I have to say I’m sorely tempted to try out XCom Global’s latest offering. They can now offer you unlimited data via MiFi (or USB stick) for a thoroughly reasonable $14.95 per day across a phenomenal 195 countries (up from 67 previously).

There’s no charge for the equipment and delivery is (generally free if you order 10 days prior to departure).

MiFis are $14.95/day and USB sticks are $12.95/day.

It’s a really, really smart idea.

As an illustration (and assuming you’re British), if you went to the US from the 20th to 27th of January (that’s a rental period of 8 days), XCom Global would charge you $14.95 per day bringing the total costs to $119.60.

Now.

Let’s have a wee think.

$119 is £76. You’d already be spending £5 per day on the likes of Vodafone to get 25mb usage. That’s £40 for the trip so far. So for an extra £36, you could use XCom’s service and actually use ‘unlimited’ data rather than having to be very careful about your activities.

Or, if you’re going to Mobile World Congress and you’d like unlimited data on a MiFi unit there for the duration of the show, you’d pay XCom Global just $59.80 for the privilege — a thoroughly reasonable £38. Ben and I spent more than this arsing around in the Vodafone Spain shop in Barcelona last year.

I don’t think there’s a better alternative. You could obviously get a local SIM — but that’s wholly inconvenient on quite a few counts. NONE of the SIMs I bought from the Vodafone Spain shop worked for more than 5 minutes because the guy in the shop didn’t quite understand what we said when we POINTED at the UNLIMITED DATA PREPAY offer. I burnt through my €20 credit in about 5 minutes. If you don’t want that hassle then I can’t see why you wouldn’t check out the likes of XCOM Global.

Another viewpoint: Your operator will probably offer you a fairly decent European roaming deal — £5 or £2 per day for 20-25mb of usage. This might be fine if you’re on holiday but if you’re at Mobile World Congress, the chances are you’ll have some high roaming requirements.

Yeah. More and more I’m thinking this might be a highly sensible choice for many readers.

What I would like to see is some kind of permanent offer, e.g. buy the MiFi from us for $200 and then when you need to use the service, just pay $15 per day. Something like that? I’d like one device that I could keep in my pocket and use wherever I was — a little bit like ABroadband (but without the per-megabyte fees).

Other things to consider with XCOM Global —  you’ll probably want to think about insurance. If you lose the device, you’ll need to cough up a rather shocking $800. That is very painful. If you’re paying their $3.95 insurance the loss charge is $160. Don’t lose it, bottom line.

XCom Global won’t be suitable for every use case but I think it’s got serious merits. There’s a lot more information on their site.

Update: Here’s a contribution from reader Ilicco who’s currently (at time of writing) on vacation in Byron Bay, Australia — and roaming (as per his comment below) at phenomenally good rates.

- – - – -

Current approaches to mobile network and content optimisation will fail to address the real requirements of managing the growth of mobile data in current and next generation networks. The proliferation of mobile devices means that not only are we ‘always-connected’, but that we are also increasingly accessing richer content such as YouTube videos and media-rich social networking services. On top of this, the advent of 4G/LTE network enhancements will bring increased user expectations for faster and smoother access to more and richer content, which will only add to data consumption.

Whilst optimisation techniques have improved over time, they haven’t gone far enough to support the massive volume of mobile data expected in the coming years. The “optimise all” model, currently used to reduce overall data volume, will no longer keep pace with exploding traffic demands. From a total cost of ownership (TCO) perspective, optimisation will not be sustainable in the future. The predicted cost of managing the delivery of all this data means that for mobile network operators (MNOs) to maintain profitability in the long run, it’s time for a new era of optimisation.

The need for a new approach to mobile data optimisation is reflected in today’s key performance indicators (KPIs) which focus on volume reduction. But overall volume in the network is not the critical issue: increasing volume is inevitable. What’s more, in today’s business models, where customers pay for data by the megabit or gigabit, a reduction in overall volume equals a reduction in revenue for the operator.

The new era of mobile data optimisation has to fulfil two main requirements for operators: firstly, to provide a satisfying user experience at all times, and secondly, to keep the cost of the network and capacity expansion investment manageable.

Subscribers expect constant and consistently good user experience: after all, that’s what they pay for. They don’t understand that their experience might be affected by being in a busy cell at a busy time. An operator has to deliver on these expectations whilst taking into account the ongoing capital and operating expenses of the network. Yet congestion problems that cause disruptions in user experience are not consistent across the network, but transient and localised.

Optimisation must evolve: the optimise-all approach is a sledgehammer when, in fact, it’s only a scalpel that is often required. Mobile data optimisation shouldn’t be aimed at reducing overall volume: instead it should keep a real-time lookout for signs of congestion in order to predict congestion just before it occurs, ensuring that optimisation is applied only when absolutely necessary.

We believe that MNOs should adopt an evolved approach to optimisation which addresses these issues by redefining optimisation as a congestion management and quality of experience (QoE) approach, rather than a volume reduction technique. Only then can the direct link between traffic growth and data optimization investment may be broken.

Beyond identifying congestion just before it occurs, MNOs should be able to implement cloud-based caching and optimisation to more efficiently manage resources in a distributed model. This means that optimisation resources are utilised only when needed and where they provide benefit to the user, with faster page load times and fewer video stalls; and to the mobile operator by targeting only areas that, at a given point in time, have insufficient capacity.

This evolved approach to optimisation enables operators to decouple investment in optimisation infrastructure from soaring data volume growth. Without it, MNOs will find it more and more challenging to maintain sustainable levels of infrastructure investment as the need for optimisation grows: thus, evolved optimisation is necessary to ensure sustainable profitability as volume increases exponentially.

How MNOs cope with the explosion of data across their networks is crucial to their long-term profitability. By focusing on real needs – user experience and resource management – an evolved approach to optimisation can scale with the problem and not with the rapid increase in overall traffic volume.

To return to the question you posed, “The Data Capacity Crunch: Are we still in it?”, the answer is maybe. It is true that data (especially video) consumption has and will continue to grow. But it doesn’t have to cause a “crunch”, at least not if the operators evolve their approach to it.

- – - – -

Noam Green is VP Marketing at Mobixell.

Just to let you know, you’ve used over 3MB of data which has cost you £3 per MB so far. Once you use more than 5MB in a day, the charge becomes £15 inc VAT for each 5MB.

I’ve written about this before. I don’t know why Vodafone make these messages so cryptic.

