Will you hit the Orange iPhone “unlimited” cap?

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Orange’s big unveiling of its iPhone tariffs has caused a bit of a kerfuffle, not least because its prices are almost identical to those of O2. A lot of people are up in arms about the promise of “unlimited browsing”, which in fact comes with a fair-use limit of 750MB.

But, ignoring the terrible decision to put an “unlimited” label on a very clearly capped tariff, is that amount of monthly data actually “fair-use”?

As discussed in this week’s podcast, there’s a very easy way for existing iPhone owners to find out if that data cap would prove troublesome. Just go to Settings -> General -> Usage, and take a look at your Cellular Network Data. I did just that, believing this cap would be encroaching at least a little on my roaming lifestyle, but I was in for a surprise. (more…)

Hating BitTorrent (or How To Spoil Three Years of Anticipation)

Thursday, July 31st, 2008

Like Napster and every other file sharing service since, BitTorrent has altered (some would say scarred) the digital landscape immensely. I’m not going to go into the legalities here – we all know people who use it, a noble few for genuine legal file sharing, vastly more for getting the latest Coldplay album without having to shell out for it (I’ve heard it, I can sympathise).

It’s part cause and part by-product of the fact that the Internet has hugely magnified the hype and speculation around new albums, movies and games, to the extent where we often know far more than we need to about something before we experience it.

Simon over at fanboy site Den Of Geek makes the point well here, with even seemingly innocent Facebook walls proving a minefield before a much anticipated film release. I can understand this to a certain extent – I read previews and speculate about films more than is really healthy. But I stop there.

The people I simply won’t ever understand are those seemingly intent on deliberately ruining their own enjoyment of the thing they’re so desperate to get hold of. (more…)

Two and a half cheers for the iPhone

Thursday, July 17th, 2008

Before the iPhone 3G came out, I was telling anyone who’d listen that I thought it would change the smartphone game. I reckoned it would finally make internet access via mobile phone a mass-market norm – rather than a geeky proof of concept, as it tends to be with other smartphones.

It’s not just that the iPhone actually makes the internet pretty usable on a pocket device. That’s certainly a big part of the formula; but for me, the coup de grâce is that, in the UK at least, it comes with a simple, standard unlimited data package.

That means you don’t need to ration your mobile internet usage. You can use the web the same way you use it at home – for looking around, for trying things out, for exploring. For browsing. (more…)

The invisible Internet pioneer

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

A museum has opened in Mons, Belgium, with an exhibit to internet pioneer Paul Otlet.

No, I haven’t heard of him, either.

Although, after reading about him, he seems like one of the most brilliant minds of the past 100 years – and one of the nuttiest.

In short, he proposed the Internet as we know it – and Wikipedia – and begun to develop his ideas into a feasible system. Except he started work in 1934 – a damn site earlier than Tim Berners-Lee and his pals started putting together the modern Internet.

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Get orf moi broadband!

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

Michael Phillips, the Product Director at ConsumerChoices.co.uk, has today called for Government action to redress the balance between townies and rural users when it comes broadband. He says that “recent analysis has shown that we have a distinct first and second class society in the UK when it comes to Broadband speeds. Rural areas are getting a raw deal when it comes to their home broadband service and coupled with the ‘out of area’ service charges many broadband providers apply, they are suffering a double whammy.”

Well, I am a rural broadband user and while it did, I have to admit, take a couple of years longer to arrive in my village than in the nearest market town a few miles away, it is here now and working well. I get an average speed of between 3000 and 3500kbps, which is not stellar by any means but god damn if it isn’t fast enough for sending my email, browsing the web and even streaming the (very) odd bit of video when the wife is out.

My ISP, Zen, do not apply any additional ‘out of area’ service charges just because I chew straw and eat with my hands, and I do not feel like a second class netizen it has to be said.

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For sale: Barry’s excess data

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

At a time when most ISPs are tightening their data caps, Zen Internet has just announced that it’s increasing the monthly allowance for its subscribers by 5GB, at no extra cost.

That means customers like me who are on the Zen 8000 Active Broadband service will now receive an allowance of 25GB per month.

That’s all smashing and lovely, but the odd bout of Call of Duty 4 on the Xbox 360 aside, I rarely do any significant damage to my data allowance (as you can see from the graph below, click to enlarge). In fact, this morning, midway through the month, I’ve only used 3.8% of my existing 20GB allowance.

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Keep your bloody phone lines, I’m off to cable

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

I moved house a couple of weeks ago. Very spacious actually, although the garden could do with a trim, thanks for asking. Being an IT nerd, the first thing I did when I’d finished unloading boxes was to get the phone line and Internet set up – how hard can it be, right?

The answer, according to those lovely folks over at BT and TalkTalk, appears to be “as difficult as we can possibly make it without sticking two fingers up and suggesting yoghurt pots and a piece of string”.

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