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.]

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?

Did you see me on the BBC Breakfast News at the weekend, suited-and-booted?

There was some discussion in the MacLeod household over the appropriate clothing to wear. Open shirt? Jacket-n-shirt? Nope. Mothers and mother-in-laws were almost consulted before I took the pinstripe decision. You can’t go wrong with a pinstripe.

And, as my wife pointed out, ‘It’s the BBC.’

Suit and tie.

I was invited on to discuss mobile roaming. The news broke last week that the EU is going further with it’s roaming cap demands. Just looking at data roaming, here’s what’s being proposed (via WSJ):

Currently, data roaming is subject to a maximum safeguard cap of €50 ($73), but starting next July it would be capped at 90 European cents ($1.31) per megabyte, according to the draft. The cost ceiling for data used would decrease to 70 cents a megabyte in 2013 and 50 cents a megabyte 2014, and would remain at that level until June 30, 2016, when the regulation expires.

Ouch. And then for voice calls:

The EU last week said retail price caps for voice calls are set to decline to 32 cents a minute for outgoing calls or 11 cents a minute for incoming calls as of July 1, 2012. By July 2013, the caps would fall again to 28 cents and 10 cents, respectively. The retail price for an SMS text message would be capped at 10 cents from July 1, 2012.

Again, ouch.

So with that in mind, I was there to discuss the topic of mobile roaming for the Saturday audience.

There wasn’t the time to get stuck into the subject matter — and I’m reasonably content that most of the people watching didn’t wish to do so. I pointed out that it was utterly important that all viewers give their mobile operator a call — or have a look on the website to check the price of data roaming and see what plans they could add or change if they’re going abroad this summer.

I managed to get in the rather shocking ’40%’ statistic. Have you come across this one? It’s from mobile roaming experts, MACH, who point out that mobile operators in Europe report that collectively (that is, across all their subscribers combined) 40% of customers switch their mobile phones off when abroad. That is, they actively DO NOT roam — because (one presumes) of ‘billshock’. That is a testament to how poorly priced roaming has been — and still is.

I think it’s fair to say that most consumers understand what per-minute call costs ‘mean’. 36p a minute, for example, is easy to calculate. If you do a quick, ‘hello, I’ve arrived’ and then hang-up, you’ll be charged 36p. Job done.

But if you send a photo? And you’ve been told (helpfully, I might add, by text from your operator when you arrive) that you’ll be charged £1.28 per megabyte, what does that mean? How much to send the photo of the beautiful beach vista before you up to Facebook?

This is the key problem with data roaming. Nobody knows what it will cost.

Even if you pay attention to the ‘small/medium/large’ file sizes, the fact that the photo might be 600k doesn’t mean you’ll be charged 600k .You have to load up the email client, for example — and do an email check (automatically). And then you have to allow for the overhead of transmitting back and forth. Or if you’re loading the Facebook client, you have next to no idea what it’s doing, data wise. You might end up using 5mb to upload a 600k photo.

But it’s all roundly good news. Broadly speaking, data roaming prices are coming down. There are some super offers available.

Alas I didn’t get the chance to congratulate Vodafone Ireland (or, in BBC parlance, ‘a leading mobile operator’) on offering FREE mobile data roaming across 27 European countries this summertime (July & August). That is truly genius. I’m going to be writing about that shortly.

It was nevertheless super to be able to discuss mobile roaming with a wider audience.

As for the photo above? Well thank you to @mobilemandan for snapping it. Come on Dan, wasn’t there a slimmer version you could have captured at a different camera angle?

Anyway, it’s an improvement over this action-shot that @stuartdredge helpfully captured. My head looks shrunk on one side. I still very much appreciate the timeliness Stuart. Twitter actually records you publishing the photo at 09:24am — so based on the timestamp on the screen, that took just 60 seconds for you to get that one out. Very fast!

Update: A top hat tip for @stephenwing for recommending me (and @bensmithuk) to the BBC

If you haven’t come across them, Boingo is the world’s largest network of WiFi hotspots. I use them regularly, especially when I’m abroad. They’re great with airports, hotels, coffee shops and so on. I particularly like the way their laptop software automatically logs you in — and it’s reasonably convenient to use on the iPhone. Just a few taps and you’re done, provided you’re in a Boingo zone. There are 325,000 hotspots worldwide.