Shouldn’t the message read, “You’ve used £9?”

No. Of course not. That’s quite expensive. Much better to ease the customer into a false sense of security — to try and avoid too much bill shock. Indeed, the more confusion and the lower the perception of costs, the better.

It’s ridiculous. It’s not just an issue confined to Vodafone — Three, for example, is a lot more direct about the costs in their text updates. The fundamental issue is that the rates are still far too high — Vodafone’s team are obviously aware of this or they wouldn’t have felt the need to disguise and divert attention from them.

It’s a sad state of affairs, it really is. I decided to record a video — for posterity’s sake — of how I was feeling about it. I’m intending to be able to look back at this in years (5? 10?) to come when this is no longer an issue. I wonder what the marketplace will look like at that point. What will the phrase ‘carrier’ or ‘operator’ or ‘roaming’ mean in 5 years time? Or 10 years? It is realistically going to need a decade before I can stride between geographies without having to care too much about the resulting data costs?

If you’ve got 10 minutes and you’re in the mood for an outpouring of emotional geekish disbelief, click on and tell me what you think.

What’s your view: Will the roaming issues we know today have gone away by 2020?

[Note: Nigel on Google+ points out that Vodafone do offer a 'rest of the world' roaming deal -- £5 for 25mb a day and that is valid in the United States. Although this is certainly a lot better than this £3 per megabyte nonsense, my key point is the fact it's still crazy pricing. For instance £5 per day for my 2-week trip equates to £70.]

It is with this in mind that I have spunked £120 for your reading pleasure. It wasn’t deliberate, but since I’ve spunked it, I might as well write about it, yes? And therefore extract some value from the bollocks experience.

It’s also a really, really useful example of how operators are handling the data crunch. Sometimes folk don’t believe me when I’m jumping about on stage at events or briefing investment bankers about how dumb the infrastructure (and, often, the thinking and execution) is at operator level.

Right, let’s get to it.

I’ve moved house. There’s no internet connection — obviously — we’re waiting for BT to dance about doing the jiggerypokery that they do in order to make the broadband work.

In the meantime, I had a brilliant idea: Use the MiFi.

For me, that means using my 3 MiFi unit. It’s the one I rave about all the time. Regular readers know this — I do rave about it. (“Three MiFi success yet again: I love it“)

I’ve been using it perfectly fine for, I reckon, a year. Witness, for example, the post I did a few months back explaining why Premier Inn (and Spectrum Interactive) didn’t get any business from me thanks to my 3 MiFi service.

I’ve pummelled the unit. I’m sure I’ve used hundreds of megabytes in a single day. I’m sure I’ve used upwards of a gigabyte in a single day.

I’ve not once had a problem with the SIM.

I bought the MiFi unit last year in Richmond. I think I paid £59 for it, including a tenner’s worth of data (1GB). I went through that across the first month so I bought a few more gigs… and then I decided to take the SIM from my Nokia N86 and use that in the MiFi instead. This is because I’ve unlocked the N86 — and often, I use it without the SIM. I reasoned that I might as well stick it in the MiFi and get some use out of it.

I’m sure I read somewhere that you’re not quite meant to do this. I think it was Ben Smith who pointed out that there’s a rather huge inconsistency with the Three policy. (See point 1 in his overview).

Either way, I stuck the SIM in the MiFi and it’s been working perfectly for about a year.

Over the weekend I looked like a Demi God by supplying internet to my new household via the 3 MiFi. I just stuck it into a plug in the kitchen and it provided connectivity to iPads, MacBooks and even my other Three iPhone. (This is currently supplying the internet because of my borked MiFi SIM.)

My wife was delighted.

Wee Archie — all of 15 months — was supremely impressed at the ability for the Family iPad (WiFi-only) to magically update with new apps to keep him amused now-and-again. He’s teething so anything that keeps his mind off that and enables us to get food into him is a good idea.

I was pretty impressed myself.

The speeds have been near Desktop level. It’s been interesting watching my wife simply pick up her iPad and start using the internet across the weekend, without giving a thought to the actual bearer. It worked well enough that she didn’t notice the difference. This is a testament to Three’s super data network. I find it phenomenally good.

I think we’d used a few hundred meg but the time my wife decided to download an episode of One Tree Hill. Or something like that. She did ask if it would be OK. I said, ‘sure’ — knowing it would be slow, but knowing that a) Three could handle that and b) it would only be 500 odd meg.

Alas my wife fell for the iTunes trick: The first results they present to you are always the £2.49 HD episodes, aren’t they? 1.4 gigabytes.

I only found this out when my wife checked the download to see it was almost finished.

“Geez, that’s quite a lot,” I thought.

It downloaded fine.

I was very impressed.

I made yet another, “Three is flipping brilliant!” note to myself mentally and went about opening boxes and unpacking stuff.

I didn’t give a thought to the cost.

This is Three. Them of the truly unlimited data offering! Truly! They mean it!

Just, not for me.

Not on the price plan the N86 is on.

That was my critical mistake.

I only found out the problem when, today, my wife complained that she couldn’t use the internet.

“It’s saying something about running out of credit,” she said, over the phone.

“You what?” I said, knowing the SIM is running on a monthly contract. For hours I was convinced she’d some how put one of our PAYG SIMS into the MiFi by mistake some how.

I discovered the reality this evening.

Here’s the chronology that I’ve reconstructed from the sodding text messages that arrived into the MiFi warning me that I was exceeding my usage.

We start off with a warning message on Saturday evening:

18:36:59

From 3: You’ve nearly used your internet allowance. Check your remaining allowance for free at My3

This is very sensible. Provided I’m reading the text messages. But I’m not.

Now let’s get to the money texts. Here’s the warning that I’m about to get billed:

13.08 Sunday:

From 3: You’ve reached your internet allowance. You may be charged for further internet use. Check your usage free at My3

Right that’s not at all helpful. I mean, it’s useful to know. But what’s the sodding point in texting it to me? Why not DISPLAY something? Why not make me CLICK a button to continue during my web activity?

13.13:

You have spent £ 2.61 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mobil

13.13:01

You have spent £ 8.43 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mobil

This does show the speed of Three’s network, both in terms of data, and in terms of billing updates. Anyway, one second later I got this…

13.13:02:

You have spent £ 17.74 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mobi

The billing system has noticed something might not quite be right, but things carry on. 43 seconds later, they sent this:

13.13:45

From 3:You have nearly reached your credit limit. If you would like more information or want to make a payment please call 333 or

A few minutes now pass as the system lets me carry on regardless..

