German telecom prices drop 3%, mobile prices down 11%

bealtine

German telecom prices drop 3%, mobile prices down 11%
Published: Monday 8 January 2007 | 09:13 AM CET


The price index for all telecommunication services (fixed, mobile, internet) in Germany decreased by 3 percent during 2006, driven by a 10.7 percent decrease of the price index for mobile telephony services, compared with 3 percent during 2005 and 1.1 percent during 2004 according to the German statistics office. The total telecom price index in December 2006 dropped 1.8 percent compared with December 2005, and the mobile price index was 6.3 percent lower than in December 2005.

The fixed telephony price index decreased by 0.2 percent during 2006, driven by lower tariffs for calls to mobile numbers (1.6%) and to international destinations (0.9%). The December prices were 0.2 percent lower in 2006 than in 2005. The prices for internet access decreased by 5.1 percent during 2006, while the prices in December 2006 were 5.3 percent lower than in December 2005 and 0.9 percent lower than in November 2006.

crawler

Kind of a global pattern really - which we have the highest ARPU in mobile world, prices generally per unit of service have dropped, mind you, you would need a degree in something clever to work out what you actually pay for a mobile call at different times of the day.

Different in fixed line due to high line rental - the overall impact of which artificially keeps the true price high for a service that costs nothing (yes, I know network sustainability etc etc) to provide, per se.

1huge1

Yes prices have dropped here but in my opinion at a much slower rate than other countries, im on about the mobile market.
In the fixed line market we have one the highest line rentals in the world they can decrease the prices all they want its still going to be expensive imo

I also think our mobile networks would be a lot more expensive if it wernt for netowkr like meteor and 3 bringing some badly needed competetion to the market. Also with the arrival of tesco mobile in the next few months prices will drop even further. But if you compare us to other countries our mobile market is still a lot more expensive though I have to admit we are ahead in some ways e.g webtexts were one of the few countries that offers this service (bar 3)

and from my experience germany's mobile market was quiet expensive
my german cousin is on vodafone and he said it was 19c a text (was 3 years ago but vodafone hasnt gone down in price here in the last 3 years so it might be the same case there)

carrotcake

Yep, still 19c per text with Vodafone Germany as well as T-Mobile and O2. Prepaid services from the main four operators are generally overpriced compared to Ireland.

However, many MVNOs have sprung up in the last year or so, which has likely caused the overall drop in mobile rates. One of the cheapest for example is blau which charges 16c per minute to all German mobiles and landlines any time of the day.

Urban Weigl

In Germany, contract phones are significantly cheaper. You usually get high end phones for free, and can get inexpensive flat rates where you don't pay for calls anymore. For example, O2 offers a home zone all you can eat service for €20 a month, where you get a landline number on your mobile in addition to a mobile number, and you can make unlimited calls to all landline numbers and the entire O2 network. They also offer a "Germany flat" for €35 a month.

SkepticOne

Urban Weigl wrote:

In Germany, contract phones are significantly cheaper. You usually get high end phones for free, and can get inexpensive flat rates where you don't pay for calls anymore. For example, O2 offers a home zone all you can eat service for €20 a month, where you get a landline number on your mobile in addition to a mobile number, and you can make unlimited calls to all landline numbers and the entire O2 network. They also offer a "Germany flat" for €35 a month.

Can't see that being the case in Ireland. Not for some time at least.