Goodness me I’m shocked by what I’m about to narrate to you: It’s a tale of woe, desperation and sleight of hand and it involves:

a) A relative of mine
b) One of those ‘independent phone specialist’ agencies who cold call you regularly
c) And the great company of Vodafone

I should point out now that whilst this post involves Vodafone as the operator, it could easily apply to any other mobile operator. Indeed I’ve had similar experiences at the hands of an agency (apparently) working on behalf of Three.

However I’ve never experienced anything that involved such blatant trickery and manipulation.

Are you ready?

I’ll use the relative’s first name, Julia.

Across the past weeks she’s been getting annoying phone calls from Vodafone. At least, she thought they were from Vodafone. You know the ones, I’m sure you’ve had similar: Someone phones you and explains they can get you a better deal, yada yada. They usually say they’re “calling on behalf of Vodafone” or similar; They’re only interested in adding NEW lines, not dealing with your existing contracts; And they’re persistent.

A few times Julia answered the phone and said she was too busy to talk. Then last week she eventually relented.

“I felt sorry for them,” she said, “These poor people calling me all the time.”

So she listened.

The chap on the other end of the line explained that he was her Vodafone Account Manager.

I’m horrified.

He’s nothing of the sort.

Absolutely ridiculous. I do wonder if Vodafone *actually* know that this kind of thing is going on.

So having introduced himself as her Vodafone Account Manager, the chap proceeded to “confirm her details” including date of birth and address. Julia can’t quite recall this part, but I wonder if he only had her phone number and was therefore *asking* for her account details. I think this is what he must have done.

The chap went on to explain that he could save Julia money on her account by making some changes to her price plan.

She’s been accustomed to this sort of call over the years so she carried on listening.

The chap explained that if Julia liked, he “Could send her a cheque for £90.”

Julia was confused.

“Why can’t you just credit my account, I pay by direct debit,” she told him.

He obviously made some good excuses — but couldn’t hide any further, so pointed out that his firm wasn’t actually Vodafone but worked closely with them. Ouch.

Julia was rather confused by the whole call but she does recall saying words to the effect of, “Oh very well then,” regarding the chap sending the cheque.

Her viewpoint? If he was able to save

Now here’s the science bit: According to Julia’s recollection, at no point was an upgrade discussed. At no point was an additional line discussed. At no point was a new BlackBerry handset discussed.

Julia uses a Doro handset that she’s delighted with — she has absolutely no use for a BlackBerry — “And I’d have said that at the time, if I’d been given the opportunity,” she points out.

Fast forward a few days and a cheque arrived as the chap had promised. The cheque was drawn on the account of this independent agency, not Vodafone. Julia was worried that she’d been conned.

So she phoned Vodafone.

When she got through she was astonished to find that she’s got a new line on her account (reportedly for a BlackBerry!)

Further, she’s even more astonished to discover that she’s already out of her 14 day cooling off period.

She concludes that the chap must have used one of the previous times when he’d got through to her (but she declined to talk) as the commencement date for the ‘transaction’.

Now she has to unravel the mess. As you might expect, that’s not easily done when you call up Vodafone’s call centre, especially when you’ve got an enquiry like this. Customer service agents are not, I hope, used to dealing with this kind of nonsense.

What an appalling situation. Absolutely appalling.

It’s a sad indictment of the British mobile industry when this is how these weasel agencies conduct themselves.

I have to say I’m particularly alarmed by the “I’m your account manager” bit. Indeed, that’s the most concerning part of the whole transaction for me. This was a total out-and-out lie intended to win the trust of Julia.

How was the chap able to add a new line in her account without her understanding that this is what he was doing? If you talk to Vodafone directly, they’re always ultra clear about what you’re buying. They repeat everything. They use carefully authored language to make sure you understand. They insist their sales people read out all the terms and conditions.

But when it’s a third-party agency, I presume it’s game on.

The chap must have been able to use her date of birth and address that he “confirmed” by explaining he was her account manager. That must be how he was able to get the whole thing processed without Julia’s express agreement or any signatures.

Highly dodgy. Highly suspect. Truly disappointing.

Julia finally got through to Vodafone and explained the problem. They are, I understand, in the process of dealing with it. I hope that means they’ll reverse everything.

Further, I trust that Vodafone’s senior management will burn the sales agency involved. To the ground.

Other mobile operators should also be careful about how they handle these types of sales agencies. To have third party sales folk impersonating mobile operator account management staff in order to make a sale is simply inexcusable.

The other day I briefly wrote about Vodafone’s new Data Test Drive service. I’d seen a sign outside the Vodafone shop in Richmond and liked what I saw.

I like the innovation.

Someone at Vodafone has clearly been drinking some Mountain Dew.

Here’s how it works.

You sign-up for a new smartphone contract at Vodafone. You balk when they tell you that the standard contract arrangements include 500mb.

Is that enough, you wonder?

The chap behind the counter explains that if you go over 500mb, you’ll be charged £5 for every 250mb of data you use.

You begin to panic.

How much should you buy?

Well, relax.

For three months, Vodafone will let you use as much data as you like. I wouldn’t go nuts downloading terabytes of data, but you should feel free to actually use your smartphone as you intend. Vodafone won’t charge you a penny more.

Once the 3 months are up, both you and Vodafone will have a good idea of your average usage. And at that point you can set your data price plans. You might opt to add another 500mb or stay where you are.

I think this is a sensible and smart addition by Vodafone to help combat the worry and stress that we all feel standing at the contract table signing our lives away.

Find out more about the Data Test Drive here.

And for the sake of balance, I should point out that if you actually intend using a TON of data, Vodafone might not be the best network for you. Check out Three, for example, Just make sure you don’t act like a total idiot and end up having to cancel your account out of embarrassment. Yes. That was me (full details).

“Goodness me,” I thought, “Perhaps this is it?”

With baited breath, I waited as the Vodafone page loaded.

Ah.

Turns out that from the 11th of October, Vodafone will be increasing the costs of out-of-bundle services for all their contract customers.

Now I don’t begrudge Vodafone making money. Not at all. I want them to have buckets of money to pay for the network to keep running and to keep shareholders happy.