13:16:59

You have spent £ 23.56 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mobi

Now for a big jump:

13:19:00

You have spent £ 41.01 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mobi

The outstanding balance has doubled in a few minutes. This is clearly a nice chunk of One Tree Hill downloading. Things are moving so fast that even the SMS delivery servers can’t react fast enough. One second later, this message arrived — rather late:

13:19:01

You have spent £ 20.07 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mobi

And then it’s all good for another few minutes as the billing engine carries on counting the pounds from me before declaring:

13:23:02

You have spent £ 113.36 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mob

And the final text? For some inexplicable reason, that arrived almost twenty minutes later:

13:42:01

You have spent £ 118.02 on internet since 02/09/2011 You could save money with an internet add-on. Click here for info http://mob

And that’s it.

Job done.

For some reason, the system decided not to bother texting me after that — despite the fact that I happily used data from it across the evening, although perhaps not much, given the fact that the final additional data bill is almost £120:

I really didn’t expect a bill from Three.

I thought they’d actually given up on this ‘fair usage policy’ stuff and actually just given everyone unlimited data. I just assumed (“makes an ass out of you and me”) that this SIM contract would carry over.

My real problem is the gratuitous way in which the company’s systems just billed me. I take full responsibility. I will most definitely pay the bill. I’m just seriously disappointed that the only mechanism they thought to employ to warn me was text messaging.

It’s OK.

It’s just not very smart, is it?

The average customer would go absolutely spare at such an occurrence.

The experience really does bring home to me how shit the operators — well, Three in this instance — are at dealing with this kind of usage.

Don’t just send me a text.

How stupid is that? Oh, by all means warn me, but what about the smart thinking? What about the up selling opportunities?

KNOWING that I’m on a price plan that has a defined limit, why didn’t you switch off my internet connection and redirect all browser requests and ask me to specifically approve the STUPID amount of money I spent?

Why didn’t you use a bit of intelligence in the system? “Ewan, it looks like you’re using a lot — and, you know what, you don’t have much headroom in your allowance, so why don’t you buy a bolt-on for this week?”

No.

Here’s the screenshot of the page my wife was talking about:

I don’t know why this wasn’t shown to me (or us) some way through 1pm on Sunday when we were already running up a bill.

I could have bought almost 5x £25 7GB options for the amount they’ve charged me.

I find this level of incompetence extremely irritated.

Yes I should have swapped to an unlimited price plan. I should. That’s my fault. Yes I should have monitored my data usage closely, again, my fault.

Whoever designed and manages the Three data billing policies failed me, utterly. You’re meant to manage the customer, right? Come on, this is donkey stuff. All customers are inherently stupid. And we want to avoid them phoning us up SCREAMING for the CEO’s email address to make a complaint, yes? So make the billing system and ESPECIALLY the bit that the customer interacts with waterproof. Stupidproof.

By not dealing with this issue — by allowing it to happen for whatever reason — Three succeeded in winding up an otherwise very happy customer.

I understand that the cause of the problem was me. I expected more from you, Three. I expected some smarts in the billing team to have identified this possibility and protect me from the shit and, most importantly, as a customer, isolate me from having to deal with exceptions like this.

How simple would it have been on Sunday afternoon?

“What’s this?” my wife would say, handing the iPad to me.

“Ah, yeah it’s ok — just tap on the 7GB option as we’ll be using a lot over the next week or so,” I’d have replied.

Gahhhh.

If you’re an Android user and you roam regularly, you have probably experienced the ‘what-the?’ moment at least once in recent memory.

That’s the moment you realise that the paltry 25mb you’ve been given for your day’s worth of roaming mobile data adds up to about 20 minutes worth of heavy using on an Android handset.

It’s a real nightmare, especially when you’re in a decent 3G/3.5G cell area. Often when abroad, I do find that the signal is patchy. I remember being lucky to get one bar of connectivity in Portugal a few years ago. One bar or stupid-slow GPRS helps limit the data roaming damage. Email is usually about the best you can handle before wanting to through the device across the piazza.

But when you’re in the centre of Paris running a 3.5+ super-fast connection with what feels like zero additional traffic on your cell? Oh no. Not good. Everything runs beautifully on your super-fast gorgeous Samsung Galaxy SII or your Nexus S.

Android can really deliver a glorious connected experience on some phenomenal handsets. Abroad, though, on a data-hungry device, that can burn through megabytes? Dangerous.

A little while ago I did a test of my Nexus S compared to by BlackBerry Bold in France. The Nexus tore through my 25mb daily allowance in — if memory serves — about 40 minutes. I had to struggle hard with my BlackBerry to get it to get anywhere near that limit, just because so much of the data to/from the device is highly optimised, both in terms of volume and frequency.

Androids are — typically — like an open tap, from a bandwidth perspective. This is a beautiful thing when you’ve got WiFi or you’re home on your (semi) unlimited data price plan.

So when you’re abroad, it’s important to keep tabs on what you’re doing, data wise.

Further, it’s important to try and get the best value you can from your data plan — especially when roaming.

Enter Onavo.

Their iPhone app sits in the background and compresses your data traffic. Not just that, but it closely monitors what each app on your phone does from a data usage standpoint.

They’ve just released an Android version — Onavo Lite. This one doesn’t do compression but acts as a monitor. (I’m speculating here, but I reckon a future premium version will do this).

Here are some notable features:

- Alerts and warnings. Receive status notifications about apps that are hogging your data, when approaching your data cap, or when traveling (data roaming). Onavo Lite will even predict when you will reach your monthly cap.

- Data hog blocking. Restrict specific apps to WiFi, or block your 3G data altogether once you exceed your data cap to avoid any additional costs.

- Crowdsourcing. Join the Onavo Android Community to tap into the collective wisdom of Android users everywhere. This will help you keep your mobile data in check, letting you know whether an app is safe to use as soon as you download it.

- Advice. Get tailored tips on best value data plans from your carrier or other carriers, based on your actual usage.

- Simple setup. Get going in seconds: Set your monthly cap, bill cycle and cost – and you’re good to go!

Of course you don’t just need to use Onavo when you’re roaming — when you’re at home you’ll want to know if one of your apps is going nuts in the background killing your battery and domestic data allowance. I reckon it would be worth installing.

Have you tried it? Let me know how you got on?

