Credit: ILR
The statistical and market watch department of the Luxembourg Institute for Regulation (ILR) has published its study on mobile phone deals, which covers deals offered by telecommunications service providers at the start of 2021.
The study aims to present in a synthetic and transparent way the cheapest costs of mobile phone offers as well as those of service bundles of fixed internet access for each of the consumption profiles previously defined by the ILR. The results of the study are established according to the methodology defined by the institute which consists of determining the monthly costs of each offer consulted for the defined consumption profiles, then selecting the two cheapest offers from each provider for each of these profiles.
For this edition, six consumption profiles including calls, SMS and mobile internet were determined according to a level of use varying from low (P1) to very intensive (P6).
The monthly cost of the cheapest offers was between €10 for moderate consumption profiles in mobile internet (P2 and P3) and €39 for the very intensive consumption profile, P6. The high and intensive mobile internet consumption profiles P4 and P5 recorded a cost of €20 and €29 respectively for the cheapest offer.
In one year, the monthly cost of the cheapest offer decreased by between 18.4% and 41.2% for medium to intensive consumption profiles (P3, P4, P5); the largest decrease in the monthly cost was recorded for the P3 profile. For the lower consumption profiles, P1 and P2, the cost remained stable or decreased by 3.8% compared to 2020. The introduction of 5G has therefore not led to an increase in the monthly cost of using mobile services for the average consumer in Luxembourg.
For each profile, there were several offers where the packages and the level of monthly costs were comparable. The consumer therefore has the choice between several mobile service offers from different providers for a similar monthly cost.
Consumers can identify the profile that most closely matches their own mobile service consumption and select the offer that best meets their needs at an attractive cost. The ILR recalled that it is in consumers' interests to take note of the offers offered by the five providers active in the mobile services market and to compare them in order to select the offer that best meets their needs, both in terms of the plan and the services offered.
The ILR also noted that the results of this study reflect the situation of the retail telecommunications services market in early 2021, which is likely to change rapidly given the dynamism of the market.
