Why "Nobody" Worries About Phone Costs, Anymore

As recently as 2001, it was still possible to say, with a straight face, that “corporate phone bills are a budget buster.” A decade later, can it honestly be said that phone bills are a significant enterprise cost of doing business?

Possibly. Mobile calling now represents two thirds of all business calling minutes in the United Kingdom, for example. So one might argue that it is not voice calling costs, but possibly the cost of mobile subscriptions which are a significant issue for enterprises.

Mobile data charges might be said to be the big current issue, but even there, costs per megabyte have dropped from about 46 cents per megabyte in 2008 to about three cents per megabyte by 2012. That’s an order of magnitude drop in just four to five years.

But at least in developed markets, it is harder than ever to argue that communications costs, for landline voice, mobile voice, fixed network data or mobile data are a “big” cost item for most businesses or individuals. That doesn’t mean there are no problem areas, or that people will not complain.

Overall, as a percentage of total costs of doing business, or as a percent of consumer discretionary spending, mobile or other communications are not a big driver of personal or business spending, on a percentage of total spending.

There are some problem areas, in particular the cost of trans-border mobile calls and trans-border mobile data cost. But high costs always create an incentive for over the top alternatives, spur regulatory action to force lower costs and hence also will eventually become less an issue. In most other cases, communication costs simply are falling.

Whether for consumers or businesses, communication costs tend to be low single digits kinds of operating cost or personal spending categories.

People still gripe, of course. People still complain about the cost of mobile phone service or broadband access. One rarely hears much about the cost of consumer fixed network phone service, in part because the incremental cost, in a triple play bundle, is relatively slight.

Without a doubt, people and organizations will continue to benefit from better features and lower prices. People still will gripe. But communication costs, for the most part, just aren’t a big cost driver for most businesses or a burdensome expense for most consumers in developed economies.