I can't believe I hadn't got round to actually testing the new European data rates (since 1st June) for real, until now. But, on Vodafone at least, it works like a charm and a quick calculation reveals that data tariffs have come down (potentially) to one-hundredth their previous value. 7 pence/MB? Can you beat that?
Read on in the full article.
Roaming data costs are still ridiculous, though. I've had the T-Mobile payg data rate capped at �1 per day for ages now, but if I pop over to France they want me to pay �7.50 per MB.
I have to admit, I'm dreading going abroad in some ways. I'm so used to t-mobile 'unlimited' internet for �7.50 a month, that I keep wondering what I'll do when travelling.
By the way, having shopped around, for those with contracts, web'n'walk has been the deal maker for me. 'unlimited' means 1 GB a month which is excellent for �7.50 extra a month. Nut they do say not for use with laptops, stramoing downloads etc.
However, I've found that provided you don't go overboard, they don't complain about it. I've used it with the laptop quite abit (bluetooth modem) and done the odd download and no nasty letters yet. But keep your head down and don't go overboard.
If you want to do strams and laptop use 'officially' it is still only 12.50 a month and then 'unlimited' means 3GB a month only restriction in no VoIP. You can have that as well for yet more money.
For Pay as you go customers, they do a similar deal to Voda from what I can see.
Anyway, all in all an impressed customer. Big problem now is when they will offer an E90 and at what price for an upgrade...
Zuber
sorry for the typos.
Zuber
I don't really understand your excitment here Steve. T-Mobile has had its PAYG data tariff capped at �1/day for 2GB of data for quite a while now. And orange has had its �1 data bundle for unlimited GPRS for a day for even longer.
Vodaphone's new tariff is better than their previous one, no doubt about it. But it's still way behind some of the competition and, more importantly, it's still a confusing and expensive data tariff. And things get even a lot worse when you cross the border (which happens on a weekly and often daily basis for those of us living in Northern Ireland). There Vodaphone will happily charge you a ridiculous �10/MB in 100KB increment, which means that using 3 or 4KB just to check if you've got any new email will cost you �1!
It's good to see that operators are very, very, very slowly improving their data tariff but the fact remains that in general we are still in UK being completely ripped off when it comes to data.
I find it very difficult to get excited about a new data tariff that offers such poor value. If operators reviewed their data tariff on a monthly basis, then this would be good news as this would be a step in the right direction and we could hope that they'd introduce a really good tariff very soon. But operators tends to keep their data tariffs for years. I'm sorry but �1 for 15MB in a day (provided that you don't use more than �15 in a day) and �10/MB with basically a �1 connection fee when you're abroad is a rip-off as far as I am concerned. It would have been a decent tariff 5 years ago. And this 15MB limit is just going to make it even more confusing for "normal" consumer who have no idea of what 15MB actually means.
Wow, why is it cost soooo much? I'm living in Russia, and nevertheless we have ~$0.03/Mb GPRS/EDGE in every prepaid plan from EniseyTeleKom for about 4 years (they launched GPRS 4 years ago)! The only thing we are dreaming about is UNLIMITED data plan 😞 We have none...
Well, some providers is trying to launch CDMA network with cheap data plans, but they are using freaking frequencies (it is CDMA 800Mhz and EV-DO 450Mhz), phones for that frequencies are toooooo weird (few phones even have bluetooth).
By the way, is there any ways to use GPRS from remote bluetooth phone on Symbian smartphone? That would be cool.
Hi Steve and all,
I have to agree with the last couple of posts although this is a great improvement from Voda's previous charges it's not even close to what some of the other Networks offer. Although in the fanfare when it was launched Voda tried to claim it was better than what the other Networks are offering the reality falls way short IMO. Only Voda and 02 are still charging these outrageous rates and as Data is now getting so much faster and being able to deliver a true Mobile Internet experience to our devices they will sooner or later have to match the other Networks or risk churning large volumes users. People see what T-Mobile gives their customers for only �7.50 pm and want the same value for money.
Marc
Greetings from Brazil!
Regarding pre-paid/pay-as-you-go there´s a new wiki organized by Martin Sauter (mobilesociety.typepad.com) where people can post info about GPRS/EDGE/3G tariffs worldwide.
http : // prepaid-wireless-internet-access . wetpaint . com/?t=anon
He needs help from mobilists to put more info on it.
I have already posted some info about my country, the high prices we have to pay to have mobile internet...
T-Mobile's �7.50/mo "limited" unlimited is very nice - I am a mostly satisfied customer - but the limitations are rather annoying. Particularly the "no VOIP" and "no streaming audio" - which makes AAS reviews of internet radio and free software VOIP products rather depressing reading 😊
T-mobile 3G/HSDPA PCMCIA card was free and UKP19 per month line rental for unlimited data, really unlimited, and this has been available for 14 months now! The T-mobile UKP7.5 web'n'walk has been available now for 2 years. Vodafone is really way behind when it comes to cheap data tariffs.
In China, we have unlimited WAP usage for 1RMB/day (US$ 0.13/day equivalent to US$ 3.90/month) :: Can anyone beat that!!!
I am able to access following with my E61 (without any hasseles)
**GMAIL (using gmail application)
**Mail for Exchange
**Services browser
Enjoy!!!
Waiting for E61 firmware upgrade
-Kumar
It would appear that Vodafones �1.00/15MB per day or 7.50/120MB per month offers are not as good as they seem.
From the 28th of June Vodafone have been charging people using the INTERNET APN, if you have been using the WAP APN then you are fine, but if like me you have the �7.50 per month package and have been using the INTERNET APN then check your bill online or call Vodafone you will find that the data charges are racking up, mines up to �23 for July so far.
It not just me either, checkout http://www.3g.co.uk/3GForum//forum/thread/62242/ for more info.
No-one at Vodafone can tell me if it is a mistake, they have stated I should be able to use the Internet APN as data is data, however from the 6th of june when I took out the plan until the 27th june I had zero charges using the Internet APN and since the 28th I have been charged.
If I can only use the WAP APN then there offer is utter rubbish to be honest, you can't even use the built-in S60 email client with the WAP APN.
And surely the deal is that you get up to 15mb for a pound a day, which sounds great - however if you have an always on email client it's very easy to use more the first 500k every day, meaning the charge could actually hit approx. �30 pcm just for circa �15Mb of data - not so good!
The majority of users in Europe are on pre-paid plans, so pre-paid data rates are what you should be publishing. In Belgium, using Proximus (Vodafone) the data rate is extremely expensive (dozens of Euros for a day of light, infrequent surfing), yet in Switzerland one of the major operators offers pre-paid data at fixed-line rates - almost free. Pre-paid users should be able to buy unlimited 1 month packages if they are in a country with exorbitant pre-paid data rates.