I do begrudge paying more for the same sodding service.

Why can’t these companies innovate?

Instead of making a few quid more from the SAME service, why not bring out something entirely new, something exciting, something that inspires me? Something that I’ll happily hand over a lot more cash to receive?

Geez, it’s so depressing.

It’s not limited to Vodafone though. It’s the whole industry.

I think I need some chocolate.

It fell off a sofa on to a wooden floor. This caused a huge crack in the screen.

I therefore needed to get it fixed.

My wife popped into a Vodafone store recently and they explained it would cost at least £150 to replace the screen.

Fair enough. My policy is not to bother with insurance and just to replace handsets as necessary, rather than blowing hundreds of pounds a year on insurance payments.

Anyway this weekend I decided to pop into Vodafone and ‘sort it out’.

You know what this means, right? Although Big Red is very good, replacements and repairs are a bit of a challenge logistically.

Here’s the first video I made sitting next to the Vodafone shop in Bracknell:

How did Vodafone perform? Did I experience a catalogue of mishaps and slightly annoying sales folk? Were my expectations met?

Here’s a video of the results..

[By the way, a few folk were wondering 'why Bracknell'? It's because I've moved to Ascot now -- and Bracknell is the nearest store!]

Now then, I’ve had quite a few emails from readers hunting for the rather gorgeous HTC Evo 3D phone on Vodafone UK. The operator *was* going to range it, however plans have changed. You won’t get it in the UK via Vodafone.

However the company’s representatives point out that if you’re abroad, living somewhere with a Vodafone incumbent operator, you might still be lucky.

Public service announcement over…

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?

The email from Vodafone that I got after the order completed

For a few days I’ve seen the phone number 0808-something call my main handset. I haven’t been able to answer. I thought it might be someone from a utility company. British Gas, maybe? Or perhaps an insurance company.

This afternoon I had a spare few minutes when the phone rang again from that number. I picked up.

It was a chap from Vodafone. He introduced himself politely (“my name is Aminul”) and asked if I had a few minutes to talk — noting that I’d been specially selected for an offer.

“Go on then,” I said. We went through the usual security questions and then delved into the offer.

It was about iPads.

Would I like to buy an iPad, he asked, at a highly attractive rate. I listened.

The deal was simple and, I do have to admit, pretty attractive to me.

Normally Vodafone charge £229 for a 16GB 3G+WiFi iPad 2, along with the line rental on 18-month or 24-month agreements. Today’s special offer waived the £229 up-front cost on the basis of an entirely reasonable £26.60 per month deal, including 2GB of UK data. ‘Overages’ are charged at 5p per megabyte.

Nay bad.

I pondered a little.

I’ve already got an iPad 2. It’s not the 3G version though.

And if you’ve been following my writings, you’ll remember that just two months ago, I had a similar call from Three UK. The guy from Three was calling to offer me something irrelevant that I didn’t want. When I said I’d be interested in something else, the Three chap apologised saying he couldn’t help. I even asked him for an iPad 2, since the phoned.

So that went through my mind as the Vodafone guy went through the sales pitch.

“I don’t think I can add a new line to my account,” I said. I’ve already got 5 lines, you see.

“Let me see,” Aminul said. He was flicking through his system and in a few moments said, “Well, I’ve done a credit check and you can have another line if you like?”

I paused for a few moments.

“Go on then,” I said, “Do you need me to do anything?”

“No, sir,” replied Aminul, I’ll just get it added to your account and it will be delivered tomorrow.

He went through the details once more — just so I was clear: No up-front cost, iPad 2 16GB 3G+WiFi, 24-month contract, £26 a month.

I confirmed agreement. Job done.

“You’ll get a text from us, along with a confirmation email,” he said.

I thanked him a lot.

Wow.

What a sales approach.

First of all, this is excellent, excellent targeting. I’m not sure what specific segmentation Vodafone were doing, but it was definitely right to call me. One imagines they see I’ve already bought an iPhone and I’m a high-spending customer. That’s probably all the segmentation they need.

“Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?” asked Aminul, “Are there any products or services you’d also like?”

This is a dangerous question to ask me.

I toyed with asking him to sell me a MacBook Air. [I know that's impossible at the moment -- that's the subject of another post.]

I then thought carefully about whether or not I needed an HTC Sensation. Or a Galaxy S II.

You see, it’s pretty bad when the guy’s on the phone, being very helpful. It’s really dangerous. I could have ordered a ton of stuff.

Aminul actually cleared me for 2 extra lines and I was giving serious thought to getting two iPad 2s (one for Archie to play with — is 14 months too young?).

I think Vodafone should be doing a lot more of this.

I asked Aminul how business was with the iPad 2 offer. I suggested that he must be getting a good response rate.

“Seven out of ten are going for it,” he said.

Shocking.

Absolutely shocking. I wonder what the sales figures are like. Through the roof, if this experience is anything to go by.

I finished the call and then got a call back 5 minutes later from Aminul. Unfortunately the 16GB 3G+WiFi version had already sold out. (So business is good).

“Would you like the 32GB version? We’ve got them in stock right now, but it’s an extra £49.”

“Do it,” I said, “Do you need any money from me now?”

“No I can just add it to your account,” said Aminul.

Geeeeenius.

Flipping genius.

Dangerous, yes — because I could have bought a heck of a lot more. But highly, highly exciting. I really enjoyed the experience. It was frictionless.

Well, reasonably frictionless. I didn’t have to get out my credit card and have to start quoting numbers at him. That was good. Also, mobile operator logistics are so good that I have every confidence the iPad will arrive tomorrow morning.

It was a super way to shop.

I had to smile when I thanked Aminul and said goodbye. He replied with, “Thank you Mr MacLeod. Thank you for choosing Vodafone, Britain’s best network.”

Heh.

Take note, Three UK. Your guy WASN’T allowed to up-sell me.

So two-months later, my business went to Vodafone. That’s 700 quid you won’t ever see. Utterly ridiculous.

Brilliant work Vodafone.

Poor show Orange. Who never bother to phone me. Poor show Three. And poor show, o2.

