When I moved out to Belgium a few months ago to work for Proximus (full disclosure etc) I was astonished at how cheap mobile contracts are compared to the UK. It is forbidden for companies to subsidise the handsets, so they are charged full price, but the cost of a contract is very low.
For example, I currently pay 5 euros a month for a contract including 20 minutes of any time any network calls...that's less than 3.50 ukp...
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Cheap in Belgium
When I moved out to Belgium a few months ago to work for Proximus (full disclosure etc) I was astonished at how cheap mobile contracts are compared to the UK. It is forbidden for companies to subsidise the handsets, so they are charged full price, but the cost of a contract is very low.
For example, I currently pay 5 euros a month for a contract including 20 minutes of any time any network calls...that's less than 3.50 ukp...
http://customer.proximus.be/en/Smile/SMI_Rates.html
Although - to be fair, the data rates still aren't fantastic...