Are UK Consumers Paying Too Much for 4G Mobile Broadband Data

How much Mobile Broadband data does your 4G mobile plan include and is it too expensive? A new report from Point Topic has revealed significant variations in 4G pricing and data caps across Europe, with UK consumers appearing to exist in one of the more expensive markets.

Firstly, let’s see what we can get for around £20 per month in terms of data centric SIM-Only Smartphone plans (12 month contract and excluding discounts). Three UK will give you about 12GB of data (plus 200 mins, unlimited texts), while EE can do 10GB (unlimited mins / texts), O2 offers 10GB (unlimited mins / texts) and Vodafone’s closest is a £22 option with just 5GB (unlimited mins / texts).

The plans vary like the wind and Three UK even has an “all-you-can-eat” data option for a few extra pounds, although it’s important to note that they do cap Tethering and so do a few others.

Suffice to say that establishing a baseline isn’t easy and there’s a lot of choice out there, but in terms of average data allowances the United Kingdom does seem to suffer (around 10GB for UK residential plans vs the crazy heights of 150GB in Denmark). A least the major EU economies are all be in the same boat, if that’s any consolation.

The news only seems to get worse because not only do residential consumers in the UK suffer from less attractive data allowances, but we also appear to pay more per GigaByte (GB) of data than most of the other EU states ($4+ per GB). At least we’re nowhere near the extremes of Malta ($13.9 per GB) or Germany ($10+ per GB).

Take note that Point Topic has used US Dollars for their report and applied a measure of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), thus we’re not going to do a direct GBP conversion in our summary (£1 = $1.26 today).

Point Topic also looked at the impact on countries that have 4G plans with larger 50GB data caps, which they chose because it can apparently be regarded as at least to some extent comparable to fixed broadband allowances (very difficult to do in countries like the UK where, “unlimited” home broadband packages are common).

For example, for 50GB of data on 4G plans consumers in the UK had to pay $87 (PPP) per month in Q3 2016. In the same period, residents in Sweden, Poland and Lithuania would have paid three to four times less for the same Mobile Broadband data volume.

In Q3 2016, Denmark appeared to be the best country for getting a 4G LTE subscription. Danish operators offered the highest data allowance in Europe at 500GB a month for $53 (PPP). The best data offers consumers could get for a similar monthly price in other countries were 100GB in Slovakia, 60GB in Cyprus, 50GB in Norway, and 40GB in France, to mention a few.

Since then, some mobile operators have introduced unlimited data plans to meet the ever-increasing demand for data and it’s notable that Point Topic doesn’t seem to mention Three UK’s “all-you-can-eat” tariffs.

Dr Jolanta Stanke, Research Director at Point Topic, said:

“To compete with fixed broadband offerings, mobile broadband providers must offer high enough monthly data allowances at reasonable prices for users to be able to enjoy online video and music as well as other data hungry apps. However, even some well developed countries still have some way to go.”

The UK has some of the most affordable fixed line broadband connections in the world, yet the situation seems to be going in reverse for 4G Mobile. At least fixed line providers will be happy to know that their data advantage still holds.

So why is data so pricey in the UK? Some of this may be at least partly attributable to the delays in getting 4G to market over this side of the channel (other EU countries were able to roll-out much earlier), although the wholesale cost of actually building the necessary network capacity and supplying it can also be significant.

Mind you some of these challenges are shared in other EU states, often those where the prices for data continue to be lower than ours. On the other hand if mobile data was ultra-cheap then we might end up with a situation like the one that exists within the fixed line market, where it becomes harder to find the money needed to upgrade the network to the best technology.

We’d like to thank Point Topic for being kind enough to supply us with some additional data, much of which isn’t available in their free analysis report.