The Vienna Chamber of Labour (Arbeiterkammer Wien or AK) said costs for average to frequent mobile phone and mobile data users went up by between 29 percent and 78 percent from September 2013 until December 2014. The largest rise in prices was for budget monthly tariffs. AK said it is mainly a matter of higher standing charges, and although more and more talktime and SMS are being included at the same time, the allowances are generally far more than customers can use.
The average price rise for pre-paid cards without data was 29 percent, and the average rise for contract customers was 56 percent, again without mobile data, and looking at average users. For frequent users including mobile internet, the average price increase was 58 percent. There was a 78 percent average increase in costs for people who ring and text a lot but who do not surf the web on their mobile devices. In certain cases, rates had even doubled. AK said that registration fees have risen by about 40 perrcent at A1 Austria Telekom, T-Mobile Austria and 3 Austria (Drei).