I’d have bought from each of you. Vodafone asked so they got the business.

The eForum is a pretty harrowing read if you’re someone like me. I’m fixated by what operators should be doing. I’m looking at the sharp end, usually — the future, the innovation, the front-end bits. Not the BAU (“business as usual”) stuff.

Vodafone tends to get a lot of mentions in my writing, primarily because they’re how I tend to experience ‘mobile’ in the first instance. I have accounts on all UK networks and I try and use them all regularly. But it’s the Vodafone handset that gets switched on first when I arrive abroad. And I’m highly likely to write about that experience (“135p per minute? Thanks for nothing, Vodafone“, “My Vodafone-free trip to Miami“).

Browsing through the eForum, I am reminded of the enormity of what the company has to deal with. Every single day. Some of it must be mindnumbing.

I clicked about and eventually landed on a post titled, “FRUSTRATED NEW CUSTOMER!”

All caps? It can’t be good.

I had a look. It begins, thus:

As per the Ts+Cs I will try my best to keep this polite even though I am an extremely unhappy customer wanting to end the contract after less than 3weeks!

Ok let’s get into the gubbins:

This I took a 24month contract with the White iPhone 4, 1200mins,unlimited texts and 750mb of data. I had a lot of issues to start with as i have now used OVER 1.2GB of data in under 3weeks( and I do not use Youtube, Twitter etc.) Friends and family are astonished as they all have iphones and use roughly the same kind of apps. This is just 1issue but not what has really wound me up over the last few days. not a good start, eh?

Oookay now then, what the hell were you doing with 1.2GB in three weeks? That’s an average of 57mb a day. Not even I use that much.

If you don’t use Youtube, Twitter or the like, you must be receiving a billion emails an hour or something crazy like that. You’re obviously doing something to USE IT UP. This is not Vodafone’s problem.

Still.

As the frustrated new customer points out, this isn’t the key issue. The main one is about payment.

I won’t bore you with the life story (the customer gives the equivalent) except to point out this basic chronology:

1. Customer buys phone, sets up direct debit, receives confirmation all good
2. Unfortunately the billing period ends before the direct debit has time to be integrated into Vodafone’s system
3. The customer’s account is suspended due to non-payment, even though Vodafone didn’t actually take the payment
4. The customer goes ballistic

I’ve had this happen before. It’s utterly annoying, but it’s just one-of-those-things. Once the direct debit kicks in, you’re rocking.

The customer has obviously phoned up Vodafone to sort it out.

I suspect the call centre will have explained that all that’s needed is a balancing payment, temporarily, and then next month’s payment will go through just fine. If you’re a regular mobile user and you’ve swapped about networks a few times, you’ll probably have experienced this. You just need to pay the cash over the phone and you’re done.

If the customer had done this, service would have been restored within minutes.

But the customer chose not to. Here’s why:

I REFUSE to pay over the telephone by card (I DONT TRUST YOU TO HAVE MY CARD DETAILS AFTER NOT BEING ABLE TO TAKE A DIRECT DEBIT) and it goes completely against the reason of setting up a DD in the first place.

The customer appears to be verging on apoplectic — but is kind enough to remind us that the email has been typed politely:

This email has been typed as politely as I can manage at this moment, I expect Vodafone to turn my services BACK ON and take the money from MY BANK as AGREED WHEN I TOOK OUT THE CONTRACT! This will not continue for another 23months as it is not how I conduct business.

So you’re a new customer, you fell through the crack. This does happen. All you need to do is make the balancing payment to fix it.

If you can rectify this situation ASAP then I look forward to hearing from you

I find it very difficult to understand how Vodafone will be able to rectify this situation, given that 28th June 2011 was a few weeks ago. How precisely should they rectify it, without some kind of time travel technology?

Surely it’s you, dear customer, who can rectify it by making a payment? Yes Vodafone’s billing system didn’t kick in — but they’ve other ways of making payment right-away. It’s not Vodafone’s fault now. You’re the one delaying problem resolution.

I daresay that it’s conceivably that Vodafone can take double the payment (last month plus this month) at the end of July. But don’t expect your service to be reactivated until then since you haven’t paid?

And if you can’t help, Vodafone:

If not then expect a copy of this to be posted on every forum I can find on the internet to enlighten others of Vodafones business practices!

This note was posted at 12:59pm on the 5th of July. The customer came back 18 minutes later with this qualification:

Oh and PLEASE whatever you do, DO NO TRY and come back to me with the same responses I have heard from the useless customer services this morning. This is a problem caused by yourselves, I will not be ‘put out’ or have ‘to do’ or waste any more of my day, this is a problem you guys need to rectify, no further discussions are required
Many thanks

Ooooh dear.

Martin from Vodafone bit the bullet and replied. The thrust of his text was:

I do know that if for any reason the direct debit is not taken on the requested date, the request can’t go through again to ask for the payment, and a manual payment will need to be made.

Nicely worded Martin.

Thankyou for getting back to me Martin. I have replied to your email, WITHOUT sending all my private security information to you.

Well that’s fair enough. What else?

As I stated in my first post, I SHALL NOT BE DOING ANYTHING to rectify this problem, ie – wasting my day speaking to customer services just to be told the same information that is irrelevant. This is a problem your end, if you can fix it it would be much appreciated.

The problem was indeed at Vodafone’s end. The billing system didn’t kick-in the direct debit.

This is a fail.

It happens. You know what, perhaps you could request a bit of credit as compensation. I dunno, a tenner? It’s annoying but it’s entirely within your gift to fix it, dear customer:

Move on.

Or…

If not il send an email to Vittorio Colao’s department and CC in a few other people with authority and see how i get on with those guys ‘upstairs’.
Many thanks

And thus ends the saga.

Oh, there is a follow-up reply from James at Vodafone — and I can only assume that it’s been taken offline on to email.

Goodness me.

There you go.

This is one small random example of what the Vodafone team (and the operator industry as a whole) has to deal with on a daily basis.

It’s a sober reminder of just how … patient … you need to be when dealing with the public. Not for nothing is Vodafone one of the UK’s customer service leaders. They need to be.

