Web 'n' Walk? There's more to the Internet than browsing and email

Just ordered the Professional pack, presumably that allows Laptop surfing (well duh I'm getting a laptop card with it)
Not interested in Voip or video streaming, but hoping to use FTP and also hoping I can stick the SIM in my PDA.
I paid 25 quid a month to Orange for 65mb so this is a dream come true.
Details are a bit sketchy, the guy at T-Mobile said I could add Professional to any voice package for 10 quid, but it doesn't mention this anywhere on the site.
I'll get back with the results

The 'Professional' version removes nearly all the restrictions, except I believe VoIP, which is not entirely unexpected. I guess streaming is excluded because they intend to launch their own TV service in the new future, so probably depends on WHAT you are streaming from WHERE! And its only a tenner, so half the price you wanted Steve. Its not well advertised with most of the sales team being completely in the dark on the matter, but it is available, although for some people only seems to appear after there first bill has been issued. It has been unofficially communicated that they would only apply the restrictions if you regularly use large amounts of data, the odd VoIP, streaming, etc is likely to go undetected/unpunished. Considering the other products available in the UK market this is a revolution.

Though, obviously, it's only a tenner on top of an existing substantial monthly contract. Am I so unusual in preferring to go down the pay-as-you-go route? Possibly. I've always been a bit strange! 8-)

Steve

I think most people with "smartphones" avoid pay-as-you-go preceisely because of the data costs associated with them. If a standalone pre-pay data package was available, I'd be straight over to Pay-As-You-Go as I too make only a handfull of voice calls and texts each month.

My device is a data-centric PDA first and foremost. That it allows me to make and receive voice calls when I want to is a largely irellavant bonus as I rarely want to 😊

I think the T-Mobile data tarrifs are fantastic. But then, I still pay �10 for 10MB each month!

True, but I believe you can get a data only card for around the �20 mark. Granted its not much use for those who are telephony minded but great for those of us who want to use it in a laptop 3G card. To be honest I have never seen the point of PAYG, especially now. Last month you could have picked up FlexT 20 for �15 a month for life - even a low phone user would probably get through something approaching that a month, so is great value. So with all the data you can use it would be �25 - almost as required Steve! Offers have expired now but there are rumours of new phones and offers in June - its only the lack of phones that I want that has stopped me signing up, even though I have 9 months left on one of my Orange contracts!!! With my spend I would save that 9 months money in 3 months max!!!!!

It's so sad because it just doesn't have to be this way, mobile phone networks could be completely outclassing wi-fi if they wanted to. Wi-fi is the equivalent of a phone box that ties you to one place or makes you hop from one fixed point to another, whereas GPRS is the equivalent of, well, a mobile phone that works pretty much anywhere even if you're on the move.

Over here in Finland, the cost of GPRS is far, far smaller, and in fact the phone provider I use (Saunalahti) advertises an "all you can eat" 3G service which costs �30 (�20) a month as a direct alternative to landline broadband. They even show someone using a laptop on the train in the commercial to hammer home that it's just like the internet but fully mobile. The only catch in the small print is that you can't use P2P, but that's all as far as I can tell.

krisseyour service provider sounds sweet. maybe o2 or actually any uk network can take ideas from your provider. & its 3G aswel,woudlnt ever use my broadband connection. & your also quite right on the wi-fi thing,im waiting for a wi-fi phone so that i can use internet at home for free but if it came as a addon for a service plan then wouldn't even bother
p.s. can you even do p2p on your phone?there isnt a mobile version of any p2p software that i know

Sounds great, low cost all you can eat mobile data with no limitations. And we might have had that today were it not for greedy Gordon's �22bn stealth tax on 3G licenses (about �400 for every man, woman and child in the country😮 ). Unfortunately the commercial reality is that this has got to be repaid somehow, and that's before the costs of equipment, operation, marketing etc.

But by the same token it seems ridiculous to have paid that much for the licences, then invested in the infrastructure and then make the use of the service so prohibitively expensive that no one does. How much traffic do we think goes through all the 3G services each day? This is the model O2, Orange and Voda have chosen. I can only think they are desperate to reserve bandwidth for other pay for services released over 3G, like video calling (ha ha!) and TV. The other model is once you have paid all this cash make the service a relatively cheap subscription - loads of people sign up but relatively few are going to use anywhere near the theoretical cap. This is the model T-Mob have chosen and I am pretty certain it will generate far more revenue the the previous one.

Got mail back from T-Mobile saying they are swamped with orders (not enough staff) I'll get an e-mail when they can sort it.
Another interesting factor will be the ping times, Orange's mobile ping time was 2 seconds!!! (how long it takes data to get to the server and back) this made playing online games impossible ,as a guide the MMORPG I play used around 1-3mb/hr.
Also not mentioned here is that the Pro pack includes a free 12mnth wi-fi pass (very nice).