don't serve this area and AFAIK have no immediate plans to. And as
I said, mobile broadband in my experience anyway isn't exactly speedy.


I have a landline installed but it’s never had a telephone connected to it.
In the previous place I lived, I did have a telephone connected, and the
only calls I ever received were for previous users of that number.


Anna Noyd-Dryver