To the Vodafone eForum team: You have the patience of demigods. Super work.

You only have to peak into the forums to see that every question — no matter how crazy — gets a cordial and prompt answer. What’s really exciting is seeing how many questions are answered by other customers, a) saving Vodafone’s resources, b) helping out the customer and c) creating a useful SEO-able thread for anyone else searching for the solution.

I know that o2 has an active customer forum too.

Do you know of any other operators running anything similar to Vodafone’s eForums?

I took the above Instagr.am photo the other day when I was in Baltimore waiting to hop on a plane back to London. I obviously arsed around selecting all manner of different silly filters before deciding the one above was most appropriate. Why, I don’t know. That’s instagr.am for you.

I snapped the photo as I wanted to remember Delta. The photo is the top corner of a Delta Airlines advertisement in the current Fast Company magazine. The advert points out that Delta now has a ‘new way to listen’ which ‘means a new way to help’. Yup. Delta is now on Twitter.

By now, we all know what that means: An instant (and usually highly informed) response mechanism.

Taking a look at Delta’s Twitter account right now, you can see they’re very busy already responding to customers.

Indeed I’d go so far to assume that tweeting Delta will get you a quicker response than phoning them — for most standard enquiries.

Delta’s gone somewhat further than most companies on Twitter, though. They’ve gone 24/7.

That’s right — you can tweet them anytime.

Good.

Brilliant, actually.

Which brings me to Vodafone. The company has long been leading the way when it comes to ‘e’ stuff — their e-forum team are second-to-none and their response times (and resolution rates) on Twitter are legendary. It took other operators months and quarters to even get to grips with the whole concept of actually talking with their customers.

I remember having a bet with Ben Smith over at Wireless Worker about whether T-Mobile’s rather ‘green’ Twitter account would engage in any banter whatsoever with him. The team running it instructed the person-on-the-keyboard to ignore all messages except those specifically relating to a T-Mobile issue. Ben tried to engage — you know, say hello, ask them how their day was going and so on. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I bet him a meal at Claridges if he could get a response out of them.

Vodafone, Three, Orange, o2 — they’d all banter with you. Not excessively, mind you, but you know, enough to say hello. T-Mobile did the social media equivalent of sitting in the corner with a face like thunder for months on end. Thankfully they have lightened up nowadays.

My problem, though, is that to my knowledge, no mobile operator in the UK runs a 24/7 Twitter account. This is an arse for me. I routinely ask @VodafoneUK questions during the day — sometimes questions that inform or related to the content here on MIR — and I always get a prompt and helpful answer. This facility stops at 5pm. Or is it 6pm? I can’t quite remember.

Actually I just looked.

So it’s 11pm now, and that tweet was 3 hours ago… so Vodafone does 8am-8pm daily.

That’s reasonable. It’s better than I expected actually.

I’m pretty sure ThreeUK doesn’t do that. Let’s have a look:

Ooof! SIX hours ago? Come on Johanna!  What’s that.. it’s 11pm now, minus 6… ThreeUK stops Twitter service at FIVE pm? (Although after a quick scan of their feed, I’m pleased to see, incidentally, that they do recommend Hullomail). Come on Three! What’s going on!

Let’s look at o2/Telefonica, what are they doing?

Well it looks like they were still going at 10pm. Impressive.

How about T-Mobile?

Well there you go. T-Mobile were live until 6pm. That’s an hour better than Three.

What about Orange?

Unfortunately the team at Orange didn’t sign-out, although the fact their last message was 6 hours ago leads me to assume they’re doing similar hours to ThreeUK.

Well then.

Deary me.

It’s not good news, operators.

I think the absolute minimum should be 8am ’til 8pm. I think ‘good’ would be 8am until 10pm. Ideal would be 24/7. Surely it can’t be that expensive, given the value you’ll be able to add to folk?

Ok.

So I suspect that most British people will NEVER tweet their mobile operator beyond, say, what, midnight… I’m sure there are some statistics that each operator could show in this regard. But come on — folk are generally awake and operational until 10pm. Why not extend service to those hours? You might even have time to do a bit of brand building through some back-and-forth chats with customers. The sort of interaction that’s difficult to do at midday when there are hundreds of enquiries flying in.

And finally… let’s talk days. Monday to Friday doesn’t cut it, folks. Weekends too, please.

Is this too much to ask?

Yesterday morning as I was packing my bag for the weekly trip to Paris, I had a feeling I was forgetting something. I checked the passport, the power cables, the charging leads and so on. All was good. I left the house.

It was only when I got on the tube toward the Eurostar terminal at London St. Pancras that I remembered: I’d forgotten my headphones. My decent in-ear ones. I can’t remember the brand name — but they were about £30 and they’ve been serving me well for months.

For a long time I’ve been a big fan of the Shure brand of headphones. They’re typically priced in exactly the same way Apple does it: Small, medium and stupidly expensive. In this case, their pricing tends to go £69, £129, £229. Something like that. It’s been at least two years since I bought any Shures. I think I’ve bought about 5 models in the last few years. The last pair were, if memory serves, the £200+ ones. All good until something went wrong with them and I had to decide whether to bother doing anything about it. I chose not to make the time to fix them and reached for another pair from an old Dell laptop.

They did the job. I then swapped to the most recent £30 pair. Again, they did the job.

I like to hear my music properly, but I have limited appreciation for ‘bass’ and all that jazz. You know when you talk to someone about headphones and they rave about the particular audio definition that one model offers beyond another? That’s when I zone out. Provided I can hear the music/audio nicely, all is good. And ideally, the headphones should be comfortable.

I prefer in-ear ones just because they block out the noise. Useful when you’re on the tube or trying to work in a coffee shop surrounded by chattering arses.

So realising that I’d left my headphones on my desk at home, I resolved to fix the issue at St. Pancras station.

I know that WH Smiths (the newsagent) tends to always have a pair of headphones for sale behind the counter. Useful, that.

When I arrived at the station, the exit I’d chosen presented me in front of the WH Smiths and the Vodafone shop.

I decided to choose the Vodafone shop. I reckoned they’d have a pair of cheap reasonably good headphones for sale.

