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Report Unveils Mobile Data Pricing Trends

May 22, 2013 |
HELSINKI -- Mobile operators charge over 3 times more for a gigabyte in Germany than in the UK and up to 15 times more than in some small EU member states like Finland, research reveals. It is their interest in sizeable European fixed broadband businesses that keeps owners of Germany’s networks from driving competition in the mobile sector, says Rewheel.

Rewheel, the Finland based telecoms consultancy specialised in mobile data has carried out a comprehensive research of all smartphone and dedicated mobile data tariffs in the EU27 member states during April and May 2013. What makes Rewheel’s research different from other mobile tariff benchmarks is that in addition to simply tracking the tariffs Rewheel has also characterised pricing of different telco groups and assessed the impact of protective versus competitive pricing practices to mobile internet adoption and efficiency of using national radio spectrum resources.

Rewheel urges Neelie Kroes, EU’s Commissioner in charge of the Digital Agenda to consider the research, especially its findings for Germany, EU’s largest internal market, before finalising her proposal for a single European electronic communications market, to be presented to the European Council in June 2013.

German smartphone tariffs and data only mobile packages are among the most expensive in EU. While a gigabyte of data volume on smartphones costs, on average, over €24 in Germany, in the UK it costs €7 and in Finland only €1.6, including comparable amount of traditional voice minutes and SMSs. As for data only tariffs for laptops and tablets, on average, a gigabyte costs €6 in Germany, €4.5 in the UK and as low as €0.7 in Finland. High prices inhibit mobile internet adoption in Germany: the mobile internet user penetration is below the EU average. Moreover, the utilisation of Germany’s national radio spectrum resources – expressed as mobile data volume consumption per capita – is over ten times lower than the level observed in the most progressive member states, like Finland.

Economy of scale has been the main argument behind envisioning a new EU telecoms landscape dominated by a few large pan-European mobile network infrastructures. But the sharp contrast between the poorly performing large German and the top performer small Finnish mobile market proves that economies of scale in customer bases and infrastructure has little to do with cost and radio spectrum efficiency, says Rewheel.

Rewheel Ltd.



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