Mobile phones have become an indispensable part of family life but bills can add up quickly, especially with talkative and text-happy teen-agers. To address the concerns of cost-conscious parents, the mobile phone companies have started to develop family-oriented tariffs and call options. But are these deals the best way for families to stay in touch and cut costs?

T-Mobile has introduced FamilyShare, a tariff that allows family members to share a set number of calls and texts – and make unlimited calls among themselves at no extra cost allowing children to call their parents, no matter what.

The cheapest option is FamilyShare Light, which offers 500 minutes and 300 texts for £55 a month, while FamilyShare Standard costs £80 a month and includes 1,000 minutes and 400 texts.

The most expensive plan, FamilyShare Max, costs £150 a month for 2,100 minutes and 600 texts shared between users.

The costs are based on two family members; additional members cost an extra £15 a month. If families exceed their allowance, extra calls cost 20p a minute, texts 10p each, picture messages 20p each and voice-mail retrieval 10p a minute.

But although the idea of sharing a set pot of call minutes and text messages among the family sounds great in principle, experts say that, in practice, the tariffs do not offer good value.

Rob Barnes, head of mobiles at moneysupermarket.com, the price comparison website, says that the deals are expensive compared with T-Mobile’s own standard tariffs. He cites the example of the FamilyShare Max plan, which costs £150 a month for 2,100 minutes and 600 texts.Two people on T-Mobile’s Flex 50 would each get 2,000 minutes, 1,100 texts and a free Nokia N95 for £90 – a saving of £60 and nearly double the amount of inclusive text messages.

Looking at rival providers, Mr Barnes points out that 3 offers a £27 Mix & Match tariff where customers can get any mix of 1,100 minutes or texts. This means that two family members on this tariff could get 1,200 minutes and 1,000 texts for £54 a month, compared with two family members sharing 500 minutes and 300 texts for £55 on T-Mobile’s FamilyShare Light.

Steve Weller, of uSwitch, another price comparison site, says that free calls between family members offer a good security blanket and peace of mind to parents who want to stay in touch with their children. But he also points out a couple of pitfalls.

“It may be quite tricky to monitor and could prove to be more expensive than buying individual tariffs. The deal works on a first- come, first-used basis, so if your children send hundreds of texts in the first week of the billing period, the rest of the family could have to pay for individual texts for the rest of the month.”

Although none of the other networks offers comparable shared usage tariffs, both Vodafone and Orange offer options where calls to certain numbers are free.

Vodafone Family is a bolt-on option in which one person pays £5 a month for unlimited calls between a designated group of four people on either Vodafone pay monthly or pay- as-you-go (PAYG) contracts.

Meanwhile, Orange offers Magic Numbers which allow customers to nominate a number to which they will get free calls. Both options mean parents can be sure their child can always call them free.

But there are other choices for parents who are introducing mobiles to their children for the first time.

PAYG is the most obvious. With this arrangement, users buy a handset but have no monthly contract. Instead, they buy “top-up” vouchers that give a set amount of credit. When this has been used up, no calls can be made or texts sent until the phone is topped-up again.

So a child with a PAYG phone could not run up a big bill, as he or she could do on a monthly contract.

Alternatively, a monthly contract does mean that often you get a free decent handset and pay an agreed amount each month for a set amount of texts and calls. If you go past this limit, it is added to your monthly bill – sometimes at a pretty high rate.

However, you have to be aged 18 or more to take out a contract, so it would have to be in a parent’s name until then. Contracts are normally for 12 or 18 months.

T-Mobile’s U-Fix is a hybrid between a monthly contract and PAYG. A monthly payment gives you one of the latest handsets and a set amount of calls and texts each month; go over that and you have to buy a top-up voucher. So it is ideal for parents who want to control their children’s phone usage, while also giving them the option of spending some of their own money on calls and texts.

The right age to give your child a mobile phone

According to the Carphone Warehouse Mobile Youth report, 51 per cent of 10-year-olds and 70 per cent of 11-year-olds own a mobile phone, with one in five owning a mobile by the time they turn 9. Almost 90 per cent are pay-as-you-go, as opposed to contract phones.

Sue Atkins, director of the parenting coaching firm Positive Parents Confident Kids, says that a good time to give children their first mobile phone is when they start secondary school and pay-as-you-go is a good option: “That’s when I gave my children mobiles. It is useful when they’re out and about – say, at after-school clubs. I don’t see why younger children would need one.

“At secondary school it is a good idea to keep an eye on what they are doing on their phones – to check, for example, that they are not being bullied, or bullying, via text.”

CASE STUDY

Lizzie Falconer, a psychic medium from Suffolk, recently gave her ten-year-old son Sam his first mobile phone as he now has a 40-minute bus ride to a new school: “It also makes us feel more comfortable knowing we can contact him when he is out on his bike.” Sam’s phone is on a £25 a month contract with Vodafone in his father Mike’s name. Ms Falconer says that Sam prefers texting to talking “but if the first bill is excessive we will take the phone away from him”.

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