I walked into the shop. The assistant manager chap was fiddling with the iPhone stand in the centre of the store. He looked up and said hello. I replied as I walked toward the back to the accessories section.

I can’t tell you how delighted I was to see a pair of in-ear headphones on the shelf. Excellent resource planning, Vodafone. Excellent thinking. I then looked at the price. I was expecting a price-bracket of £15-£30 for the bog standard pair, and I was allowing in my mind for a more expensive pair if available. My wallet was most definitely open to whatever Vodafone had to offer me.

The pair on the shelf were marked at £12 — with an integrated microphone. Bargain.

I noted that these headphones came with a range of adapters to work with Sony Ericsson, Samsung and so on. Very good. They also had extra ear buds. And, they were ‘noise cancelling’ too.

Noise cancelling? I wasn’t expecting much. Not for £12.

I took them to the till and paid.

Job done.

However, my expectations were set incorrectly. I was expecting to get normal audio. You know, good-enough quality to be able to listen to music. I didn’t need them to impress, just to work.

Unfortunately they didn’t do that very well. Indeed, they were very good at cancelling nearly all the audio coming out of my iPhone, especially in the left ear.

I’d say the left earbud was about 70% reduced. If I took out the right earbud, I could only just hear the audio from the left.

I did all sorts of tests with my iPhone and my laptop to try and see if the problem was caused by the audio input or by the headphones.

It was the headphones.

£12 spunked up the wall.

I expected a lot better.

I’m not using my £1.48 knock-off Apple iPhone headphones that I bought from Amazon. I bought these as my last resort. After visiting Paris a few weeks ago and forgetting all my chargers and cables, I bought a job-lot on Amazon and secreted them about my bag. I put micro-USB and iPhone cables in hard to access pockets. I also impulse-purchased this £1.48 pair of headphones and stuck them in the depths of the bag.

You never know — that was my logic.

I had intended the Vodafone headphones to be half decent replacements or alternatives for my £30 pair. They certainly looked good.

Dear me.

I think I’d have been better with the pair from WH Smiths. I don’t know that for sure but I’m willing to bet that the WH Smiths pair actually play audio normally.

So at least I’ve got some headphones. No thanks to Vodafone.

Perhaps I’ve got a dud pair? They were, after all, apparently manufactured in the UK by some mobile accessory firm. I threw the packaging away in London so I can’t name and SHAME the arses who produced the rubbish. Goodness knows what’s going on with quality control at the Vodafone accessory team.

I would like to suggest that you avoid making my mistake. If you’re in need of a half-decent pair of headphones because you’ve forgotten yours, go to another shop.

Further, I’d recommend buying the knock-off £1.48 iPhone headphones made by ‘Itek’ as they actually work. I just bought a few more pairs. Useful to have.

Meanwhile, what headphones do you use?

Thank you Vodafone. Thank you for the £2/day-for-25mb deal. It’s good enough to make posts like this possible. The photo I’ve attached here (snapped on-the-go from the taxi window) is 1.6mb. Sending this to the web would normally cost me £2-3 once you take into account the surrounding data overhead.

Thanks to Vodafone’s opt-in European data policy, I can use my BlackBerry without having to panic. I’m just billed a simple £2 each day. Manageable. Reasonable. I’m content.

If you travel often to Europe and you’re a Vodafone customer, phone up and check you’ve got this option added. You need to opt-in otherwise you’ll pay the quid-a-meg rates.

The big arse of course — there is an arse — is that once you go over 25mb per day, you start racking up the quid-a-meg rates.

This is because some bright spark at Vodafone thought it was a good idea to almost get it right. It’s like the company has a built-in screw-it-up register to guarantee no matter how smart and how exciting the original concept, some committee, somewhere, votes to hamstring it.

I’ve already opted-in, right? By doing this, I’ve told you I’m live to your stupid standard data rates. I’ve told you I care. I’ve made it clear I will pay — but not the crazy rates. Ergo, why not change the price to £2 for 25mb blocks? So if I use an arbitrary 42mb in a day, you’ll charge me £4.

Sounds like a good idea? No? Yeah. I know. Those executives and those committees don’t like it. They don’t like the ‘revenue limitation’. You can practically guarantee that at one of these price plan setting meetings, a chap called Colin with a company supplied Nokia 3310 has actually voiced the words, “25mb for £2! That should be enough for anybody going abroad!”

Keep ramming the Vodafone fist up the proverbial enterprise arse to extract silly roaming rates. Those guys have factored the roaming-arse-extraction into their 5-year budget forecasts.

But for everyone else? Why not do a bit of delighting? £2 for 25mb blocks? Go on.

It was a big evening for Vodafone’s Lee Epting at MEF Connects at MWC party in Barcelona recently: She was voted on to the foundation’s European board and then appointed as Chair! Congratulations Lee. So obviously, I had to ask Lee about that honour — plus I took the opportunity to ask her to outline some of the key challenges she thought the MEF would face over her tenure.

Given Lee’s been involved in MEF for a long time, I also asked her why she felt the organisation was good for the industry. Finally, we got on to the topic of MEF’s ‘EMEA’ board. Europe, Middle-East and Africa? Those are some hugely diverse marketplaces so I asked Lee to give us a viewpoint on that.

Here’s the video…

He’s laid bare the fascinating reality of ‘choice’ (or as he refers to the practice, ‘choice architecutre’) in the context of the SMS messages he routinely receives from Vodafone.

He’s not picking on them per se — indeed, as per the title, he’s actually ended up delivering a heck of a lot of free consultancy to them on his site.

The high level summary? You need to think very, very carefully about every single message you send to your customers, especially in today’s ‘sovereign individual society’. If Vodafone sends me three different texts across three weeks, sent from totally different divisions, I — as the end consumer — will interpret that as one ‘message’. I’d like to see a lot more thought put into them as a result.

Take your cup of coffee and have a read of Jonathan’s experiences, logic and perspective.

Goodness knows what he’d make of the average post here on Mobile Industry Review.

Recycling is nothing new — and especially in terms of donating to charity. It’s nice to see Vodafone aligning themselves with a single decent cause (WWF-UK).

