Three UK Hike Prices for Outside of Allowance Calls and Extra Services
Mobile operator Three UK, which recently hit some customers with an inflation busting annual price hike of 4.5% (here), has now also begun to inform them that the price they pay for certain Outside of Allowance Calls and Additional Services will be going up sharply in price from 1st July 2021.
Some of the headline changes this time around include a huge rise in the cost of international calls – outside of your allowance – from the UK to non-EU countries, which will jump from £1.75 today to £2.75 from July. Sending an international text from the UK to non-EU countries will also jump from 35p to 65p, while the cost of issuing Itemised Paper Bills jumps from £1.50 to £2.50.
The email to customers, which has been seen by ISPreview.co.uk (Credits to Sam), states: “We’re investing over £2 billion to ensure we have a network capable of delivering better connectivity, every day, for every customer. We also always try to offer you the best possible value and so, for almost three years, the cost of Outside of Allowance Calls and our Additional Service prices have remained the same. We continue to offer you great value, but occasionally we need to review our prices. So we’re writing to let you know from 1 July 2021, some of these prices are going up.”
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Many of these extra charges can of course be avoided by ensuring that you pick the right package or calling add-on to reduce your risk of exposure to excess costs, which is particularly important when it comes to any calls being made to non-EU countries. But other hikes may be harder for some people to avoid.
What’s Changing?
The embedded link in the image above goes here.
UPDATE 4:04pm
We’ve been sent a new statement on the change.
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A Spokesperson for Three UK said:
“Like many mobile providers, from time to time to we have to review and revise our pricing. As a result, from 1 July the price of Excess to Bundle calls and some Out of Bundle Services will be increasing. These are optional or extra services, such as international calls or when a customer exceeds their allowance and will therefore will not impact a customer’s standard monthly bill unless they use these services. This increase reflects our continued commitment to invest in our network and improve customer experience and provide better connectivity every day for every customer.”
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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There’s a link in the “calls to international special numbers from the uk” section but obviously being an image it isn’t clickable. Is it possible to know the URL it leads to?
Yes it goes here:
http://support.three.co.uk/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBISAPI.DLL/,/?New,Kb=Mobile,Ts=Mobile,T=CaseDoc,Case=obj(31080)
Thanks Mark. I work in the “international premium rate” business so this is interesting to me. They’re really trying to cash in!
What a con. Out-of-allowance calls are 65p per minute, but PAYG calls are 10p per minute. It’s clear that “We’re investing…” is just an excuse, whereas the reality is that Three see an excuse to milk customers who are locked in contracts.
Is there a good reason why out-of-allowance rates should be dramatically higher than pay-as-you-go rates?
What contract could a customer possibly be on that doesn’t include unlimited minutes in the last 24 months? They’ve not sold a contract plan with less than unlimited minutes for a while. This would effect as good as nobody apart from people on legacy plans with say a 500 minute allowance – who then go over their allowance and would be charged. Whilst I’m not a fan of Three they certainly don’t milk customers since they constantly have low cost plans – albeit for a service not as good as the other 3 networks. Stop whining.
What a joke this company is. Remember this always, during this pandemic they drastically hiked their prices twice to take advantage of their customers (as this is one industry not negatively hit by the pandemic, as mobile providers are having usage numbers through the roof by everyone working at home).
I switched from these grifters to 1p-mobile PAYG after the first price hike and have never looked back.
They’ve got to claw back the constant credits and free month’s they throw out at customers for high contention masts month after month. Actually doing something would be much more beneficial for them as a company.
Out of allowance costs have been raised by all networks. Vodafone is just as expensive.
Most have plans that have unlimited voice so we’ll never see a 65p charge for calls.
The international calls are disappearing. That’s why I have a Voda PAYG SIM to call Canada 1p a min.
They have paid a premium on 5g auctions and now they are all passing to to the customers .
They are all a bit out of touch with customers and I could say a lot.
Ofcom should intervene as a matter of urgency and they said they were giving this free and that free well its get free now and pay later.
It’s all a stunt to be honest ok.
I further think they should do alot and if they want my advice I charge like they do ok.