Mobile phone company Three is pushing for another round of big price increases for its paying customers, with the cost of making a call rising by 250% inflation.
The higher costs of calls, data and text messages will be a blow to households already struggling with rising living costs. Britons over the age of 65 and low-income households use prepaid mobiles more.
Starting July 12, the cost of a call will increase from 10 to 35 p per minute. The cost of sending a text message will increase by 50% to 15%, while data will be doubled by up to 10% per MB.
This is the second largest increase in children under 18 months since Tres, and in total the cost of calls will be multiplied by ten. In February 2021 it increased the call rate from 3p to 10p.
In a statement, Tres said: “Like many mobile phone providers, we need to review and revise our prices. Our new tariffs remain competitive across the market.”
Price increases only affect traditional PAYG customers who “top up” their credit, rather than buying a data packet, so they are charged every minute, text, and MB of data as they use it. .
Three declined to say how many of its 1.6 million PAYG customers still use their phones this way. Encourage customers to buy their data packages starting at £ 10 a month. They offer unlimited minutes and text messages, as well as cheaper data, but the bonus is only valid for one month, so users need to top up regularly.
The company said it was investing more than £ 2bn to ensure it had a solid 4G and 5G network capable of providing better connectivity to customers.
“We continue to focus on improving the customer experience and delivering better value to our new PAYG services, giving customers access to more competitive and 5G offerings at no additional cost,” the company said, adding that it had started contacting customers before the price increase on July 12th.
Ofcom’s most recent research found that 14% of Britons use a prepaid mobile phone, with the lion’s share of users with a contract tied to their phone or a sim-only deal.
The report also showed that while among those under the age of retirement only one in 10 uses a prepaid phone, for those aged 65 to 74 this figure rises to 23% and for those over 75 is 34%. Prepaid phones are also more common in lower-income households; while 8% of AB socioeconomic groups use them, for EDs this figure is 22%.