Cutting the cost of keeping in touch

A cut-price deal from One.Tel on mobile phone calls has highlighted what many users have known for some time: you can considerably reduce the cost of keeping in touch if you shop around on the web.

One.Tel's 'one size fits all' deal, which relies on a bulk airtime deal with Vodafone, represents good value for money at £4.99 'line rental' plus per-minute charges of 15p during peak times (7am to 7pm weekdays), 5p weekday off-peak and just 3p on Saturdays and Sundays.

One.Tel is looking for contract rather than pre-pay users, but you can get group accounts for just £2.99 per extra user per month, which includes a personal Sim card and phone number.

Unusually for such a low-cost tariff, cross-network calls (those outside Vodafone's network) are cheaper than the competition at 40p per minute peak and 30p off-peak.

If you already have a handset that is not locked to a particular service you can use it with a One.Tel Sim costing £10. Currently, only Vodafone users and O2 (formerly BTcellnet) contract users can do this without resorting to one of the many independent cellular dealers who will unlock a handset for £10 to £15.

Handsets available from One.Tel include a Nokia 3310 for £49.99, the Sony J7 at £79.99, the Nokia 5210 at £119.99, the Siemens S45 at £149.99, and the stylish Sony-Ericsson T68i at £279.99.

One.Tel isn't actively promoting international calling or roaming facilities on its mobile accounts, although the facilities are available if you wish.

You are, however, automatically signed up for the company's international telephone service, which offers ultra-cheap outbound discount rates.

You can trim your costs further by using a new service from discount telco Justdial called Cross Network Connect. Its existing service gives you cut-price international calls simply by dialling a selection of local and national rate numbers. Details are on its site at www.just-dial.com.

The company uses a variety of third-party carriers to handle its calls, paying for them with the revenue it receives from these calls.

The new service extends this idea to cross-network calls. It is very simple to use: ring 0871 425 6263 and wait for a dial tone which allows you to call almost any UK mobile phone number. The cost depends on your carrier's charge for 0871 calls - between 8p and 3p a minute from a BT landline.

Mobile 0871 calls are normally charged at standard national rates. So the new service allows One.Tel users to pay just 15p a minute during peak times to call non-Vodafone mobile numbers.

Be aware, though, that the mobile networks are starting to become aware of Justdial's service, and a few Vodafone service providers are surcharging 0871 numbers at the rate of 20p a minute. It will pay you to check what your mobile carrier is charging on 0871 numbers, but even 20p a minute is a lot less than most contract and prepay mobile users pay for cross-network calls.

Money-saving options from One.Tel and Justdial are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to cutting the cost of mobile phone calls. There's a multiplicity of deals exploiting the peculiar economics of the mobile industry by which network operators offer handsets at well below cost in exchange for sign-ups on which they can recoup their money.

These subsidies, which can amount to several hundred pounds with a contract deal, have masked the true cost of handsets since services first started in the UK in the mid-1980s. If you already have a handset you can still get the benefit of network subsidies via a number of dealers, most of them on the web, who will cheerfully apply it to the cost of a 12-month package deal.

You can, for example, sign up for a 12-month '200 minutes free' Vodafone bundle for as little as £30 instead of paying £15 a month for a year.

Most of these so-called Sim-only (because you buy a card rather than a handset) contract deals are not as cheap as they might first appear, as they charge up to £2 a month for itemised billing. They also tend to charge up to 50p a minute for cross-network numbers, although with the Justdial service this doesn't really matter.

But provided you're aware of the pitfalls, a Sim-only deal from the likes of Mobile Shop and Sim Only can make a very good buy. There's a useful index at www.hairydog.co.uk.

Scotland's Mobil One currently offers a wide range of O2 and Vodafone Sim-only packages. These include an O2 Low Cost Calls deal at £24.99 with free itemised billing and call rates of 10p a minute, and a Vodafone off-peak package deal of 700 minutes a month for just £34.99.

Because the range of choices is so wide with Sim-only deals, it pays to check what is and is not included. It's no good signing up for what appears to be a cheap deal if you're paying through the nose for certain calls.

This is what makes the One.Tel offering so attractive, because even peak-rate calls are 15p a minute, around a third of what other low-cost deals charge for office hours calls. Do your research well, and you'll save a fortune.

YOUR MOBILE OPTIONS

ONE.TEL Low per-minute charges plus £4.99 'line rental' a month.
www.onetel.co.uk

JUSTDIAL Just dial a number for discounts. New offer for cross-network calls.
www.just-dial.com

SIM ONLY Cheap deals for people with handsets. Sites listed at www.hairydog.co.uk/simonly.html.

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