The war on phone bills isn't over yet. Tim, Vodafone, Wind Tre and Fastweb, solicited first by Parliament with a law that prohibits invoicing every 28 days and then by Agcom who fined them and obliged to reimburse users for the unfair practice (through the reversal, in the first monthly bill, of the amounts requested from users for the "eroded" days starting from 23 June 2017, the date by which they should have already complied), they go back to monthly billing, but without renouncing the major income that derived from that every 4 weeks.
And that is raising the rates, as Tim and Vodafone have already announced, which will return to the monthly bill starting by 5 April 2018 according to the provisions of the law, but which have already announced increases of 8,6% to their customers, while Wind Tre has not yet made known of any – but probable at this point – increases. In fact, the risk is that of a agreement between all operators so that customers cannot escape price increases. At the moment, Vodafone has decided to increase the costs of the Vodafone Special 20 GB offer, bringing it to 10,86 cents against the usual 10 euros. An increase of 8,6%, like the one communicated by Tim.
Politics is also at the forefront of the matter, in particular the Democratic Party: the parliamentarians Alessia Morani, Simona Malpezzi, Stefano Esposito and Alessia Rotta presented a complaint to the Antitrust and Agcom to control the activities of the operators precisely so that they do not form a cartel. The deputies underlined how the invoices every 4 weeks have brought good profits to the operators, with completely unjustified increases due to the extra annual monthly salary, and quantifiable precisely in the 8,6% which coincidentally is the percentage increase in the operators' tariffs who have already communicated it.
The annual costs remain the same, simply the renewals become 12 instead of 13, say the operators. Rabiding by the 60-day deadline set by the new legislation, as can be read, for example, on the Vodafone website, "we have begun to inform all customers of the changes to the terms of the contract and the right to exercise the right of withdrawal or transfer to another operator without penalty within 30 days from the receipt of the communication". As regards the thesis of unjustified increases, it should be remembered that according to Istat data, from 2010 to 2016 the prices of mobile and fixed network communication services in Italy decreased by 17%, in the presence of a general price index which rose by 8%.
Furthermore, the per capita expenditure on telecommunications services in Italy is lower than that of the main western countries: 22 pounds on average, compared to 55 in the USA, 39 in the UK, 26 in Germany and 23 in France. However, this does not mean that the practice of 28-day bills has been judged incorrect and that it is no longer applicable. While there will be a battle over price increases, probably to the detriment of consumers.
