Why do mobile tariffs always seem to be overly complicated? With the recent July 1st EU charges cap there was a chance to make the cost of using data services abroad nice and simple. So how did the operators do? Let’s take two examples.
First, Vodafone. They announced a cut in roaming charges across the EU to £4.99 a day for up to 25MB. That works out, as the press release helpfully says, at the equivalent of 20p per MB. But wait, in true operator fashion there’s a little bit of a complicated twist.
That £4.99 a day deal is just for mobile data. Under 1MB Vodafone will charge you a per KB rate, with 100KB costing 50p. Go above a meg and you’ll instantly be charged £4.99 for the remaining 24MB. What happens after 25MB? You get charged another £4.99, and get another 25MB. And so on and so forth.
If you’re planning to use your mobile broadband dongle, that price doubles – but so does the inclusive data bundle. Whether the per KB charging for dongle usage remains is a little unclear, but you’ll be charged £9.99 for 50MB chunks of data. Again, this is all on a daily basis – so if you use 2MB of data every day for a week on your laptop it’ll end up costing a rather hefty £69.93.
If you venture outside of the Europe (Vodafone have defined all of Europe – whether it’s in the EU or not – as ‘zone 1’), it’s £14.99 per day per 25MB on your phone, or £29.99 per day per 50MB on your dongle.
At this point, I’d imagine even the more maths-savvy consumer is a bit lost in figures. Why can’t things just be simple – one price for data per megabyte whether it be on your laptop or mobile?
Cue 3 and their new charges. £1.25 per MB – no minimums, no bundles, no 24 hour windows and no differentiation between your phone or a dongle. A pricing model so simple that it takes one sentence to explain, versus four paragraphs. OK so it may be more expensive per megabyte if you’re a heavy user, but at least you don’t need a calculator and a calendar to work it all out.
3 and Vodafone: Two roaming data cost cuts, two very different offers: http://ping.fm/nFhw4
3 and Vodafone: Two roaming data cost cuts, two very different offers http://tinyurl.com/pq787l
3 and Vodafone: Two roaming data cost cuts, two very different offers: http://ping.fm/nFhw4
Now that motherland EU has got supposedly some stable rates for calls and data, well its great. But leave it to the uk operators to make it confusing and tiresome to inquire, update, learn whats their best options. Im using a 3 payg dongle in france last week just for that purpose. Needed check some email on my crackberry via gmail and works great cost me 50p for the entire day. OK im back to shanghai well you DONT WANT TO KNOW THE COSTS…. China Mobile gives me 2GB for 20 pounds, 1gb for 10 quid, and 500 mb for 50p. I generally only use the 500mb option. heh 50p for a months surfing on the crackberry, iphone, htc hero, whatever. Sadly 2G EDGE only. 3g has been delayed and tortured in china.
3 and Vodafone: Two roaming data cost cuts, two very different offers http://tinyurl.com/pq787l
Now that motherland EU has got supposedly some stable rates for calls and data, well its great. But leave it to the uk operators to make it confusing and tiresome to inquire, update, learn whats their best options. Im using a 3 payg dongle in france last week just for that purpose. Needed check some email on my crackberry via gmail and works great cost me 50p for the entire day. OK im back to shanghai well you DONT WANT TO KNOW THE COSTS…. China Mobile gives me 2GB for 20 pounds, 1gb for 10 quid, and 500 mb for 50p. I generally only use the 500mb option. heh 50p for a months surfing on the crackberry, iphone, htc hero, whatever. Sadly 2G EDGE only. 3g has been delayed and tortured in china.
Mobile data charges just get more confusing http://bit.ly/19qrgg #w3cmobileweb
Mobile data charges just get more confusing http://bit.ly/19qrgg #w3cmobileweb
What is wrong here is *not* the price itself. It’s *fear* of a large price through lack of control.
I lived quite happily on 50MB of data for over a month overseas recently, read/sent hundreds of IM’s and emails, used GMaps navigation 3 or 4 times in unfamiliar cities, bit of browsing to find tourist info. Even installed a few apps (tourch for one) that were needed at the time.
What I had was a very quick/easy and free way to tell how much I had left via SMS, which gave me comfort to keep using. I turned mobile data on/off as needed. Set email to headers-only, only downloading urgent stuff. Turned off auto-update for all apps.
If you use your 50MB to watch one YouTube lolcat then you are a mug. But a savvy user can get by on amazingly little data.
What the mobile industry have been crap at to date is a way to CLEARLY communicate to users in real time just how much data they have left, its cost and granular control over apps (like turning off auto-update) that a non-tech can understand and set up.
Maybe there’s an app for this 😉
Mike