It is also the crisis among the operators. If you subscribe to mobile or landline offers from Orange, SFR or Bouygues Telecom, your bills will increase. Orange, already announced the bad news last week. Its competitors are following suit.
For the incumbent operator, the increase in tariffs is inevitable as we encounter a period of global economic crisis. Orange says to himself “directly impacted by a sharp increase in its operating costs, particularly in terms of energy, procurement and materials”. The operator expects an explosion in its energy bill for the networks of around 120%.
He assures that the increases could have been much more significant if he had passed on all cost increases to the final price. “The prices of our offers remain among the cheapest in Europe” he tempers.
From 1 to 3 euros increase
It is true that the increase at Orange remains contained. The operator announces an increase of 1 euro on all Orange and Sosh mobile plans, as well as on Orange and Sosh fiber offers. Sosh’s ADSL offers will also increase by 1 euro per month.
For Orange ADSL customers, those who have subscribed to an Open offer, the monthly bill will increase by 2 euros. For Open customers, you will also have to add 1 euro more per mobile line.
At Bouygues Telecom, the price increase can reach 3 euros per month from January 2023, on the most affordable B&You package. Offered at 4.99 euros per month, it will be sold for 7.99 euros per month, an increase of 60%! The other packages will increase by 1 to 3 euros depending on the formulas. The Bbox Fit offer will cost 2 euros more per month.
Finally, SFR has announced that most mobile and fixed offers will also increase from January 2023. For the operator in the red square, the increase is more contained : from 0.69 euro to 0.99 euro depending on the packages. He justifies this decision by “the general increase in the costs that make up the price of the service (electronic components, raw materials, logistics)”.
Free undertakes to “not touch the prices” for 5 years
Of the four major operators, only Free keeps the same prices for 2023. “We have made a commitment not to touch the price of these packages for the next five years and we are the only operator not to increase the price of our packages” welcomes the operator to the Parisian.
The price has always been at the heart of the Free and Free Mobile offers. With the first Freebox, Xavier Niel already struck a blow. But it is especially with Free Mobile that the troublemaker of telecoms came to upset a market hitherto dominated by Orange, SFR and Bouygues Telecom.
At the time, the rates for mobile offers were skyrocketing. The operators then ensured that these tariffs were necessary for the proper functioning of the infrastructures and the preparation of future networks. However, at the end of 2005, the Competition Council sentenced the three players to pay a record fine for unlawful price fixing. Orange, SFR and Bouygues were then ordered to pay 215 million, 185 million and 42 million euros respectively.
