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Posts Tagged Vodafone

The rort that still is mobile data roaming Peter Griffin Jan 31

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The Herald on Sunday produces more evidence today of the perils of using your phone for email and surfing the internet while abroad.

While making calls and sending text messages while abroad has become much more affordable for consumers and the charging schedules easier to understand, the same cannot be said for using mobile data services.

I’ve heard numerous stories of people returning to shocking bills after using their phone to keep in touch via email while abroad.

Ernie Newman, ever-present advocate for consumers as head of the Telecommunications Users’ Association (TUANZ) told the HoS:

“People go overseas without any concept of how quickly these costs can mount up. It’s what’s known in the trade as bill shock and unfortunately it’s a recurring story.”

Here in New Zealand on a Vodafone plan, 100MB of mobile data will cost you $10. When you roam overseas as a Vodafone customer, 10MB will cost you $100 – yes, one hundred dollars.

As the table below shows, people using data services overseas typically pay 10c per 10kb of data. Now, 10kb is enough to get one or two plain text emails via a device like the Blackberry or a Windows Mobile phone. If you are just clearing a few email it isn’t too expensive, but heaven forbid you download, say a 300kb PDF file ($3), or a 2MB Powerpoint presentation ($20).

What’s even worse is that as a Vodafone customer, if you do not roam on a Vodafone network in the country you are travelling in, you’ll pay 30c per 10k. So that 300kb PDF file is suddenly costing you $9, the 2MB Powerpoint file a whopping $60.

The minimum charge in plenty of countries you are likely to be travelling in – Canada, Denmark, Fiji, Kong Kong, South Korea, is 30c per 10kb. And some providers, such as the US arm of T-Mobile, charge minimum connection fees, in its case – the minimum charge for a data session is $3.

Telecom quotes data charging, probably more realistically by the megabyte. One megabyte in Australia will cost $8, in the UK, $10, in Fiji and China, $25.

To their credit, the two mobile players Vodafone and Telecom have got a lot better about warning customers about using mobile data overseas. This from Telecom’s website:

“…if your laptop automatically downloaded a security update of 30mb it could cost you up to $900 depending on where you are, and you may not even be aware it happened until you received your bill back in New Zealand.”

Avoiding mobile data roaming bill shock

1. If you are picking up email on your phone, make sure you are receiving them in text only form and with the option to open attachments if you choose. Avoid at all costs opening attachments on your phone while overseas.

2. Be very careful about using GPS mapping applications to find your way around foreign cities – these can rack up significant data transfer which at 10 – 30c per 10kb could cost a small fortune.

3. Want to access a restaurant review or tourst guide on your phone? Avoid doing so – websites, especially those that aren’t optimised for mobile web browsers, can take several hundred kilobytes to load. Even optimised, virtually text only pages, will take 10k – 30k per page to load. That’s potentially 10c – 90c per page to load.

4. If you are using a mobile data card or USB dongle to get your computer online overseas, BEWARE. Data charges will escalate quickly. Make sure you turn off Windows updates, antivirus software updates, peer to peer file sharing applications. Don’t use Skype, don’t even have it running. I’d very very wary about using my computer with a data roaming service. At least with a mobile phone, you are likely to be assured to only have one application running at the one time. Your computer is a potential gateway to sucking large amounts of data as the various useful bits of software you have installed query servers on the internet for updates.

5. Always stay on partner networks, when roaming. You can, for instance set Vodafone as your default network so that Vodafone will be the first network you connect to as soon as you walk off the plane in a country where Vodafone operates (or has an affiliate). The same goes for Telecom’s XT network.

A cross-section of roaming destinations and Vodafone charges

A cross-section of roaming destinations and Vodafone charges

The joys of (prepaid) mobile broadband Peter Griffin Jan 16

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In a week where Telecom was roasted by the Commerce Commission for ripping off hundreds of thousands of customers for the greater part of the last decade, its worth noting one of the few things the company does well – mobile broadband.

telecom tstickJust before Chritmas, Telecom did something most people thought it had become incapable of – offered a pretty good deal. For $30, Telecom broadband customers could buy a Telecom T-Stick, which is a tiny modem that plugs into your computer and lets you surf the internet at a decent speed via Telecoms’ XT mobile phone network.

The T-Stick comes with 500MB of data allowance which isn’t much for a even a moderate internet user, but certainly allows a good deal of internet surfing and email traffic, as long as you stay away from big downloads and chunky email attachments. The innovative part of the deal is that you don’t have to commit to a monthly mobile data plan, but pay on a use-as-you-go basis.

I’ve been a mobile broadband subscriber before, using a Vodafone data card for much of last year to try and stay connected on the road. But it was a frustrating experience. Not only was the service pretty patchy, I’d often go weeks without needing mobile broadband, but still having to pay the $49.99 per-month subscription fee.

I should note that Vodafone also offers a pre-aid mobile broadband package with pretty much the same deal – though you do have to pay $99 upfront for the device. It appears you don’t have to be an existing Vodafone customer to sign up for this, so its perfect for visitors to the country who want to stay connected reasonably cheaply during their travels here.

Better than wifi, hotel broadband

I’ve just spent a few days out of the office and the T-Stick has been fantastic – the network reliability has been great, the transfer feeds similar to what I get on DSL in the office. The T-Stick has the software for Macs and PCs built into it, so installs itself automatically – no drama with Windows 7 either.