Routinely, WiFi hotspots are so SHIT that I simply have to rely on my MiFi unit for connectivity. Three’s data network is amongst the best in the business — and the MiFi unit is a brilliant way of unlocking that for all your connectivity needs.

I used to regularly travel up and down the M4 motorway and goodness me, the networks — Three in particular — seem to have got that motorway connected properly. I was able to stay connected at what felt like desktop data speeds for my whole journey. [I want to point out, I wasn't driving!]

The MiFi gets me out of a heck of a lot of tight spots though. You know the scene — turn up at an office and find that their guest WiFi needs 16-layers of security confirmation. Or arrive into a pub to do some work and find that the bollocks BT Openzone wants to charge you on a pence-per-minute basis. Stupid. Scenarios like this have me reaching for the MiFi all the time. I don’t even bother taking it out my bag. I just feel for the power switch, depress it for a second and then see the WiFi connection pop-up.

So I’m a big user. Three’s current MiFi unit is the Huawei E585. Here’s a quick reminder:

It’s great. The battery feels like it lasts most of the business day. In practice after about 4-5 hours of continuous use, I need to power it up. Provided you’re in a city centre location, I generally find the throughput speeds to be comparable to a desktop broadband connection.

That was then.

Now the next generation is upon us: The E586. Let’s have a photo:

Right. This one is HSPA+ which means that you’ll get up to 21.1Mbps down (“HSDPA”) and 5.76Mbps up (“HSUPA”). Amazing. Three reckons it should be about 40% faster. (80% of the operator’s network will be fully HSPA+ compliant by the end of the year.)

They’ve made a few nice improvements — apparently the dashboard has got a nice upgrade. I’m hopeful on this one. It was a little bit ‘Huwaei bog standard’ for my tastes but it certainly did the job. There’s also a smart new feature that enables users to see the WiFi username/password on-screen at the touch of a button, ‘for fast pairing with new gadgets’.

Somebody at Three has obviously given their MiFi a lot of use. One of the slight arses with the MiFi is having to open up the battery case to get the WiFi access code. Good thinking. See the picture above? See the button with the ‘key’ on it, top right on the side? I reckon that’s the one you press to get a reminder of the device password.

If you’re a big user of the internal memory card functionality (so you can access via your connected devices), that’s now upgraded to support 32GB micro SD cards.

And a final new addition? This:

That there is a fancy new charging cradle. This will be highly useful if you’re a regular MiFi user as you’ll want to pop it in the charger often.

This new unit should be available in-store and online from September. There’s no word on costs yet but I’d expect it will be priced similarly (if not exactly the same) as the existing E585. So, on PAYG the E585 costs £71.99 including 3GB of data. I’d expect it to be free on a 20/month contract. I think that’s what I’ll go for when it comes out.

Anyway, stay tuned. I’ll post a note when it’s available.

Apparently, as Squawkbox points out, this is the site that’s causing a substantial amount of pain for a lot of Vodafone’s Glasgow customers. (Dive in and have a read of the issues here).

From what I can glean from the Vodafone eForum team’s responses, it seems that this particular cell site is due an upgrade ‘later this month’ that ‘should improve matters’.

I do feel for the eForum team in this instance. Normally they can fix stuff right-away, especially if it’s a billing issue, a handset delivery problem and so on. However when it comes to infrastructure? Well, I suspect ‘Networks’ probably don’t talk to customer service that much. Indeed, if Vodafone is anything like some of the other UK operators, the chances are that customer services are the last people to know there’s a problem and when there’s a fix.

The fact that the poor eForum team are reduced to having to issue rather tenuous statements because there’s no information for them to supply customers.

You’d think that if this site was due an upgrade, somebody in the Networks team might — you know — happen to have an idea when this would take place, so that the eForum team can pass on the data?

Why isn’t there a live status update system that everyone can check to see the progress of enhancements to a particular cell? I don’t think Vodafone customers mind about the occasional network niggle, or even seriously poor service — provided it feels temporary, provided it feels like something is being done.

Instead, it’s the eForum chaps who get it in the neck from the customers. And, well, the customers have a point. Just look at some of the complaints on the page.

Unfortunately Wayne from the eForum team has got the pressure cooker of annoyed Glasgow Vodafone customers moved up to the next notch. How? Well he pointed out that:

I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to give you any credits at this point as you are still able to use 2G. Calls on 2G seem to be unaffected by this issue so you can still use your phone for its purpose (making calls).

Warning bells started ringing for me at that point. Especially given Vodafone’s current marketing about having the most reliable/outstanding network.

Wayne, alas, when it comes to defining the ‘purpose’ of a smartphone, the ability to make 2G calls is most probably a secondary or tertiary consideration, especially when the 3G data isn’t working.

MIR reader Squawkbox wasn’t having any of it:

That response would have been suitable if it was perhaps at the start of 2005 but not today. Consumers come to vodafone with smartphones take contracts out for multiple purposes, not just to make calls as you suggest above. I entered into the agreement with Vodafone to provide both circuit switched services (calls and SMS) and packet switched services (data). As you’ll see from my usage, I’m very much a heavy data user and don’t tend to use too many SMS or use much of my allowance. You even advertise data as part of your PR for your network (see “deep pan” and other silly marketing terms you use).

He continues — and here’s where it gets a bit, well, embarrassing for Vodafone:

I previously worked in the network department of another network and I was able to see when sites were due to be upgraded or what particular faults were. If the issue impacted a large number of customers then it would be raised as a high priority fault and was usually quickly resolved. If I felt the issue was big enough, I’d push it on behalf of customers to get looked at sooner.

Yup. That’s what they do at Vodafone too. However, in this case, I reckon it’s not got the priority it needs.

Squawk continues:

Why didn’t you seek an update on this particular site? Why didn’t raise a case to have the other sites checked for faults? For example I’ve done some testing and I’ve been connected to the following 3G sites:

LAC: d5 CID: 30dceff
LAC: d5 CID: 30debd6
LAC = d5 CID: 30dceea

It’s ridiculous Squawk is having to do this.

The standard ‘over capacity’ explanation that works for most users didn’t work on Squawk:

This suggests to me it is an additional fault rather than completely due the excess demand placed on it due to site 32520 being down

Ah dear.

It’s also ridiculous that the eForum team aren’t getting the resources they need to resolve this particular issue.

I reckon the eForum team will have submitted a ticket reporting the fault.

