Posts Tagged ‘data’

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T-Mobile UK’s “GB:MB:kB” data itemisation

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

I didn’t use 10 gigabytes of data on the 1st of January, did I?

Have a read of my roaming data bill from T-Mobile UK (for my G1) over the Festive period:

That must be megabytes. 10 meg’s worth of data, costing 13 quid, right?

Yeah.

This new way of laying out your data usage is really, really confusing.

Here’s what the billing system said I did on the 1st of January:

000.0010.0204.0277

And that’s formatted thus — GB : MB : kB

So gigabyte, megabyte, kilobyte.

Ergo…

000 gigabytes? Yes?

0010 megabytes. Fine.

0204 kilobytes?

And what’s the 0277 on the end?

0227 bytes?

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Posted in Mobile Data | Comments

Data and SMS roaming charges soon to be cheaper

Saturday, November 29th, 2008

News has reached us from Reuters that governments in the European Union are set to regulate the costs on data usage and text messages whilst roaming. No need to sell your organs anymore whilst on holiday, just to cover your costs.

They also believe this could open up talks on other services being acted upon in a similar fashion. Wahoo!

Meaning there could be no need any more to sell of those miscellaneous limbs or superfluous bodily fluids whilst aboard, just to send an MMS.

The EU Telecoms Commissioner has outlined expanding the current cap in place for mobile phone calls away from the country of origin to now include roaming text messages and web surfing until 2013.

This is all due to be set in place on July 1 2009 when the joint legislation takes effect in the European Parliament, just in time for the summer holidays too. Hurrah! More money for fun and less money to staying in touch.

It’s been outlined the cost should be at 11 Euros cents for a roaming text message, where it currently stands at the average exorbitant rate of 29.

For someone that travels a lot this is a much welcomed piece of good news; more on the piece visit here.

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Posted in Mobile | Comments

Virgin Mobile: More abuse of the word ‘unlimited’

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

Virgin Mobile have just announced a fixed-price per day of 30p for pay-as-you-go (albeit post-paid) data and unlimited use.

For fun, let’s remind ourselves of the definition of ‘unlimited’:

un-lim-it-ed [adjective]

1. not limited; unrestricted; unconfined: unlimited trade.
2. boundless; infinite; vast: the unlimited skies.
3. without any qualification or exception; unconditional.

Wow… Infinite, unrestricted data… no conditions?  For 30p a day?  That’s not bad.

But let’s check the small print:

Fair Use Policy: [snip] …subject to a fair use allowance of 25MB per day. If your usage exceeds this amount then we reserve the right to charge you for the excessive element of your usage at the per MB data rate for your tariff outlined in our Tariff Table. Unlimited use is within the UK and is for your personal, non-commercial use only. It doesn’t include making internet phone or video calls, peer to peer file sharing, using your phone as a modem… [snip]

So let’s recap:

  1. It’s 25MB per day.
  2. You won’t be warned if you exceed ‘fair use’ and may be charged immediately at full price (about £2 per MB).
  3. You can’t use it for any commercial use - so no work-related e-mail.

That feels pretty limited to me.  The 25MB alone is a disgrace…. Forget uploading more than a few pictures to Flickr, forget last.fm streaming or BBC iPlayer, don’t even try to sync a large e-mail inbox…  Normobs will easily exceed this.  And how is restricting all commercial use fair?  Does a business e-mail have a greater impact on Virgin’s network than a personal one?

Rubbish!

In my opinion this is deliberately misleading - I’m off to see if this is covered by the ASA and make a formal complaint.

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Posted in Annoying, Ben Smith | Comments

Orange UK has two month exclusivity on the HTC Touch HD

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

Another network exclusivity was announced today the HTC Touch is going to Orange according to this article over at Mobile News.

The Touch HD comes with a 3.8 inch, high resolution, widescreen WVGA touchscreen and a 5 megapixel auto focus camera. The device also comes with HTC’s TouchFLO 3D user interface and is fitted with a standard 3.5mm headphone jack.

Orange UK will be launching this in November and it will be priced at £79.99 on an 18-month contracts at £40 per month.

The quote I love is below;

Orange UK director of devices Francois Mahieu said: “It is a great phone but also a wonderful multimedia handset which paves the way to even more innovations from Orange next year in the mobile internet space.”

