Mobile telephone bills important to young people - and they want better control

Mobile phone users are getting younger, and currently 17 per cent of seven year olds has a mobile phone, while 98 per cent of 14-15 year olds have a mobile phone. Many of these have parents who help them pay their mobile phone bills and we see that increasing numbers of young people use their weekly spending money, etc. on phone bills. In a survey carried out for Telenor, 75 per cent of the 15-29 year olds asked said they think it's important to have control over mobile phone expenses, and more than a third want better control than they have today. At the same time, the same group says that if they have to prioritise what they spend their money on, mobile phone bills are more important than a night on the town, going to the cinema or a restaurant, or buying snacks.

"We see that the mobile phone is becoming increasingly important to the youth market when they communicate, so it is not surprising that paying their mobile bill is a high priority," says Jon Erik Haug, Vice President Mobile consumer market. "At the same time, we see that more young mobile users experience problems paying their mobile bills, and that they want better control over costs. So today, we are launching a new subscription to help especially young users have better control over the costs," says Haug.

"djuice control" is a subscription where the customer pays NOK 200 per month and can use the entire amount until it is empty. The subscription includes 30 SMS messages and 10 MMS messages per month, and WAP costs max. NOK 10 per day. During the first month, WAP, MMS and Mobile TV (NRK and TV2) are free, and during the summer it will cost nothing to set up a subscription. Text messages will cost NOK 0.69 per SMS, MMS NOK 1.99 per message and calls NOK 1.99 per minute.

At the same time djuice launches control, Telenor is launching yet another pre-paid subscription: "Kort&Kontant". Kort&Kontant will be particularly competitive in this sector, with calls costing NOK 0.99 per minute to all customers on Telenor's network. To other mobile networks and to landlines, calls will cost NOK 1.49 per minute, SMS NOK 0.69 per message and MMS NOK 1.99 per message. For the first month, MMS, WAP, Mobile TV and Mobile Backup is included.

For further information, please contact:

Atle Lessum, Information Manager Telenor
Telephone: +47 41505645