One would imagine it’s worthwhile prioritising an area that’s getting a lot of heat ahead of other areas without so much heat.

Or, is the reality that the whole network is on fire? The key here is, ironically, communication — and then action.

The customers getting a rubbish service need some clarity on WHY and WHEN it will be fixed.

I’ve had similar issues myself and it’s hugely frustrating — in one memorable experience last year, a senior chap at 3 noticed my post and escalated a fix, meaning my local base station was back online within a few hours.

Now then, come on Vodafone, what can you do for the people of Glasgow?

So last week I was having a good time with Vodafone. This morning I got this comparatively useless text to let me know that ‘prices are changing’.

This is really good — a text update, I will obviously read it — but the call-to-action? Visit some site that isn’t even linkable from my phone browser? Who composed this text? Don’t you think I’m likely to want to click-through? And when I do click-through, by actually arsing around with selecting/cutting/pasting the address into the browser, will the page render for a mobile browser? Probably not.

Let me see.

I’ll have a look.

Are you a betting reader?

I looked. I typed the URL into the BlackBerry browser and got a glorious, ‘Sorry, the page you are looking for has not been found.’

Oh dear.

I tried it just now on the desktop browser: I get the same error.

So that’s not very useful at all. You’d think that these things get triple-checked before they go out. You know, serious people wearing serious suits, frowning a lot, repeatedly testing stuff? Lots of checklists and perhaps even some kind of user-testing firm on speed-dial to do a quick series of external tests? All to make sure that when the customer gets the message, they actually understand it. And can act upon it.

It does seem to me that Vodafone’s text message marketing is a bit strange — check out this rather cryptic roaming data billing notification I got a little while ago.

For all I know right now, this text might have been notification that Vodafone is increasing their prices by 400%.

Posted via email from MIR Live

I came across it in the ‘Demo Lab’ area at MACH Insights 2011. It’s showing off a MACH product by the name of the Data Roaming Engine which enables a massively flexible raft of policies and controls allowing operators to get rather inventive with their roaming deals.

The concept is this. You arrive on to a gorgeous desert island and you immediately put your phone into ‘no data roaming’ mode.

However you then get a text message from your operator encouraging you to browse (for free) the possible roaming options. One of the items in the shopping cart is (for example), the ability to browse Facebook free for a whole day for just €2. When you select and confirm, you can then use Facebook ’til your heart is content, for that hour/day/week/period.

There’s a few other options shown in the video.

This is the kind of inventive thing I’d like to see operators play with, especially given the fact that 42% of travellers deliberately do not use roaming (MACH’s figure) and the vast majority of the rest of the users are ultra careful about what they spend (my viewpoint).

Here’s the video:

And another point I’d like to raise is flexibility. If operators get themselves a decent roaming control engine, then they can easily test and experiment with different options without having to pay crazy amounts of money to change their billing systems for every little marketing test.

In the fifth and final part of a series of Amdocs-sponsored interviews addressing the impact of the mobile data capacity crunch, we talk to Dario Talmesio, senior analyst at Informa, about sender-pays data, tiered data pricing and more.

This series is jointly produced with the talented people at Mobile Entertainment magazine‘s ME TV channel.

[Note, this video was originally published in November 2010. I'm republishing it today to update the video embed properly - Ewan]

In the fourth of a series of Amdocs-sponsored interviews addressing the impact of the mobile data capacity crunch, we talk to Sanyu Kiruluta, head of developer relations at RIM EMEA, and Rupert Englander, head of services & marketing at Nokia UK.

This series is jointly produced with the talented people at Mobile Entertainment magazine‘s ME TV channel.

[Note, this video was originally published in November 2010. I'm republishing it today to update the video embed properly - Ewan]

In the third of a series of interviews addressing the impact of the mobile data capacity crunch, we talk to Nick East, General Manager of OSS at Amdocs, about growth in demand, traffic types and management strategies.

Over to Nick:

This series is jointly produced with the talented people at Mobile Entertainment magazine‘s ME TV channel.

[Note, this video was originally published in November 2010. I'm republishing it today to update the video embed properly - Ewan]

Alistair Hill, the managing director of On Device Research, reckons this trend is down to customers becoming more satisfied with their connected experience:

“As mobile media becomes more important to consumers daily lives, mobile operators are gaining more satisfied customers. Great services such as social networking and mobile games help operators to increase customer loyalty and handset manufacturers to differentiate themselves.”

I can understand that — especially when considering an international audience. Here are some of the report’s fascinating highlights:

- Operator satisfaction increases 22% for daily mobile internet users compared to occasional browsers in the UK, +10% in India, +26% in Kenya.
- Mobile social networkers’ operator satisfaction increases 10% in the UK compared to those who do not use the service, 14% in India, 10% in Kenya.
- In Kenya mobile games have huge influence on which mobile phone to purchase. 89% of mobile media users in Kenya consider the quality of games they can play on their device when choosing a new phone.

Here’s Alistair’s slideshare:

That headline is a direct quote from a radio advertisement I heard just now from the Carphone Warehouse.

Bad news for the market.

Bad news for the data crunch.

Bad news for the end customer.

Very bad news.

It’s bad news because it’s educating consumers that the internet has little value. So little value that you’ll get it chucked in free with monthly contracts starting at just £12. Like the rubbish toys you get in cereal packets.

I understand why Carphone is running the campaign. They’ve probably got some research that shows consumers really don’t like getting data bill shock and that they don’t understand what a meg or a gig means.

It’s laudable. But there’s quite a few problems. You really do need to read the fine print.

For example, the handset advertised on the site is the HTC Wildfire. You can have it ‘free’ on a 24-month contract at £12 per month. Sounds good, that. That’s with Carphone’s own Talkmobile MNVO.

If you opt for a recognised brand like Vodafone, you’ll pay £15 per month for 24-months. The phone’s still free. But there’s NO data allowance at all. If you pay £15/month with Orange, you’ll get 250mb of inclusive data.

So you only get the unlimited deal with Carphone’s operator. Fair enough. But there’s an asterisk. Here it is:

Subject to fair use policy, but the good news is the fair use policy does not apply to Talkmobile ‘Never pay for the internet’ deals.

So if you take out the £12 one from Talkmobile, you’ll be ok. You’ll never pay for the internet.

This sounds like a really good deal, until you try downloading 100gb of data via your handset’s data connection.

I wonder what Carphone would do?