I have the big plan. The crazy price one. £39 a month (or $59) that gives me 2,000 minutes per month of access. Fundamentally, I have a serious problem paying for ‘minutes’ but I understand that this is often the easiest way to make the economics work when Boingo undoubtedly has to pay ‘network access fees’ of some sort to *some* hotspots.

To put this in context, however, I think I’m committed to spend £40 per month on my primary Vodafone contract, per month. So spending a similar amount on JUST a Boingo account does make my face display all sorts of pained looks whenever I think about it.

But I don’t.

That’s my strategy.

I don’t think about it. I do the equivalent of sticking my fingers in my ears and yelling “LA LA LA LA” loudly. That helps me forget the stupid price and the stupid business model.

I just don’t like paying for minutes. I don’t think anybody does. I’d rather have a flat fee. And frankly, I’d rather it was LESS money. But I want to use the service on both my laptop(s) and my mobile devices. So I lump it.

And I forget about it.

Until, that is, I get these kinds of emails.

Last week I got a note telling me I was approaching my 2,000 minute limit.

Today it seems I screwed that limit.

Have a read:

So here’s my problem: I hopped on to the Boingo site to see what I can do about this problem.

Because, you see, it’s now a PROBLEM.

Now I’ve got to DO something about it.

Now it’s a flipping faaaking exception that I need to manage.

As if I don’t have enough to deal with.

There are other plans you can buy.

To my knowledge I’ve bought the biggest one. Part of the logic there is so that I don’t get this exception shit. I just don’t want to have to manage it. Not when it’s costing the SAME as a good domestic mobile service plan.

I prepared myself for the arse-ache involved in having to upgrade my service plan.

Turns out I can’t.

I’m off to Baltimore next week and I do plan to use the Boingo service. Only, since my account is SUSPENDED……..

I’ve just spent the last 5 minutes hunting around the Boingo site looking for the PAY US MORE FLIPPING MONEY button. That’s what I was intending to do.

Yes I’ve already blown £40. I don’t have a problem with that. I used all the minutes. There was no fraud. I just happened to leave my laptop ON for hours on end when I was in Germany. I did that. Eyes open. No issue. I just didn’t expect to be punished for it.

By all means suspend the account. That’s excellent practice for folk who don’t want to spend any more money.

Me on the other hand? I need the flipping utility.

So what am I supposed to do?

I login. I look for the ‘upgrade’ button. No button.

Why can’t I buy an extra 1,000 minutes?

I have even considered buying ANOTHER account so I don’t have to deal with the flipping exceptions.

I’m at a loss to what to do.

I write this text as an illustration — a real time illustration — of user frustration, not just for Boingo’s ears (or eyes) but for the marketplace.

Could we possibly, possibly consider avoiding suspending folks’ accounts? Or, actually — what I mean to say is, by all means apply a suspension (I understand why this is relevant, good and proper), but RIGHT FLIPPING NEXT TO IT, add a button that says “UNSUSPEND” or “UPGRADE” or “TEMPORARILY GIVE US A LOAD MORE MONEY”.

I’d have done that this evening. Anything to avoid having to wake up to the reality of the amount of cash the service costs.

Now, though, I hit the wall. I woke up from the “LA LA LA LA LA” dream, dumbfounded that there appears to be no easy fix.

Now I have to sit there in flipping silence at Baltimore Airport with my arms folded because SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE at the Boingo offices decided that 2,000 minutes should be enough for anyone in a 30-day period.

Right then. To the subject of this post. Are there any alternatives you’d suggest?

I keep on hearing about iPass. I keep on thinking I need to actually, actually knuckle-down and actually look at it properly. Is there anything else I am missing?

Or, actually, should I just use my Abroadband service instead as a Boingo replacement? My 3 MiFi unit doesn’t work in the States so I’d need to upgrade that, but I’ve no issue doing so. I just haven’t bothered as Boingo has usually kept me happy enough.

I’d welcome your suggestions.