You can hand in your old devices at any one of the 380 Vodafone UK shops, or — if you like, just stick the phone in an envelope and address it to, “Freepost Vodafone Recycling”.

That’s pretty cool. No arsing around with postcodes or any of that jazz.

WWF UK will get around £9 per handset. That’s highly approximate. I wonder if someone donates an iPhone 4, does WWF still only get £9? The cynics might say that this is a rather low amount given a recycled iPhone 4 will command hundreds of pounds in resale value. Given that Vodafone will handle all the logistics and the charity just has to take a lump sum, I think it’s a worthwhile arrangement.

The deal could be worth upwards of almost a million quid, especially since Vodafone recycles about 100,000 handsets a year.

So if you’ve got any old handsets lying around, think about the Tigers.

Nice one Vodafone.

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.

This is excellent news.

It means that shortly, if you’re an App World user, you’ll be able to pay for your downloads via one-click carrier billing, rather than having to type in your PayPal details.

Although PayPal is highly useful, it’s a total arse for me because the service insisted I use a crazily complicated password to prevent hacking. Which means that actually using PayPal is a Cecil B DeMille production involving copious copying and pasting. Just bill me. Hit me. Just get it done. This is what I want from App World. I just want to get the app or the content. Ergo, I think RIM will shortly find a heck of a lot more downloads completing when it introduces the service across these new operators.

I’m also looking forward to hearing from application developers who should really, really benefit from this news.

It’s not just payments for downloads — you’ll also be able to charge in-app payments to your bill as well. Absolutely fantastic. Whenever I’ve looked at any conversion statistics in the context of carrier billing, the numbers are always off the charts compared to credit card, PayPal and so on.

If you’re a Vodafone customer, expect App World carrier billing to be available for the following countries: United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Greece and Ireland. More countries to follow suit.

No word yet on which Telefonica and Deutsche countries will get carrier billing on App World but I think it’s a fair bet to assume the UK and Germany will be enabled as a priority.

Good news, RIM.

I’ll be popping by their stand later today to have a wander around. More shortly!

Time for some admonishing from an anonymous reader who explains very clearly why Vodafone had no choice but to switch service off:

1: Licence. Vodafone has a licence, a Spectrum Licence. I’ve never seen it so this is just a guess but I’d imagine in that licence was a few bits about “national security” and allowing the government to turn it off and on in the event of an issue like this.. (you can bet your ass the UK licence has similar clauses!) If Vodafone did not comply, what would happen? It might lose the licence and the thousands of employees would lose their jobs.. Then the domino effect of all the other Vodafone Opco countries governments wondering why Vodafone didn’t comply with a legal order to shut down, then perhaps pulling their licence… This would be an end to Vodafone. 50K people out of a job, tens of billions in shares, rendered worthless overnight. Dramatic? Maybe? possible? Who knows!

2: Capacity. Vodafone provides the radio but doesn’t own fibre into or within Egypt. Who do you think they  buy it from? That’s right. The BT equivalent out there, owned by the Egyptian state.. So if we didn’t comply, they’d just kill our backhaul.. Which, let me tell you, would take MUCH longer to bring back up..

Agreed. You make excellent points. I do get this! I did end my article(s) agreeing that Vodafone had no choice. It’s just a shock, I think.

Still it looks like service should be back on in a few days either way, right?

One would imagine that if I was working in Egypt, my Vodafone UK handsets would naturally roam on to Vodafone Egypt. Right? I should expect that’s the preferred network.

Thus if I was in Egypt right now, I’d have no service.

Because Vodafone Egypt has bowed to the will of the Egyptian Government — and switched off it’s network.

I can’t tell you how I’d be feeling about Vodafone if this was the case.

My opinion of Big Red is vastly different today than it was yesterday. I know they have to play the corporate game there in Egypt but goodness me I view my personal communications as critical. Not optional. Not switch-off-able. Especially when I’m spunking around £3k a year for the privilege.

And despite my continual moans about the ridiculous cost of Vodafone [data] roaming, you’ll never ever find me demanding FREE roaming. I know the whole shebang does cost money. I’m happy to pay a premium for roaming. Not a crazy premium, mind, BUT nevertheless, a premium. Fundamentally, I expect to be delivered some kind of limited service wherever I am.

However I’m pretty disturbed at the possibility of arriving in a country and finding that Vodafone — a company with 343 million customers and a market capitalization of almost 93 billion dollars — has decided to switch it’s network off until further notice.

That, my dear Big Red, is not acceptable.

My hierarchy of needs when abroad is:

1. Connectivity
2. Cash
3. Food
4. Shelter

What next, Vodafone? Will I find NO SERVICE on my BlackBerry because students in Manchester have decided to go on a rampage? Or during the upcoming tax-avoidance day-of-action are we to expect Vodafone UK to switch things off for the day?

I am distinctly unimpressed at Vodafone’s actions.

The company’s group CEO, Vittorio Colao — the man I ultimately pay a few hundred quid a month to — is quoted in the Wall Street Journal explaining his actions thus:

Vodafone Group CEO Vittorio Colao said “Egyptian authorities” had asked the company to “turn down the network totally.” Mr. Colao said Vodafone determined that the request was legitimate under Egyptian law, and therefore complied with the request. “I hope” the decision will be reversed by Egypt “very soon,” Mr. Colao said, in comments to a Davos session on mobile devices.

Fine. Fine. Fine. Ok I buy that. I get it. I reluctantly have to agree. If you’re running a company in Egypt, under Egyptian law then, yes, you have no choice.

Arse.

That’s right.

Vodafone Egypt has been ‘obliged to comply’ with the Government order.

AP/Businessweek reports:

Telecoms company Vodafone says the Egyptian government has ordered all mobile telephone operators to suspend services “in selected areas” of the country.

In a statement, the company says that “under Egyptian legislation the authorities have the right to issue such an order and we are obliged to comply with it.”

I’m not at all impressed.

I rely on my Vodafone service here in the UK. I’d be flipping outraged if the company decided to deactivate it’s services because the UK Government was in a flap.

I can’t imagine what I’d be thinking if I was an Egyptian paying for a service that has been suspended because my Government wanted it so.

