The roaming rip-off is over? Pull the other one

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

The EU is in self-congratulatory mood today, declaring that its clampdown on mobile roaming charges means “the roaming rip-off is now coming to an end”.

While the EU has indeed made progress, we’re a long way from popping the champagne corks and declaring a famous consumer victory.

Look, for example, at the data rates. The EU’s new rules still allow mobile networks to charge up to 1 Euro (86p) per MB for data downloads when roaming. That’s £880 per GB! To put that in perspective, BT charges £15.65 per month for a 10GB data download allowance on its Option 1 package; mobile networks can theoretically charge £8,806 for the same amount of data! And I’ve yet to see any compelling evidence that the costs associated with mobile data are an order of magnitude higher than they are for fixed line providers.

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Iran: Will Nokia achieve what Bush couldn’t?

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

Over the past week I’ve been dipping into the flood of “tweets” pouring out of Tehran. And I’ve been impressed: primarily, of course, by the spirit of the Iranian people, but also by the way Twitter has kept me informed with an immediacy and rawness that mainstream media coverage can’t match. What we’re seeing in the east is a landmark event, not only in geopolitical history, but also in the history of the internet

But while Twitter has undoubtedly played a major role in events, there’s a technology which I think has been even more pivotal. I’m talking about camera-phones — such as the one that captured the last living moments of a young Iranian woman named Neda, shot dead during a protest on Saturday in the streets of Tehran. (more…)

How did Vodafone slash a £31,000 bill to £229?

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

You may remember our story from earlier this week, when a customer of Vodafone-owned Yes Telecom got home from holiday to find a £31,000 phone bill on the mat, all because he’d downloaded an episode of Prison Break and a couple of songs whilst laying on the beach in Portugal.

Vodafone might have thought it was a nice piece of face-saving PR to cut the poor chap’s bill down to £229, but as PC Pro forum member Amnesia10 rightly commented on the article, “From £31,000 to £229!!!!  How could it afford to write this off?  If it were a genuine cost it would not write it off so easily.”

Quite. So we asked Vodafone how it managed to wipe more than 99% off the bill? A company spokesperson assured us that Vodafone did take a financial hit on the write-off. How much? She wouldn’t say.

Anyone want to bet it’s £229?

Update: Vodafone says the bill was actually from last September and new measures put in place since then would have prevented our intrepid Prison Break fan from running up such a colossal bill.

Failing to feel the benefit of O2

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

A letter arrives from O2 this morning, reminding me of the fantastic new 18 month contract I’ve just signed up for.

There’s the 600 free minutes (which, being a man, is 599 minutes more than I’ll actually need. Hi mum, by the way), 500 free texts and unlimited web browsing. And what’s this in paragraph three?

Barely able to contain my excitement, I flip over the page to find:

I can’t tell you how lucky I feel.

The future’s bright, the future’s Babasonicos* straight to your mobile

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

Internet radios are nothing new, but here’s one that promises something a bit different.

Not content with merely letting you listen to the latest hit singles from around the world (and several hundred stations intent on playing nothing but Wham! till the world ends), this new entry from Orange brings something new, and somewhat inevitable, to the table.

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