Key Points
- Standalone plans are now dominant, meaning parents don’t have to be customers to buy plans for their kids
- Data allowances have grown across Europe, but most of all in Italy
- Safe surfing has different meanings in different markets
Background
At the opposite end of the spectrum from senior-focused plans are children’s mobile plans. Plans for kids are typically aimed at people aged 17 and under, although some plans may require users to be younger than that – for example, some are for kids up to the ages of 12 or 13. Because children’s plans are aimed at parents, they are different from youth plans, which we define as aimed at adults under the age of 28 or 30; youth plans are covered in another report.
Most plans for children tend to feature some form of parental controls over what kids can access online. Many plans advertise that they include “safe surfing”, while some provide daily time limits on internet access. There are also plans that focus more strongly on physical safety, by providing smartwatches instead of smartphones and using GPS to monitor children’s locations.
Types of Children’s Plans
There are three broad types of plans aimed at children, which are typically defined as consumers under the age of 18. The most common type is plans that don’t need to be added onto a parent’s plan, which have become more prevalent since the previous version of this report. Add-on plans, which require an adult to have an existing plan with the operator, have almost disappeared, with the exception of Danish operator Norlys (formerly Telia), which offers one plan. The final type of plan is based on smartwatches for kids, rather than phones.
Standalone Plans
Standalone plans aimed at kids are available in the US and in many markets in Europe. T-Mobile in the US offers several tiers of plans aimed at kids under its Mint Mobile sub-brand, with monthly data allowances ranging from 5GB to unlimited.
In most markets in Europe there’s just one operator that offers plans for kids, but Italy and Norway are notable exceptions, because all operators in those countries offer kids’ plans. In contrast to the rest of the continent, Norwegian operators each have two tiers, offering different data allowances. KPN in the Netherlands is the only other operator that offers more than one plan, and stands out as the only one that has plans aimed at younger children (under 12) and at teenagers (17 and under).
Even though these plans are standalone, there are advantages if the users’ parents are on the same network. KPN’s plans allow parents who are also on the network to share data with their kids, while NOS Kids in Portugal requires monthly prepaid top-ups if the parents don’t use the NOS network.
| Operator | Price (US$) | Data (GB) |
|---|---|---|
| Telenor DK | 22.97 | 6 |
| YouSee DK | 12.18 | 3 |
| TIM IT | 9.19 | 100 |
| Vodafone IT | 11.49 | 100 |
| WindTre IT | 8.04 | 150 |
| KPN ND | 12.65 17.25 23.00 | 1 10 Unlimited |
| Ice NO | 0.00 9.95 | 1 3 |
| Telenor NO | 14.97 25.02 | 5 10 |
| Telia NO | 12.96 17.99 | 1 5 |
| NOS PT | 8.61 | 15 |
| Orange ES | 11.50 | Unlimited |
| Mint Mobile US | 25 35 45 40 | 5 15 20 Unlimited |
Add-on Plans
As mentioned above, Norlys is the only operator that still offers a kids’ plan that is exclusively available as an add-on to the parent’s plan. Little OneMore provides three hours of talk time and 3GB of data (including roaming data), for DKK59/month. For an additional DKK30/month users get 5G speeds.
Other add-on plans have either been discontinued, such as Verizon’s Just Kids plan, or have transitioned to standalone plans, like the plans from KPN, NOS and Orange Spain.
Smartwatch Plans
The final type of kids’ plan is aimed at parents who want to be able to keep in touch with their children, while at the same time limiting their internet use. Austria’s Magenta and Denmark’s YouSee each offer smartwatch plans for children, which allow for calling, messaging and GPS location services. Magenta’s offering also encourages kids to be physically active, providing rewards for every 1,000 steps they take during the day.
Summary
Operators have moved away from treating children’s plans as add-ons to parents’ existing subscriptions, in favor of standalone plans that parents can simply buy for their kids. However, there are still opportunities for upselling, such as offering more data or lower prices for children’s plans when their parents also buy fixed broadband services from the operator.
The overall trend emphasizes safety for kids, both physically and in terms of web access, which means that the majority of plans offer relatively small data allowances. That said, data allowances depend on the target age groups: KPN’s Teen Sim plans, for users aged 17 and under, offer more data than their Kids Sim plan. A notable outlier is WindTre’s plan in Italy, aimed at under-14s but offering the largest monthly data allowance at 150GB.
The plans in Italy and in the US bring up a key topic with regard to children’s use of the internet. As mentioned above, the main theme in most operators’ plans is safe web access, which means some operators limit data, while others allow parents to set specific times their kids can use mobile data, or otherwise control their experience.
All Italian plans offer at least 100GB of data per month, which implies that operators are less interested in encouraging limited internet use, even if TIM, Vodafone and WindTre all emphasize that their plans include safe surfing. Mint Mobile’s plans in the US don’t even offer that – instead, Mint enables parents to see how much data kids are using and adjust accordingly, but there’s no language around safe surfing, or blocking access to certain types of sites.
With that in mind, parents concerned about their children’s screen time in Italy and the US might want to hold off on signing their kids up for these plans. If they do opt for these plans (given that you can’t buy another country’s mobile plans), they should look into third-party solutions for limiting screen time and promoting safe and responsible use of mobile data.
FRD Innovation Research 