Within just the past few years there has been an explosion in the mobile phone industry and it is virtually impossible to go through an entire day without seeing someone on the street, in a shop, restaurant or the workplace talking, texting or browsing on a phone. Mobile phones have taken over our lives and the sad part about it is that so many consumers are either paying too much or wasting the free minutes that come as part of their plans. This is according to a recent study conducted by Carphone Warehouse.
The group believes that in the UK alone more than £5 billion is wasted each year on mobile phone plans and of that at least £173 million is the result of data charges used while accessing the internet. Since there are so many smartphones on the market that have internet capabilities, this just adds further confusion to a market that is already highly complex. The average mobile phone user simply doesn’t know exactly what his or her plan entails and that there very well could be a cheaper plan out there.
Furthermore, to confound the issue, there are more than 7 million mobile phone deals available in the UK which is the biggest part of the problem. There are simply too many deals to sift through in order to make the best decision on which plan is best suited for that particular user. Additionally, even having an app stored on a phone can use up costly data charges even when the app is not being used and why there is an outcry in the community to take steps to rectify this situation.
Applications like Twitter and Facebook can eat up data usage silently in the background and why monthly bills can run so high unbeknownst to the mobile phone owner. Most mobile phone owners don’t even understand how much just a single megabyte is costing them when used outside the plan they subscribe to and those same people are totally confused by the jargon used when pricing features and apps. The bottom line is that users should take that extra time involved in researching plans so that hidden fees don’t double, triple and even quadruple the bills they ‘think’ they will be paying.