I thought that perhaps Talkmobile was running on 3UK which given it’s substantial investment in mobile data (and relatively low network load) is able to offer unmetered data without breaking a sweat.

I asked around on Twitter (thanks Dan) and apparently Talkmobile is an MVNO running on Vodafone.

Therefore gentlemen (and ladies) if you’d like absolutely truly unlimited data on Vodafone, get yourself a £12/month contract from Talkmobile.

I’ll eat my hat if it’s actually truly unlimited. The fair use policy doesn’t apply, eh?

I wonder.

It’d be super if this was entirely accurate. I wonder if, perhaps, Vodafone (or Talkmobile) will simply hobble your connection if you end up using a ton of data in a given time period? That would make sense.

Ironically it’s this kind of completely transparent ‘unlimited-and-we-mean-it’ that consumers will respond well to. Sadly it’s a bit of a tightrope walk to get what Carphone are advertising. Make one slip up and you’ll be on a 250mb/month price plan with Orange for 24-months.

Anyway, check out Talkmobile’s site here: http://www.talkmobile.co.uk/

I challenged him to write a quick reply. Here we go:

- – - – -

Very interesting piece, Ewan… we ran our own research and found the same thing – it’s far too easy to run up big data bills and also kill your battery just by using a basic a feature such as automatic email updates – see the recent Sunday Times article “Hello, caller, checking your email has cost £5,000”!

People like to have multiple messaging accounts set up (Email, Exchange, Twitter, Yammer, etc) and want instant access to these messages. A standard smartphone polls/checks all messages for each account, and downloading every new message including spam, images and in many cases all attachments too.

MailSuite effectively turns any standard smartphone into a Blackberry. We unify all of your messaging accounts (including Twitter, Yammer, etc) saving the individual polling for new messages, compress the data by up 98% (average 96%) and give full push email so there isn’t so much of the constant polling (all with no software to install).

A big issue with today’s smartphones it’s all too easy to set up all of your messaging accounts and hit the road… at least until about midday when your battery dries out! Both the end user and the MNO need the tools to manage this data, that’s Mailsuite!

Highly interesting. 96% average compression? That is absolutely phenomenal!

If you’d like to test out Dan’s claims, get yourself an account at www.mailsuite.com. I’m going to do that now.

I’m delighted to say that it’s everything I expected: Clear packaging, simple instructions, evidently the output of a team of smart people who’ve really thought about it. Everything you need to go live is right there in the little package including all the APN details you need.

I filmed an ‘unboxing’ — that is, opening up the little package and having a nose about. I hope this is useful for anyone considering getting one. Just a quick reminder — the SIM offers mobile data roaming in 50 countries (including the US) for a unified simple fee of €0.59 per megabyte. Now, that will soon add up if you plan on a significant amount of use, but at least the pricing is clear, reasonable and you can immediately re-load it whenever you want. I think that’s probably the *best* feature, not having to arse about going into ‘foreign’ shops to get it charged up. You can either use PayPal or your credit card to top it up.

Most other operators will charge you at least €1 or £1 per megabyte, if not a lot more.

Abroadband do a MicroSIM for your iPad/iPhone and a pre-configured USB dongle. I went for the normal SIM as I’m intending using it in my MiFi unit.

I recognise that this doesn’t necessarily compare to a €15 all-you-can-eat deal that you get if you go shopping locally, but if you are in-and-out of the 50 countries covered — and you just need to check email and do a bit of twittering, Abroadband could be for you.

Now, I haven’t actually tried the SIM yet. I’m going to get a screen recorder installed and I’ll detail that soon so we can see precisely how it works — especially in terms of re-loading credit.

Abroadband is the brainchild of the team at Telekom Austria. I wrote about their launch late last month here.

Here’s the vid:

One company I met on Sunday morning prior to MWC was apoplectic with rage about Facebook, Google and Apple. I won’t go into detail about the company’s identity except to say they’re a highly influential service provider to the mobile industry.

This company’s perspective was very similar to that of the France Telecom and Telecom Italia Chief Executives (detailed in this post). The collective view amongst many in the mobile operator space is that these ‘b@starding companies‘ (direct quote) ‘are screwing up the network for everyone and not paying a cent toward the network upkeep‘.

It was a fascinating discussion. I listened for a little while before asking this series of questions (I admit to teeing the guy up for the final one):

Q: Do you think it’s unfair that Facebook, Google, Apple and so on are not paying for the use of the mobile network infrastructure?

A: It’s insufferable. It’s ridiculous. It’s outrageous. (I’m paraphrasing his exact words. He used a few F-bombs too — highly entertaining.)

My next question:

Q: But the consumers themselves accessing Google, Facebook and whatnot, they’ve paid their mobile operators for the privilege, right?

A: Yes, but it’s highly irresponsible of these companies to keep on introducing new services that are causing [the industry] to have to spend more and more money maintaining quality of service. (Paraphrasing again)

My final question:

Q: Ok, so how would the industry react if, for example, Facebook simply switched off mobile access for every one of it’s 650 million users and charged the mobile operator £3 per month for the privilege of delivering Facebook content to the consumer?

A: [Silence for a few seconds, followed by a look of horror]

Heh. What happens when Facebook decides to tell the market that it can no longer afford to maintain it’s hugely expensive bandwidth and server infrastructure without the mobile operators coughing up. That could become a rather sticky conversation. Unlikely. But at least the example made this chap — previously apoplectic with rage — sit back and take stock.

I don’t think many people in the marketplace have thought things through when they argue that mobile operators are victims in the ‘data crunch’. It’s laughable that these giants are demanding the biggies like Google and Youtube cough-up when the consumers accessing these services have already paid to do so.

If the model is broken, fix it. Simply doing a T-Mobile and deciding that ‘unlimited’ means 500mb of data per month is silly. And offering ‘unlimited’ 250mb plans is ridiculous. It’s a guaranteed way to ensure consumers think twice about doing anything on their handsets in fear of bill shock.

It’s not about the race to zero. For some reason, the mobile marketplace is consumed with this race to zero. To be the cheapest. To offer the cheapest rubbish because that’s the only thing people will pay for.

Nonsense.

Innovate. Truly innovate. And we’ll see some excitement and delight spreading across the market from consumer to operator.

You can see some of the ideas I’d like to see from operators in terms of innovation here.

Meanwhile, it’s not just me speculating about Facebook. The industry analysts Ovum have been doing so too. I’ll be publishing a post from them on that subject in just a moment.