I think it’s bad form on Vodafone’s part. Hugely bad form.

However I suspect it’s not an easy situation though, given that the Government — with all those tanks and guns — is currently in the position to threaten Vodafone’s business interests in the country if it didn’t comply.

At what point, then, does a billion-dollar global company like Vodafone say, ‘screw you,’ and keep its services live? Probably until the Egyptian Army arrive, I suppose.

Whatever your viewpoint on Egypt, you can’t help wondering that a Government that arbitrarily removes basic communications facilities from swathes of its population isn’t quite healthy.

I also have to point out that I understand it’s very easy to have an opinion when you’re living in a sleepy town in Buckinghamshire and when the height of daily frustration is a cancelled train.

What’s your view — was Vodafone right to play along with the Egyptian Government?

I was searching earlier for the Vodafone UK APN settings. I know the details off by heart but I wanted to confirm nothing had changed since I last messed around setting up the APN on an unlocked Android device.

I came across this rather helpful Vodafone official site. Genius. I’m delighted. This kind of clear, direct and useful repository of information has been a long time coming. I don’t think many other operators have this level of clear, useful support (that isn’t hidden away in some godawful customer support question-and-answer ‘knowledgebase’).

Nice one Vodafone.

The link you need is this one.

I’m very impressed to find the homepage of the support site accessible and friendly. It even features Andy, one of the UK support team chaps:

Love it.

So I’ve been doing a lot of consultancy with a massive, global, huge, big company in Richmond-Upon-Thames for quite a while now. 103 days, approximately.

There is next to no Vodafone signal in the building, despite it being located in downtown PRIME Richmond. Walk outside and wave your handset around and you’ll be lucky to hit 3G for a few moments. All other times, I’m reduced to sitting with an ‘EDGE’ connection which is utterly utterly useless. The network might as well say ‘you must be joking’ rather than bother to hint that there might be a ’2G+’ signal capable of more than 20 bytes throughput at any one time.

It’s a flipping nonsense.

Telephone calls still work.

That is pretty good.

Vodafone has managed to get that far.

Meanwhile, I’m having a brilliant, brilliant time with the 3 signal. I now automatically pick up my 3 iPhone4 if I want to actually DO something with my mobile devices. I have also got my BlackBerry Torch roaming on the 3 MiFi unit, so that it can actually function beyond the network equivalent of an occasional limp followed by a long draw on a ciggie, a swipe of cheap whisky and another attempt at limping.

Who does one have to sleep with to get Vodafone to actually make their 3G service work in Richmond?

Their service is almost as bad as AT&T in New York or San Francisco. And that is saying something.

Vodafone: The network you can generally depend on.

Total, total rubbish.

I’m not calling on Vodafone to do anything, obviously. I understand that their hands are tied, that ‘things are in motion’, that ‘engineers will be looking at it [for the next eon]‘ and that ‘yes, dear me, that must be frustrating for you’.

Meanwhile I’ve got 3G+ in Marlow. When I don’t quite need it.

Am I seriously, SERIOUSLY going to have experience this kind of shit for the next two decades before we get some kind of ubiquitous blanket data connectivity?

Next.

[And if you are occasionally really frustrated by your mobile operator, read this post to find out about their next bright (stupid) idea -- " The joint mobile operating system: A risible idea.]

There’s a raft of Vodafone UK customers up in arms because of a recently discovered exploit with the company’s My Account online control panel.

Mobile enthusiast-cum-uber-geek Terence Eden documents the joyous experience on his blog. The quick overview? Use the password reminder feature to type in a random phone number and the system will tell you if there’s an email address registered to that account. It’s an unfortunate error that Vodafone’s legions of developers should have considered.

As Terence points out, to recover your password, you type in your phone number. If the system finds your details, it says ‘thanks, we’ve sent an email to [your email address]‘. This makes some sense for you and I when we’re using the system with a genuine requirement.

However it was possible to type in any number and increment it sequentially, picking up both the phone number and email address of each account.

A chap called @denny pointed this out yesterday at 1pm on Twitter. Terence reports that it appears to have taken until 1130am this morning for Vodafone to patch the flaw. I tried it this evening and now the system definitely seems patched.

There’s no indication right now whether some enterprising chap has discovered this ‘feature’ and run a script to pick out the details for every number from 07100 000 000 to 07999 999 999 in Vodafone’s user control panel database. Not good at all.

If you’re working at a mobile operator, take a few minutes to check you didn’t buy the same My Account system as Vodafone did…

I’ve been doing some work in Richmond-Upon-Thames. Near the Vodafone shop. In fact, if I squint, I can see the Vodafone shop. You’d think that would mean in this particular affluent London suburb would be rife with all kinds of super-high-speed data connectivity. You’d think there’d be a minimum of 3G with a whole load of HS and HD and other kinds of PAs. HSDPA? HSPA? HSPA+? HSPA-super-plus-plus?

No.

EDGE.

That’s it.

I’m currently using my Novatel MiFi to surf the global data highway at a whopping — and I do mean — WHOPPING — 1.23kb/sec. And that’s to Apple. You know, Apple’s ultra-fast connection? Here in the office, I downloaded iTunes at 10.5mb/sec.

Yet when I switched on my MiFi? Ridiculous.

My mistake, it seems, is to be using Vodafone.

3 was ultra fast when I tried that (via their new MiFi unit).

It’s not just restricted to MiFi of course. It’s any Vodafone connection in this area. My BlackBerries are languishing on rubbish Edge too. So are my iPhones.

And they’re all getting the same rubbish, rubbish 1k per second throughput.

This from the UK’s ‘most reliable network’? Poor show Vodafone. Poor, poor show.

Perhaps it’s not a surprise given that Richmond-Upon-Thames cannot be found in the Vodafone Coverage Checker place database. The postcode worked though. And of course, we’ve got bright red perfect coverage (apparently):

Rubbish.

I asked about the office. I was met with resigned faces. Everybody just accepted the fact that coverage from Vodafone was rubbish. This, despite Vodafone being the company’s operator of choice.