This is coming from a company that offers data for £8 a month which has a FUP of 30mb!

You gotta love Orange for their irony!

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Posted in Operators, Orange | Comments

Updated MobileMeg — your source for UK mobile data info

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008

Pete’s updated MobileMeg. It’s looking good. I am a particular fan of his rather comprehensive table that breaks down the data rates at all UK MNOs.

Useful!

Here’s the note from Pete:

Hi all,

Just a quick update, to let you know about the new release of MobileMeg.

As you’ll probably remember, the aim is to publish mobile data tariffs
(including overseas roaming costs) in one place to educate consumers
and help them make informed choices before signing up.

The new site features includes …
- a face-lift on the design;
- user editable table of tariffs;
- user editable table of related web links;
- version control on changes;
- mobile industry news feed;
- sort and search facilities;
- revised forums;
- an accompanying blog;

Please join us at http://www.mobilemeg.org/.

Thanks,
Pete

Nice work, Pete!

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Posted in Mobile | Comments

Bypassing o2’s data compression

Wednesday, August 20th, 2008

If you’re getting annoyed with the data compression that o2 apply by default to your connections (It’s really annoying if you’re trying to take a screenshot of a webpage when you’re out and about!), Kip has got a work-around…

Link: kcjh’s world: Removing O2’s Image Compression on Mobile Web - Handy for iPhone users!

Anyone who uses O2’s data might have noticed they, by default like to compress images for you. This obviously means you use less data, BUT it also means on the iPhone, and high end smartphones, the quality or them can look very shoddy indeed

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Posted in Mobile, o2 | Comments

3 win top UK mobile broadband prize

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

No surprise, actually, is it? Have a read of this:

3 UK’s Mobile Broadband offering has been named “Best Mobile Broadband” by the UK’s most popular dedicated broadband comparison site, www.top10-broadband.co.uk. The independent site, which claims over a million unique users each month, has given 3 UK the award based on analysis of data captured from mobile broadband speed tests, examination of feedback from consumers and hands-on research of products and services.

I’ve introduced more new customers to 3 than any other operator, specifically because of their mobile broadband data offering. Whether it’s via the handset or through a dongle, 3 really is knocking the competition for six.

I was in a Vodafone store the other day when I saw their ‘buy me now’ pay-as-you-go mobile dongle. It was on a shelf, ready to be picked up, purchased and used. There’s no way Vodafone or the other networks would have headed toward the tenner-a-month dongle reality we have today if it wasn’t for 3 kicking the industry out of bed. Vodafone were — and still are — making an absolute packet from the 45 or 70 pounds a month data card deals they were originally offering. I think I’ve got one of them, still.

Top 10 Broadband was particularly impressed by the strength and flexibility of 3 UK’s mobile broadband packages. The judges specifically cited the fact that 3 UK allows customers a very generous data allowance, as well as the quality and ease of use of the 3 UK data modems, as important factors in the award.

3’s Head of Mobile Broadband Jonathan Lutz said, “To be independently verified as being the best mobile broadband provider is a great validation of all the work we have done over the past year. Our aim has always been to bring easy-to-use, high-quality mobile broadband at the best possible price to as many people as possible. This award is recognition that we are achieving this goal. “

Congratulations to Jonathan and the team at 3. Nice work. Keep it up!

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Posted in Mobile Data, Operators, Three, Vodafone | Comments

Mobile messaging to be worth $88 billion

Friday, August 15th, 2008

New statistics out on how much we love our mobile messaging (guess what? It’s a lot) from the analysts over at Strategy Analytics. According to them, the world will be spending $88 billion on messaging by 2012 - that’s 15 percent up on 207 - and while text messaging will still make up the lion’s share of what we spend out money on in moble, other forms of messaging will grow at a stellar rate.

Apparently, the mobile messaging stars will be the sort of services we use on our PCs - mobile email, mobile IM - as operators start giving away more cheap, all-you-can-eat data pricing and make email services easier to use.

The report also notes that the way device form factors are changing will affect mobile messaging take-up. Too right - the way the BlackBerry (not to mention its copycats) is starting to get comfortable in the consumer space just proves how popular the combination of email-friendly keyboard and a big screen is for even the average user at the moment.

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Posted in SMS | Comments

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