Which means I’m doing about 120mph+ on the Eurostar right now. I’m in the United Kingdom at the moment (barely — the Channel Tunnel is heading this way quickly) and I’m MiFiying like no tomorrow.

I’m thoroughly delighted to say that although I was seriously unhappy with 3UK last week (ONE POUND TWENTY-EIGHT A FLIPPING MEGABYTE? SERIOUSLY? HUGH? COME ON!), I’m very pleased with the 3UK data service via my MiFi in the UK.

The fact it can still deliver whilst I’m zipping through the countryside is a testament to the 3UK network chaps. Love it.

Pick up one for £49 (plus a tenner top up) from any 3UK store on PAYG.

I’m not sure what it is about Barcelona — whenever I find myself needing an internet connection, there’s usually some kind of impediment in the way.

This year I shared an apartment with Ben Smith of Wireless Worker. Ben located the flat a few months back after some genius searches through an array of semi-useless apartment rental sites. We went back and forth, expending far too much time trying to decide on the best place to choose.

With every search, we specifically checked the ‘broadband’ or ‘internet’ option.

You can guess what happened when we arrived in Barcelona. Aye. Flipping annoying. We arrived at the apartment to find no internet.

Ben did his best possible Englishman-Abroad (i.e. talk LOUDLY) accent and asked the chap who had let us into the apartment where the internet was.

The guy explained that he would bring it along in an hour.

Right.

He turned up with a Vodafone broadband USB stick.

This was ‘internet’.

But it wasn’t what we needed.

Our problem was not quite understanding the definition of internet. We’d assumed the place would have had wired super-fast broadband.

So if you’re wondering why you haven’t seen much from Mobile World Congress here on Mobile Industry Review this week, it’s quite straight forward: I couldn’t get the data up.

I’ve got pots of videos. I reckon I generated about 200 gigabytes of data this week on the big camera and on the little handheld.

You’ll have seen one or two videos I’ve managed to get live — thanks to Cisco, by the way (more on that below). But it was simply unrealistic to try uploading 200-300mb videos using the Vodafone broadband stick supplied by the apartment.

It didn’t take long for Vodafone Spain to recognise that Ben and I were hammering the USB stick just through normal usage and within a few days, the stick had reduced down to delivering a few kilobytes of connectivity at 2G level. Instead of cutting you off, they just screw your speed down to nothing. Fair enough.

There were 60,000 people at Mobile World Congress this week. I reckon most of them had at least two WiFi capable handsets not to mention the obligatory laptop. So finding a working fixed-line connection to knock up the videos to the web was, predictably, a bit of an arse.

Our trick — it was Ben’s idea — was to go and sit in the lunch place in Hall 5. This is an on-site restaurant that charges you €35 a pop for a 3-course lunch every day of the congress. Luckily if you hold a press badge, you get to eat free. And there’s as much Coke Zero as you want.

The good point here is that Cisco had wired the place up — and since everyone else was busy eating, hardly anyone bothered connecting in this zone.

This was how I managed to get the BlackBerry videos I’d taken over to Kevin at CrackBerry. I was uploading directly to the CrackBerry Youtube account for speed as Kevin needed the videos live for the North American morning. And goodness me Cisco, you rocked.

I uploaded 160mb (4 individual videos) to Youtube in about 4 minutes.

Literally it was taking me longer to type out the brief descriptions for the videos, the connection was working so fast.

Sadly by day two, some other WiFi refugees from around the Congress had worked out that this area was virgin territory and the upload speed dropped significantly.

Still. Nice work there Cisco.

I’ve got a ton of video coming. Normally I would play it out over quite a few weeks but, you know what, I think it’s time to go nuts and get it all up as soon as I can. That’s what I’ll be doing when I get back to the super-dooper MIR Towers internet connection later today, tomorrow and across next week. Standby!

[Here's my BlackBerry Booth Tour for CrackBerry]

I’m delighted to say that Paul Shadwell’s fantastic guide worked perfectly for me. I paid €15 for the dc-unlocker.com site credits mentioned in Paul’s post and boom: My MiFi was unlocked in about a second.

Thank you Paul and thank you Mr DC Unlocker.

The next problem is figuring out how to top-up the Vodafone sim card for tomorrow. But right now all my devices — 2x laptops, iPhone, HTC HD7 and BlackBerry — are now connected using HSPA+. Love it.

No thanks, by the way, to Vodafone. It’s a flipping arse having to dance around with Vodafone Spain because Vodafone UK hasn’t got it’s act together to offer decent roaming rates.

I want to be clear: £2 for the first 25mb is simply brilliant, Vodafone. Absolutely brilliant. I love it. But after that, the £1/meg policy begins to become punitive. I think it’s a simply fantastic deal for consumers just ‘using their phone’ but for anyone wanting to do a little bit more. You know, perhaps 50-100mb, it begins to get highly expensive. When Vodafone Spain is able to deliver service to me for €4 for ‘unlimited fair use’ per day, why can’t Vodafone UK do the same. Or call it €5 per day? Or even €10?

Fundamentally I’m delighted by Vodafone but this disparity between ‘markets’ (i.e. individual operating companies) is very silly. I know *why* it’s the case — but as an end consumer, I don’t care. I shouldn’t have to care.

And from another fundamental point here — am I right in saying that, really, the reason I have to go and buy a different sim card from Vodafone Spain (when I already spend hundreds a month with Vodafone UK) is ego.

Not my ego.

It’s the ego of the Vodafone UK Chief Executive and the Vodafone Spain Chief Executive, right? It’s them putting their arms across their chest and saying NO, ‘this is my game’, right?

Am I right? Help me out. It’s the individual operating companies behaving like kids in the Vodafone Global playground, right?

Surely ‘Global’ would love to be able to offer a unified international roaming framework across their operating companies to prevent their customers having to sod about with sim cards to get reasonable rates?

Or is Global quite content because each operating company is extracting significant cash out of it’s consumer base and winding them up at the same time?

The real problem from the end-consumer perspective is that I have next to no loyalty when it comes to crazy international roaming prices. If you assume — for the sake of argument — that my time is worth £50 per hour, I estimate I’ve expended about 6 hours dicking around researching, visiting, translating, bargaining, experimenting and so on. Include the €15 unlock fee for the MiFi and the money I’ve handed over to Vodafone Spain (€20 so far), I think I’ve probably ‘spent’ about £400 of value.

