Pay monthly contract tariffs incur a monthly line rental. Customers must sign a contract with the mobile provider stating that they agree to pay the monthly line rental for at least the initial contract period. This is normally 12, 18 or 24 months.
As part of the deal, most providers will give you free minutes. If the free minutes are “cross network”, you can call people on other mobile networks for free. If the free minutes are “same network”, you can only call people on the same network for free and you must pay a per minute rate to call people on other networks. In most cases, you can call a landline (01 or 02 UK number) as part of your free minutes. The mobile provider will give you a fixed amount of free minutes that you can use per month. In some cases, you can carry unused minutes over to the next month. Outside of the free minutes, the rate you pay per minute is usually much lower than a pay as you go tariff. You can even get a set amount of free text messages per month with some mobile tariffs.
It is possible to get discounted or free monthly line rental as well as free minutes and text messages. The discount or free line rental is usually for a set period of time but in some cases can be for the entire contract period. Usually you send your mobile bill to the mobile retailer or provider and they will refund you the line rental.