This week we talk about international roaming services and wonder why these services – and especially data – command such premium pricing. We discuss:

• The recent MACH Insights conference.
• The products and services we use for roaming including Vodafone’s data traveller service, Abroadband, Droam, Onavo, Truphone and MiFi devices.
• The wetpaint Wiki for information on global pre-paid wireless internet access.
• The EU regulator’s efforts to reduce roaming charges.
• Who or what could disrupt the market for roaming services in future.

We also have a give-away competition for commenters this week – leave a comment to be in with a (randomly chosen) chance to win a Jabra Skype-certified bluetooth headset and laptop dongle.

Episode 8 is also available on Soundcloud.

There are lots of ways to follow the podcast or you can subscribe using iTunes and other popular services.

Now then, what happens if operators were to deploy these rather innovative plans such as the one mentioned above? It’s a topic I’ve been exploring whilst I’ve been on-site at MACH Insights 2011.

I explored this question in another video thus:

I could imagine many consumers simply loving the flexibility of being able to upload photos, reply to messages, add status messages and so on, whilst on holiday. There must be millions of people who simply do not bother because they are afraid to bill shock — or they’ve already learnt an expensive lesson about roaming abroad.

If operators charged for the service fairly and transparently, I think consumers may well respond positively to it. One of the key points about service-based charging (i.e. Youtube, Facebook, Google Maps Navigation) is that consumers understand it. They get it. They know what it means. Nobody knows what 1mb means.

However, let’s just assume one particular operator was really, really successful with a Facebook-style roaming offer. Remember it’s stupidly-easy to target consumers. You just need to modify your introductory welcome text message accordingly. You could even prioritise customers on higher price plans or who have a history of using Facebook domestically but who suddenly stop using it whilst abroad.

Assume that, I dunno, 2 million customers go on holiday in a given month.

1 million of them opt in for the service and actually end up spending a tenner each (say 5 days x €2) for Facebook. That’s a cool €10,000,000. Factor that up across an operator group with, say, 10 similar geographies. We’re now at €100m additional revenue.

Still with me? Suspend your disbelief whilst I continue the example, I know there’s plenty of holes. Let’s assume that the operator can achieve these revenues fully during one quarter (the summer months) and then only 25% during the rest of the year.

3 summer months = €300m.

9 months at 25% of €100m (9 x €25m) = €225m.

Stick it all together and we’re over half a billion Euro at €525m revenues.

Now as I said, there are plenty of holes. Plenty of holes. I’ve made a ton of assumptions.

But I think the point is still valid.

At what point does Facebook think it deserves a bit of that revenue?

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.

Here’s the link: Why using data on your phone abroad is so expensive, and how to save money

It’s a seriously comprehensive post that summarises the challenges, the costs ($19.46 per meg from Sprint, roaming in the UK… ouch!) and some possible solutions including the likes of Onavo, Droam and my personal favourite, Abroadband.

Do have a read and let me know what you think.

CAUTION: If you’re a mobile operator, I strongly recommend closing down your web browser and avoiding clicking through.

Roaming is, as regular readers know, a subject close to my heart.

I was dismayed — utterly dismayed — watching Morten Broegger’s keynote yesterday. Morten is CEO of MACH, the company behind the event. I was dismayed by one key figure:

42% of subscribers, globally, do not use roaming when they’re abroad.

Isn’t that ridiculous?

Indeed I gave some thought to sticking up my hand and asking Morten if he could highlight how many subscribers, globally, sort-of-used mobile roaming when abroad.

I’d go so far as to say that a further 30% of people carefully control their roaming bill (for data and otherwise) whilst the rest of the travellers — those with companies picking up the crazy tab — roaming without a care.

Morten is in a position to know precisely what’s going on around the world given the fact that MACH works with 650 of the world’s 800 or so mobile operators, providing an array of roaming, billing and outsourced management services.

It does get worse though.

Another figure I was astounded by was the fact that approximately 40% of enterprise travellers don’t actually use roaming either. Presumably because their CFOs are paying attention to unnecessary or overly inflated costs.

There were some pretty grim faces throughout the audience — most of the 150+ attendees at the event represent some of the world’s leading operators — although glimmers of excitement did appear when delegates got a look at some of MACH’s funky new roaming ideas. (I’ve got a video coming on that shortly).

