Could unbundling be the cheaper way to finance your mobile phone infrastructure?

The vast majority of people will be familiar with the typical ‘bundled’ mobile phone contract. A 24-month deal, locked into the same network provider, with the same handset resulting in next to nothing in terms of flexibility. However, less of us are familiar with the unbundled approach. In enterprise mobility solutions unbundling essentially means you buy the handset and tariff plan separately rather than it being rolled into one monthly price. With a standard bundled contract the telco’s often disguise the cost of the handset within your monthly bill leaving us with the image that the handset is ‘free’. In reality this isn’t the case as you’ll probably be paying for the handset with a hidden APR charge of around 30% on top.

In the B2C market we are witnessing a shift in popularity from the bundled model to the unbundled model in the form of sim-only contracts. Over a 24-month period we found the cost savings of unbundling could be up to 28% and just over £400 per device in some circumstances*. If we were to apply a £400 saving per device to a large enterprise with over 3,000 phones, per se, then the savings unbundling could enable would be extremely compelling. With the B2B market however, clarity on cost savings can be clouded by the ‘tech funds’ that telco’s provide. Tech funds have been a way for the telco’s to attract and retain customers by offering organisations ‘free money’. Once again this isn’t actually the case and yet again the telco’s will disguise the true cost of ownership within the tariff package. Our recommendation would be to look into your current network package and find out how much you could save by separating the handset from the tariff. 

*iPhone X 64GB 8GB data, unlimited texts/unlimited minutes. Data correct as of 19.01.2018*