Comments on: Restricted by mobile data costs? Careful. I’m gunning for you.

By: Phil

Phil — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 19:22:41 +0000

I agree with what you say.
Unfortunately I have just got a Nokia N73 on Vodafone. This was the only way to get an unbranded phone on a contract (from Nokia shop).

I really wished I could have got the handset on T-Mobile, but they haven’t released it yet because of bugs. That’s fair enough because I found a bug within an hour of having the phone (email app crashes when deleting messages).

My Vodafone sim isn’t active yet, but when it is I’m going to phone up and ask what data bundles are available.
The woman in the shop told me that inclusive SMS in the voice plan can be spent on data for the equivalent value, but I’m worried that this doesn’t apply any more.
Sort it out Vodafone: where’s your response to T-Mobile?

By: Lauren

Lauren — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 13:06:28 +0000

You failed to mention the appalling connectivity that you get as a result of changing over to T-Mobile. Yes, my bills are cheaper than they were on O2. Yes, I can browse without the fear of overcharged data costs… But I can’t make any calls on Saturdays at around 11am, nor on most week nights between 10pm and 12pm.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 11:13:50 +0000

“Â£5 a meg pay as you go mobile services”!?, completely over the top….

UNLESS, your on a certain T-Mobile PAYG plan where it is a WHOLE WHOPPING TEWNTY FIVE POUND A MEG (for GPRS data)!

try doing anything with that on less than Â£50 credit!

The operators in the UK (and possibly Internationally) really do NEED to do something to introduce some sort of a standard rate.

(Â£25/MB is the most expensive i’ve come accross so far!)

By: Dan Warne

Dan Warne — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 10:35:04 +0000

I am sooooo with you.

On the flip-side, it’s also so frustrating to see mobile application and device makers who put no work into data optimisation and compression. (The vast majority of mobiles that have ‘email built in!’ which turns out to be POP3 with no server-side compression and reformatting at all.)

I envy your position in the UK to be able to get unlimited/1GB data for GBP7.50. Here in Australia 1GB costs around $99/mth… (GBP39). And even then, most carriers don’t allow it to be used with a SIM card activated for voice, which is an attempt to keep people paying outrageous over-the-air rates for downloaded ringtones and casual web browsing.

Hopefully T-Mobile will get an influx of subscribers BECAUSE of its reasonably-priced data plans and other carriers around the world will sit up and pay attention.

I am starting to get the impression that there is enough consumer interest now for using web and email properly on mobiles that carriers will have to start offering some better value plans. Certainly the first carrier in each country to “break” will lead the charge for all the other carriers I think.

(Incidentally I was fascinated to discover that in Australia, Telstra, probably the most expensive telco in general overall because it’s the incumbent ex-monopoly telco, has a plan that offers unlimited email on a Blackberry for $39/mth — GBP15. I’m yet to find out if this ‘unlimited’ usage model includes other internet data or only email. If it does, I’m changing to Telstra!