Cheap mobile plans often hide a nasty surprise that arrives after several months of use

Several studies report falling prices for the majority of mobile plans in France. But this decline hides a practice as discreet as it is problematic of the operators…

Since the arrival of Free in France, the price of our mobile packages has fallen drastically. The different operators present on the market now use and abuse promotional offers and price changes to remain attractive and encourage you to go to them rather than the competition. The market mobile plans is now very aggressive with operators often aligning with each other and offering several options and bonuses depending on the offer you select.

But a large part of mobile operators play on a key criterion to modulate their prices: the number of internet data available with the package. Thus, the least expensive packages on the market are in reality very poorly endowed in data, with sometimes only 2 GB per month, which represents very little compared to the average monthly consumption of the French, which is estimated at around 15 GB. Just check out a few social media and online videos and you'll be over the limit and incur additional charges.

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To adapt the package to its consumption, it is therefore necessary sooner or later to switch to packages with greater capacities. But very often, operators offer consumers packages with much more data… or even too much, without providing an alternative or a happy medium. The technique is simple: offer a volume of data well above the use that is made of it, and then increase the price of the package concerned in proportions that are also exaggerated. This is why we often see users who are very angry with their operators on social networks because they see the prices of their packages climb over the months.

The main argument put forward is to stick to market trends or to justify a significant amount of internet data. But at the end of the process, some customers will have a data amount that is far too high for their uses, to the point of 20 or even 100 GB, which they will never have the leisure to use fully. The increase is not always detected by the latter in the first few months, but it allows the operator to justify a price increase by citing a large amount of internet data available in the package.

To combat this, there are two techniques: the first consists of choose operators that automatically align with average internet data consumption. Unfortunately, this mainly concerns virtual operators such as NRJ Mobile, Lyca Mobile or La Poste Mobile. The other technique is to simply change your plan regularly according to price increases in order to ensure that you have the best value for money available.