The thrust of Morten’s message was ‘evolve or die’.

Well, not die. But fade away, slowly.

He highlighted that the that 42% of customers who don’t roam at all represent a phenomenal opportunity for revenue growth. Indeed, the industry knows that the impending (potential) doom of regulation is steadily approaching and instead of fighting it, Morten advises proactively embracing the challenges as an opportunity. Fight it and you’ll lose market share — because one of your competitors will be there to sweep up the disaffected customers.

It’s a compelling message and one that I explored in some detail in the panel discussion that I held at the event. I was delighted to play the role of moderator, especially since it featured such a luminary panel:

- Mark Newman, Chief Research Officer, Mobile Operators Strategies, Informa Telecoms & Media
- Tommy Bertling, Senior Marketing Manager, Swisscom Switzerland
- Lokdeep Singh, VP Tech & Innovation, MACH
- Vesa Terävä, Acting Head of Unit B2 – Implementation of Regulatory Framework, DG Infso, European Commission

Interestingly, even the EU representative charged with investigating the issue of roaming, Vesa Terävä, had his phone’s roaming capability switched off.

At one point, Mark from Informa pointed out that the ability to pick-and-choose from reasonable data plan offerings (e.g. €2 per day for Facebook access from the beach) was the way ahed of the market. I broke off from the panel discussion and asked the audience.

“Is anyone here planning on implementing some modified, new, exciting and fair roaming rates?” I asked, surveying the gathered mobile operator roaming representatives.

Silence.

Total silence.

“So Vesa Terävä is right to be investigating the market then,” I concluded, and we got on with the panel discussion.

No wonder the industry is in a blind panic. It’s not just roaming, there’s a whole host of issues winding up the executives — but roaming is one of the big challenges because it gives the industry the excuse to charge stupid rates to customers.

Let’s be clear, charging for roaming is just an excuse. Fundamentally, it’s an excuse. It was valid years ago. But today, the operators are selling the same piece of rope, just in a different geographic location.

It’s (broadly) the same cellular technology. Indeed it’s the exactly same GSM standardised equipment that I’m using, the only difference is that I’ve traveled to a different country.

The argument for hugely increased pricing gets seriously, seriously sticky when you look at the big mobile operator groups who WHOLLY own networks in tens of countries.

The price of a bottle of Coca Cola does not change (vastly) between the United Kingdom and France. Yes there’s a slight aberration caused by exchange rates. But it’s broadly the same cost. Likewise when you look at the cost of a Big Mac. Or, an Apple Mac. Again, a MacBook Air costs broadly the same in any country, allowing for exchange rate and VAT changes.

Ergo, why should a globalised telecoms provider feel compelled to charge its customers dramatically different prices in different countries?

Because that’s the way it’s been.

Because they depend on that revenue.

Because individual operators still have to argue with each other to hammer out a negotiated cost when there’s true roaming occurring (i.e. when I, as a Vodafone customer, roam on to T-Mobile Germany).

If I’m a Vodafone UK customer, am I actually ‘roaming’ when I use Vodafone Germany? Really? Tell me that with a straight face.

And — back to Morten’s keynote — tell it to the European Union. This is precisely why the EU is having to get stuck into the mobile operators.

Vesa Terävä actually commented that, “This is not something we should be doing.”

I asked him to qualify that, to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood. He confirmed he meant that the EU shouldn’t have to wade into the markets and fix the roaming issue. The market should sort it out.

But it’s not.

And when you’ve got companies such as MACH developing innovative solutions that offer novel ways for delighting the (roaming) customer and for dramatically increasing revenue, it’s seriously disappointing to see lots of roaming stagnation across the globe.

(In the interests of balance, I should point out that MACH are just one of an array of customers who can help operators out managing their roaming challenges.)

Having sat through an array of smart presentations (and after moderating the panel), by the end of the day I was about ready to pop with frustration at the marketplace.

So I did.

I popped, right on camera. Watch me get progressively more annoyed in real time…

Here we go:

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:

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]

While I was running around like a mad man at Mobile World Congress this week, reader Kerry Ritz spotted news that Telecom Austria has decided to break apart the mobile roaming marketplace.