Normally when I go to a hotel I search out the closest wifi hotspot (hopefully an Esquires that offers free wifi access through Tomizone when you buy a coffee or something). But finding a good wifi connection and a quiet spot within coverage can be tricky. Premium wifi access can cost up to $10 a day, so its not really an affordable option if you want access over the course of a few days. Hotel broadband in New Zealand is expensive – to to $30 a day. We don’t seem to have embraced the free broadband offers US, Asian and European hotels commonly offer.

So prepaid mobile broadband is a good option for casual internet use on the road. If you have a mobile phone or smartphone that can act as a modem, you should also look into the options for tethering your computer to your phone for internet access. Both Telecom and Vodafone now have  reasonable casual mobile data access rates, so this could save you the need to pick up a T-Stick or Vodem.

Interphone – is the mobile industry in for a nasty shock? Peter Griffin Oct 26

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The long-awaited final report of the 10 year-long, 20 million pound Interphone study into whether mobile phone use can cause brain cancer is set to be published before the end of the year, according to reports from the UK over the weekend.

The results are expected to cause some concern for the mobile industry and the world’s four billion mobile phone users because they are expected to indicated that long-term, heavy mobile phone usage leads to an increased risk of developing brain tumours. But the picture isn’t as clear as that, which may well make the publication of the Interphone study in a peer-reviewed journal in the coming weeks one of the more controversial science stories of the year.

Sunday Mirror

Sunday Mirror

New Zealand participated in Interphone, which is a series of “multi-national case-control studies to assess whether radio-frequency exposure from mobile phones is associated with cancer risk” organised by the World Health Organisation. The study is already controversial – this Economist article outlines the reasons for that, but essentially there have been many questions raised about the methodology the study used and a preliminary release of data seems to have caused widespread confusion on the issue. This from the Economist in September last year, when the final report was due to be released, on the subject of ‘recall bias’ and the Interphone study.

“Recall bias happened because the study was retrospective rather than prospective. In other words it looked at what people had done in the past rather than following their behaviour into the future. In practice, that meant asking them about past behaviour, and relying on the accuracy of their memories.

“Even a healthy person would probably have difficulty recalling exactly how often he used his mobile phone a decade ago, and which ear he routinely held it to. Someone
subsequently diagnosed with a brain tumour might easily be biased, consciously or unconsciously, to exaggerate the former and misstate the latter.”

Of the 13 single-country studies undertaken as part of Interphone, the results from nine of them have been released – with several reporting an increased risk of brain tumours among mobile phone users after ten years of mobile use. Working through the impact of the recall bias is one reason given for the lengthy delays in publishing the Interphone study. There has also been, the Economist alleges, intense disagreement between the scientists involved in the study.

“The Interphone researchers are split into three camps. One believes any increased incidence of tumours shown in the study is purely the result of the biases. Another
thinks it really has found increased risks of certain tumours and wants to call for precautionary measures. A third group is just keeping quiet. One person who knows
many of the scientists, but prefers not to be named, describes the relations between members of the three groups as “strained”—harsh language in the world of scientific
research.”

Some scientists are already saying that its impossible to reply on any data in the study that draws a direct link between mobile phone usage and brain tumours.But others are calling for Governments to issue public health warnings, particularly to warn parents not to let young children use mobile phones for extended periods of time. Already, there are calls in the UK press for action on the issue. This from The Sunday Mirror’s editorial:

“Young children should not have them at all while older ones ought to text rather than call and never sleep with them under the pillow. And everyone should use a hands-free connection rather than hold the phone to their ear. These simple measures could save countless lives. Phone companies should agree to print prominent health warnings on all packaging and the Government should launch a major education campaign. Too much time has been lost pretending that there is no risk in using mobiles.”

How the final version of the Interphone study is received by the scientific community is going to be crucial to what impact the research has on government regulations, industry standards and consumer behaviour.

The implications for the mobile industry are huge. In New Zealand, mobile phone penetration is over 100 per cent – some of us have more than one active mobile connection. Two new mobile networks have been built here in the last couple of years. Mobile chipsets are increasingly being built into laptops and netbooks to give people the convenience of accessing the internet on the move. Mobile phone companies have encouraged people to drop their fixed landline in favour of all-mobile alternatives like Vodafone At Home.

Mobile use is such a pervasive part of our lives in the age of the iPhone and text messaging that some clear conclusions leading to clear guidelines are needed on the safety of mobile use. The World Health Organisation will have to take some clear leadership here in the next few months in conjunction with governments around the world.

Interphone may also raise other questions for which conclusive answers require more long-term research:

- Are there any risks from long-term, heavy use of other wireless technologies (different frequencies) such as Wifi, Bluetooth, WiMAX, DECT. Many of us will be coming up on ten years usage of Wifi soon – all of my internet usage at home and in the office takes place over Wifi connections.

- Are there any risks posed by cell sites, especially as cell base stations are increasingly being placed at street level in inner-city areas to fill in coverage zones.

All along we have been told that mobile phone use, wifi use, cell towers pose no health risk to people. If Interphone provides compelling evidence to the contrary the mobile industry could be faced with a threat to its business akin to the disastrous Europe spectrum auctions that opened the millenium.