I had to demo an iPad working on a data connection. Now the iPad has an integrated Vodafone SIM. Which, of course, is running at Hamster speed.

So how did I fix this?

I’m embarrassed for Vodafone. I walked down to the 3 store, asked for one of their new MiFi units. I handed over 60 quid (that got me the MiFi and 1GB of PAYG data).

Five minutes later I was using the iPad at near-desktop browsing speeds.

No thanks, whatsoever, to Vodafone.

Who is running network QoS for Vodafone in Richmond? There’s got to be a light somewhere on the Vodafone NOC saying ‘We’re screwed in Richmond’, surely?

I don’t expect to pay a premium for Vodafone and — in a built-up sub-urban area like Richmond — have to arse about augmenting their rubbish network. It’s fine if I find myself in the middle of a farm, 100 miles from anywhere without a signal. I don’t mind that. But in Richmond? Ridiculous.

Poor, poor show.

If you recall a few weeks ago I posted an exclusive from the Vodafone 360 team announcing the upcoming arrival of the Vodafone 360 Samsung H2. I’d taken a look at the H2 and found it a rather nice improvement on the Samsung H1 (the original top-end 360 handset).

Well, I’ve got some news straight from the lion’s den at the 360 team: No more H2.

In fact, no more bespoke 360 handsets.

Henceforth Vodafone is going to focus on enhancing the 360 services rather than worrying about it’s own bespoke handsets.

Here is the formal statement from the company:

Vodafone’s core strategy remains to offer the best range of smartphones in all markets in which we compete. We have decided to accelerate our Vodafone 360 services strategy, making 360 services available on as many devices as we can as soon as we can. From now we will be focusing all efforts on expanding the range of handsets and platforms that support Vodafone 360 and in developing and enhancing the suite of Vodafone 360 services. Consequently there will be no further development of bespoke Vodafone 360 handsets, and activity on the H2 ceases with immediate effect.

We have always been clear that Vodafone 360 is about a suite of services, not just about bespoke devices. Our intent was always to provide services across as many handsets as possible on as many platforms. Today Vodafone 360 is available across a wide range of over 100 handsets and on 5 platforms and this will continue to expand going forward.

On one hand I feel this is quite a shame, because I did identify with the broader strategy (if not necessarily the precise implementation along the way). I liked the vertical concept of owning the hardware, the services, the network and of course, the customer experience. But, as I have pointed out many a time, if you’re going to do this, you need to do it properly and with full conviction — and the necessary resources.

I think it’s a good step for the company. I think it makes sense to ship the responsibility for hardware design back to the OEMs rather than have the Vodafone teams obsessing over it. The H2 was always going to be compared to the rest of the company’s range — and goodness me, it must have been a challenge deciding over handsets to push in a given month. Do you push the company’s own H1/M1 360 phones? Or do you push the latest Sony or Nokia? Lots of questions and lots of problems.

So services is the way ahead. They’ve already been doing a lot of work spreading 360 across all the major platforms they support. Here’s an example:

That’s the Vodafone 360 implementation on the Sony Ericisson X10 Mini-pro (as I saw it, pre-release, a few weeks ago). As you can see, you’ve got the 360 shop, updates, music shop, apps and so on all available at a touch of a button.

In the coming months, expect to see almost every capable Vodafone ranged handset to come preinstalled with an array of 360 services such as those above.

The challenge now Vodafone? Get it right. I don’t mean half-right. I don’t mean almost-there. I don’t mean ‘leave at 4.30pm’ and do a sort-of-ok job. Let’s see best-in-class. You’ve got the right people, good resources and a phenomenal brand to work with. Brilliance and nothing but, please.

Push the boat out.

Show us what you can do. And really, really augment the OEM efforts. I want to see consumers purchasing a Vodafone Nokia N8, for example, rather than an o2 Nokia N8, *because* of all the cool stuff offered by the Vodafone 360 services.

It’s a big ask. You can do it.

(Read: You’ve got no excuse now.)

[ Excuse me whilst I go and stick my head in a bucket of cold water now. I'm not used to exhibiting positivity when it comes to Vodafone 360. Give it 6 months and I hope we'll see some seriously good results. Otherwise I'll need a job lot of sleeping pills. ]

I have to say, Vodafone UK is seriously, seriously disappointing when it comes to mobile broadband. I’ve been sitting enjoying both my unlocked Novatel Wireless MiFi unit for quite some time, but I’m hugely frustrated for the rest of the Vodafone marketplace not able to easily enjoy the benefits of MiFi.

Pop over to challenger network, 3, and for years you’ve been able to pick up a MiFi unit that shares your broadband connection with up to five of your connected devices. They’ve just released their all new 2nd-generation unit and, as with the first generation, I’ve no doubt they’re flying off the shelves, especially at their keen price of £49/each PAYG (plus a tenner for 1GB data).

What, then, does Vodafone UK offer it’s millions of customers?

A plastic dongle for their laptop.

Yup.

That’s it.

That’s-all-we-get.

All I can assume is that the financial bods have done their numbers and decided that their UK customer base isn’t quite ready for MiFi.

It’s not as if the UK is some mobile backwater.

Oh look, what’s this I found on Vodafone Spain’s website…

Yeah, they offer MiFi. They don’t force their customers to use stupid broadband sticks that ONLY work with laptops. How 1995 is that viewpoint?

It gets worse if you compare directly.

This is Vodafone Spain’s Mobile Broadband page. LOOK at the products they’re offering… Broadband sticks, yes, but they’ve got stick-plus-base station, the E960 router, another different stick … and the “Pocket WiFI”:

Aaaand what do we get offered in the UK? Let’s look at the same page on Vodafone UK:

Yes. Dongles. Just USB dongles.

Move along. Nothing to see here.

Spain isn’t the exception. Vodafone Germany also has a bucketload of possible products to choose from:

Oh look… the trusty old MiFi unit. Again.

How ridiculous is it that Vodafone UK doesn’t actually stock MiFi? Oh they’ll give you a MicroSIM for your iPad and they’ll be delighted to sell you a netbook-and-a-sodding-USB-dongle… (or a Netbook with integrated SIM). But MiFi?

No. Not today please. Why not?