Abroadband uses Telecom Austria’s existing international roaming agreements to offer PAYG data roaming across 50 countries for just €0.59 per megabyte.

And that’s it.

No strings, no nonsense. You need to stump up €19 for the sim card and there’s a yearly access fee of €10 to keep the sim active.

And then you just pay per megabyte. €0.59 per megabyte seems highly reasonable. Indeed, it’s at least half the per-megabyte price that Three UK and Vodafone charge me for EU roaming.

With Abroadband, you just top up when you need to. You get real time usage statistics from the service so you’ll never run up a crazy bill.

Telecom Austria’s existing agreements ensure that you’ll be roaming on to quality operators in the supported countries too.

You can have a normal sim card, a microsim card and you can get a USB stick if you’d like one. Me? I’m going to get a couple and see how I like it.

I’m particularly impressed that it’s the same rate in a ton of different useful countries from South Africa to the United States — and of course, Europe.

I’m going to order one. I’ll let you know how I get on.

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.

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.

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.

Orange brought along their own mast for the event, which was a nice touch we thought. Seeing as most people there should have been with Orange anyway, this worked out nicely for them. As for all intents and purposes everyone on that network connected virtually through their Bristol tower. As the link was setup by them for this purpose alone; all a rather funky idea we believe.

For one, this saves on roaming charges and for another it just adds to the whole worth of the event in terms of continuity and practicality.

Some might have seen this as a gimmick, we just thought this was a nice idea and great for all those that attended this far, far away event.

We spoke to Pierre Combelles, VP of technical alignment and third parties, and also Steve Glagow, VP of marketing operations at Orange about their APIs. One of the more interesting elements of their partnerships that came out in the conversation interested us, for more reasons than one.

They have an involvement with a new friend of ours, ShoZu, curiously enough.

They used Orange’s APIs and within minutes, managed to integrate them into their platform for the online photo sharing site Pikeo.com.

All with the greatest of ease, those bright people at ShoZu were able to collaborate with Orange to enable an app on their mobiles.

Where images are transferred to a user Pikeo space, from the ShoZu platform with pure simplicity itself in mind – and very intuitively indeed.

It just goes to show how the bolts and bits of Orange’s API’s can be used to their fullest.

Also it came to light at the event, that the network ’3′ in the UK uses Orange’s towers and masts for their 2G network – something that not everyone knows but should do we believe.

We’ll bring you more of these later on.

Dear Ewan,

I am going away to Dubai over Xmas and after getting stung for an enormous mobile bill whilst in the states, I want to get a sim that will not cost the earth for calls to and from the UK.

When away in the summer I got hit for a bill of around £250 which was daft considering everything and I don’t want the same to happen again whilst away over Xmas.

Any ideas or solutions would be welcome, even if it means testing something for you to try and curb the costs!

Regards

David

Now then David. First off, you’ve got Truphone. Super if you’re going to have WiFi access. And they’ve got a Blackberry client that you might like to try out. But it’s not going to be much use to you when you’re roaming in Dubai as it’s more useful when you’re in the UK, calling internationally.

SIM4Travel, also owned by Truphone, will offer you free incoming calls whilst you’re in Dubai (er, or the United Arab Emirates, Dubai isn’t listed in their rate checker) and charge you £0.45 per minute to call the UK.

Does anyone have some suggestions for David?

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.

Perhaps I was missing my calling.

I picked up this note from the Atlanta Journal about how text is being used to help connect church-goers and their minister/priest (and each other). Have a read:

High above the 700-seat sanctuary, Amie Haskins, 27, the director of worship, sat in the church’s control booth receiving their text messages on the church’s cell phone. She screened out some (most were about whether pets would be in heaven — a point she knew Schreiner would be addressing later in the sermon), and typed others into a computer that was connected to Schreiner’s laptop next to him. During Schreiner’s 30-minute sermon, Haskins received 35 questions.

Trust American Churches to have a ‘Director of Worship’. That, I find slightly amusing.

Anyway I really like the use of the medium.