This is silly. But it’s a measure of just how much I feel about the issue. I’ve only actually paid out about €50 euro. Which, by the way, is about the cost of uploading 20-odd decent photos if I was paying Vodafone UK £1/meg.

The other arse is the chap sitting next to me using Vodafone UK. His company is paying for his data bill. So he doesn’t care. Neither does the company. He’s probably using about 400 meg a day — he’s doing a QIK right now and he’s uploading what looks like a directory full of high-res images through his Vodafone UK dongle. That is nice, NICE revenue for Vodafone UK.

So, I think, alas, this situation isn’t going to change overnight.

Given that you have to opt-in for Vodafone’s £2 for £25mb package, isn’t it fair to say that all those people actually CARE about Vodafone’s roaming costs. Ergo go one step more and charge them £2 for 25mb blocks. So if you use 100mb, you pay £8. Not £77.

Meanwhile all the companies paying silly amounts of money for their roaming data will continue to do so until their global services contract renewal. At which point it’s all about the talents of your sales chaps.

Meanwhile, what about the end consumer, Vodafone?

You’ve 100% delighted me with the £2 for 25mb roaming option. Now, double it. Lock-it in. Stop me looking elsewhere. Bill me £2 per 25mb for all my usage.

Or even better, why not reflect the Vodafone Spain rates? Ok. I know. Dreaming.

Quite a lot of UK readers were rather keen to find out if their network supported the NSN technology which, if implemented fully, should (amongst other things) lead to a more efficient use of your device battery. (There’s a lot more detail in the comments of that post above from the NSN team).

I understand from some meetings I had yesterday that the two UK networks using Nokia Siemens Networks equipment are Three and o2.

I did wonder. It’s only anecdotal but from a network perspective my Three iPhone seems to function so much better compared to my Vodafone one.

Still, I’ll need to do some more digging to find out precisely what each network has got implemented.

By default, 3UK insist you spunk £1.28 per megabyte. Period. No ifs, no buts, no bundles. £1.28. And then they’ll happily switch you off after they’ve taken £45 from you in a calendar month, so as to try and, you know, look as though they care for your wellbeing.

This, by the way, from the network that claims it’s the best go-to operator for smartphones in the United Kingdom, offering ‘truly unlimited data’. Until, that is, you go abroad and the cash spunking begins.

Thanks but no thanks Three. It’s utterly ridiculous.

In Part 2 of our video series focusing on the data capacity crunch, we talk to Sky’s Business Development Director, Emma Lloyd, to find out her perspective on the issue.

Over to Emma…

This series is jointly produced with the talented people at Mobile Entertainment magazine‘s ME TV channel.

In Part 1 of our video series focusing on the data capacity crunch, we talk to o2′s Head of Consumer Marketing, Jonathan Earle to find out his perspective on the issue.

Over to Jonathan…

This series is jointly produced with the talented people at Mobile Entertainment magazine‘s ME TV channel.

At least that was my first thought, then I read it a bit more closely:

..o2 called in the police after losing £1.2m in July alone.

£1.2m in one month!

If they targeted the five UK operators equally, then that’s £6m a month. Yes, a month. Even if o2 was the hardest hit then it’s probably still in the region of £3m a month. So how the hell did the UK operators let this happen? It surely can’t be that difficult to spot in excess of £1m walking out the door. Or can it? And is it negligence in spotting this that keeps my tariffs (and yours) so high?

So I thought I’d ask a couple of experts if they could help explain it to me.

- – - – -

First up, I spoke to Tal Eisner, Senior Director of Product strategy for cVidya Networks. I asked him what his first reaction was to the news:

“In my opinion, the case in question was a master plan and therefore it was quite successful for the people who committed it. The fraudsters not only stole some phones and produced calls, they shipped the phones abroad in order for these calls to go unnoticed, or at least unnoticed while in progress.”

“GSM Operators have been utilising a procedure in the past 2-3 years that goes under the name NRTRDE (Near Real Time Roaming Data exchange). This procedure obligated the operator to send details of roaming calls to the home network of the roamer in time frames of 4 hours, that’s in order to decrease the amount of abuse and fraud while roaming.”

“I strongly suspect that these fraudsters knew which countries to ship their phones to. They did it to countries that have NOT deployed these procedures and thus the time frame of reporting is like the “old times”, pre NRTRDE, which is up to 72 hours. A long enough time to perform many calls – costing the operators a fortune. Smart guys!”

So how this could have happened, how was the international calls element of this important?

“These calls have been deliberately done on roaming because in such cases the operators have no real time detection of the traffic. Moreover, the fraudsters, I suspect, knew in advance where to ship the stolen phones to and originate the calls from. They did it from countries where there is no NRTRDE procedure in place and therefore the home networks received the data of the calls after a 72 hours delay.”

“Operators should deploy NRTRDE ASAP. [They should also have] a Fraud Management System that has all the sufficient tools in order to have as much control as possible over roaming traffic. Roaming is highly expensive and controlling it with 24/7 tools can save millions of dollars every month.”

He was too polite to mention that the cVidya Fraud View product could help here!

- – - – -

Then, I spoke to Paul Paterson, the Operations Director for ImpulsePay. I also asked him what his first reaction was.

“I wasn’t particularly surprised that this sort of thing was going on, but I was surprised with both the amount of money involved and the time it was allowed to go on for. I think o2 must be relieved that they spotted it when they did and I can understand that they might think that it is a victory against fraudsters. But the reality is that they actually lost £1.2million in a single month!”

Premium rate calls seemed to play an important part in this, why?

“Because it’s easy. Setting up a premium phone line abroad takes minutes, and there aren’t really many safeguards against bad debt, as mobile contracts are credit based. So if a fraudster is willing to use stolen information to set up a new contract phone, they can pretty much get away with this type of activity for at least a short time. There are also similar scams involving premium rate messages.”

“Fraud prevention systems are key. For example, if o2 had a system in place which allowed it to flag possible fraudulent activities in real-time, they could avoid this happening in the first place. I think the operators need to look into investing in new systems that flag up, say, a brand new user who is suddenly calling [or texting] premium rated phone lines abroad at hundreds of pounds a month. Given this latest story, and I’m sure a few others that we haven’t heard of, it would be a very worthwhile investment for them.”

- – - – -

Thanks guys, a really interesting take on it.

I keep on having to remind myself that many mobile operator systems are held together with what appears to be very expensive pieces of string. Dear me.