High telephone charges in England

I stayed in Manchester for 4 days. I used the telephone in the hotel room to connect to the internet.

I was shocked to received a bill for GBP 220 for 4 days of stay. I asked why the cost is so high.

I was told that the telephone charge is GBP 0.75 for 1 minute by fixed line and GBP 2.50 for mobilephone. This is easily about 30 to 70 times of the charges in Singapore. Apparently, this is the public rate, i.e. not loaded by the hotel.

The hotel agreed to reduce the charge by 50%. It is a nice gesture, but the net sum is still very high.

It seems that the telephone charges are very expensive all over Europe. It must be due to the high tender prices that the telephone companies paid for the 3G network. This is probably a way to recover their large investment.