It’s announced that from the start of next month, roaming rates within the EU will drop by up to 80 percent for “internet access and mobile broadband”, while the sending a text within Europe will reduce cost up to 38 percent less. Or, to put it another way, the cost per megabyte of mobile data will fall from £7.50 to £1.50 and a roamed SMS will be 25p, down from 40p.

It looks like Reding’s plan is working: operators are doing their very best to dodge the threat of more regulation and if that means 80 percent price cuts, so be it. Hopefully, we’ll now see a rash of ‘me too’ pricing announcements slashing the cost of data use while abroad – and just in time for the summer holidays too.

—

It’s been a busy week with Nokia’s launch of the new S60 E71 and E66 handsets. However I’m not going to be covering them here as Ben Smith is already doing them justice elsewhere for SMS Text News.

Something that’s been bugging me recently is the question of coverage. I’m increasingly frustrated that we’re not seeing anything dramatic from the networks to tackle the problem of patchy and inadequate coverage. At home, despite living about half a mile from the M25, coverage is flaky and my handset jumps from cell to cell. I can see the signal strength indicator going up and down and switching between 3G and GSM. Having discussed it with my operator they accept that in building coverage is poor here and yes they do have plans to improve it, but not for a couple of years! Great, but that really isn’t good enough! My wife recently stayed at Center Parcs in Wiltshire and was unable to use her handset in most of the village. Standing on one leg on top of the wardrobe improved things marginally but proved less than practical! Even Victoria station in London suffers from poor coverage on some of the platforms.

So what are the networks doing to create a step change in coverage improvement (and I don’t mean installing the odd new cell site here and there)? 3 and T-Mobile, and Vodafone and Orange have announced infrastructure sharing agreements. These are designed to make it easier and cheaper to improve coverage by giving access to each others cell sites, thereby sharing costs and reducing the need for planning applications for new masts. To be fair it’s early days for these agreements but it seems likely that over time this will improve coverage for customers of these networks (not sure what happens to O2 here!).

There’s been a lot written about femotocells which provide localised in building coverage and route the mobile service via a broadband connection back to the operator’s network. This means the call or data traffic does not use the radio portion of the operator’s network. Benefits here are much better in building coverage and freeing up capacity in the radio portion of the network. These devices are currently undergoing test and it remains to be seen whether they will become a viable proposition for regular users, in terms of simplicity and cost.

Something I’d like to see would be roaming agreements between the operators to provide coverage where individual operators have gaps. Currently the only national roaming agreement is between 3 and Orange (previously with O2) where Orange’s GSM coverage fills gaps in 3’s 3G coverage. Maybe this is an area that OFCOM should look at? Whilst I generally don’t favour more regulation, I think 26 years is quite long enough to wait for ubiquitous, or even just better, coverage!

—

Jonathan’s also at Sevendotzero.

According to Reuters, Reding has given operators two weeks to clean up their act and cut costs. She’ll also start publishing the cost of roaming data services on an EU website from the start of next month. “On the basis of those prices I will then decide if it’s necessary or not to have a regulation proposed,” Reuters quotes Reding as saying.

If history is any guide, expect the European operators to make a lot of noise about how data costs have already come down loads in the last year or two, then cut the cost of data some more when they realise Reding isn’t joking, and then the EC to decide it’s still not enough and bring in the regulation anyway. Good news for anyone texting from aboard, bad news for anyone having to listen to operators whinging for the next few weeks.

And guess what’s spurred all this take-up? Yep, cheaper prices for both the necessary kit and for the connection itself, with the GSMA reckoning that the cost of data roaming in the EU dropped by 25 percent in the year to April 2008 while European roaming traffic jumped by traffic grew 75 percent in the same time. The GSMA is also predicting that prices will fall further.

All good news, obviously, but with mobile broadband now definitely mature, I’d like to put in a request for the operators: can we have more tariffs where a single data bundle can be shared between a number of devices (phone, dongle, laptop, 3G-connected digital camera etc) with just one bill? Please?

Reding is now also putting the question of “whether regulation is necessary for data roaming services and SMS in light of current retail prices and market development” up for discussion. The last time the Commissioner mooted some new laws to govern roaming, prices for voice minutes abroad tumbled as operators tried to deter the EC from introducing more regulation. Fingers crossed this will have the same effect on SMS and data.