 Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Ouch! That's gotta hurt 
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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David Murdoch, ouch, theres goes three ski passes 
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Well I was aware of the costs, was extra careful and two weeks in VT before and during the EoSB gave me an April phone bill of £395!. Roughly 50/50 voice/data
Still, I'd told myself that I'd only be upset if it was over £400.
Even so, it's still a bloody ripoff!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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rob@rar.org.uk, it does.
hibernia, yep, or my proposed touring boots.
snowbunny, a good job indeed, and stunningly attractive too (allegedly).
admin, Too true. An absolute rip off. And really stupid. I'm just not going to use it anymore (anyone want to buy a "£199" data card?). So instead of a comfy £50-75 drip from now on, the organisation in question will get 0.
Not an ideal model for a subscription business now is it?
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David Murdoch, yikes, thanks for the warning.
Oh, and,
| David Murdoch wrote: |
| ..............snowbunny, a good job indeed, and stunningly attractive too (allegedly)............. |
I have always assumed snowbunny was stunningly attractive.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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WiFi's the way to go.
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If you need phone and internet abroad and it has to be easily portable http://www.satcomms.co.uk/ BGAN works out about 8p/Meg (cheapest) depending on the supplier and the plan you take.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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laundryman,
| Quote: |
| WiFi's the way to go |
I paid a ludicous amount for 30 minutes WiFi in Helsinki Airport recently. If I remember rightly it was something like 12 euros. Besides WiFi only covers hotspots, so if you need to pick up your e-mails and post on snowheads while up Col Pers then WiFi just wont hack it...
Here in Germany you can now get a flat rate on E-Plus for data at about 40E/month, or you can get 5GB/month on Vodaphone for about the same price, but they don't cover roaming
Apparently the EU is starting an initiative to get roaming charges banned completely inside the EU. Good move I think, but don't hold your breath.
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Mike Lawrie, that's much more like it. It's hardly what I'd call a settled price for something that costs so little but ~40Eu is a price that makes it a practical option.
Here, orange charge 3 times that (£75/month!) for their unlimited data service but, bad as that is, as ever it's the roaming charges (calls and data) that are criminal. Currently £10/mb they are promoting the 'generocity' of their upcoming reduction to only £8/mb with pre-booked packages that can potentially reduce the cost to £5/mb.
IT doesn't actually cost any more to d/l data in France than it does in the UK; the infrastructure is there - allowing for each operator, your own and your foreign host network, to take a cut one would expect, at most, to be paying double what one would at home.
IMO it's little better than theft (yes, I know I don't have to use it but I'm being dramatic darling  )and the new EU directive doesn't go anywhere near far enough.
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You know it makes sense.
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| Mike Lawrie wrote: |
| Apparently the EU is starting an initiative to get roaming charges banned completely inside the EU. Good move I think, but don't hold your breath. |
That would be a good move. I think it would help to maintain Europe's dominance in mobile, by expanding the market.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Maybe competition will force prices down? I suppose one of the causes of the high charges may be the tax on 3G imposed by the government in the form of the licence auction - and companies recovering that partly by slipping in charges for services that are not known value items.
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Poster: A snowHead
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admin, you can't use too strong words for the way I feel. And just look at the net effect. Rather than lauding the benefits of being able to connect easily everywhere the first thing I do is open up a bunch of very negative viral marketing vectors.
The problem I have is that the networks are just being plain stupid. They should look to the low cost airline model. Stop trying to gouge a few people and make it convenient and economically sensible to open up vast economies of scale. BA made record profits last quarter - alongside Ryanair and Easyjet. More people travelled at sensible costs to more places. BA business class was still as full as they wanted it to be. Up the back, lots of happy people were filling seats that would otherwise be empty. The marginal cost of a single passenger is way lower than they would have us believe.
A massive increase in air passengers at much reduced discrete margins but massively enhanced asset loads translates into a much more profitable business.
It's worse for the Telcos. Yes, they do need huge investment in a very large infrastructure but as you say, the marginal cost per MB of data transmitted is close to zero. Getting 200 people to pay a bill of £10 (say) per month would be significantly more interesting to me than trashing one potential client once for £433.
Convergence will happen. Airtime will not be used for phone calls except for VOIP. There is only a very small likelihood (based on current technologies) that this isn't going to happen. So, it does make one laugh when T-Mobile (not my provider) have in their Ts & Cs that anyone using their 3G data card for VOIP will be banned from using it.
Feckin' IDIOTS!!
(Rant over)...
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Nick Zotov, I would submit that that is simply an excuse. The 3G operating licences have been paid for (if we wanted proof that the management of these companies are idiots we need look no further!). The cost of adding clients is near zero. The cost of operation is still being paid for whether those assets are being utilised or not.
I maintain 1 x £433 is still less than 200 x £10 x 12 repeating. I know which business I would want.
Worse, there is no competition. There is an effective (and in France, actual) cartel. We need a cartel buster. Look at broadband in the UK (and compare to Switzerland). Almost every month sees some provider producing cheaper rates for "faster" speeds. It's not clear to me who needs 16Mb/s connectivity at home, but there you go.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| David Murdoch wrote: |
| It's not clear to me who needs 16Mb/s connectivity at home, but there you go. |
Some of the Bit Torrent fans here might 
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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David Murdoch, I am in a business where we have had to buy expensive capital equipment. The marginal cost for its use is near free. But the cost has to amortised against each item produced using it. The same applies, I guess, to the 3G licences and mobile broadband use. However, I do agree that the regulatory authorities should be vigilant against cartels. Personally, I think consumer prices will go the same way as airline fares.
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Nick Zotov, for sure. However, the 3G infrastructure has a limited life. We are already looking to 3.5G and 4G. Not to mention WiMax, WiBro and the like. I would imagine that revenue maximisation would be of some importance and in mass market terms it's usually better to maximise revenue paying customers first rather than maximising customer revenues.
Again, assuming zero marginal costs, £24,000 is still more money than £433. There are clearly a whole bunch of near-optimal price points but I reckon the current pricing structure is rather far from optimal in an effectively saturated marketplace.
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Masque, d'you reckon? And, if you have 16Mb connectivity - just what actual end to end throughput do you see?
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brian
brian
Guest
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In reality bit torrent coupled to a 16mb connection might get a 2 gb file across in a few hrs - i've only use 1mb - but the system works best and faster if you have lots of people sharing the file.. so depending on this there is no way of telling how long it will take. Its the whole point of it really
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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If the 3G network providers don't change their tune soon in terms or cost of service they will be dead, wifi and wimax has the potential to kill mobile networks as wireless networks spread. Are there any GSM operators not burdoned by the cost of 3G licences? These could probably provide faster and faster GPRS services at less cost than 3G.
I got stung by O2 the first month I was in the USA, now subsequently I had the choice for voice calls of using O2 to phone home at nearly £1 a minute, or using VoIP at £0.02p per minute, needless to say O2 didnt get much money after the first month! 
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That price is quite outrageous.
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You know it makes sense.
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Winterhighland, dead right. Roaming wifi is being rolled out as I type. WiMax is even more fun.
Kramer, thank you sir. It is.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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I'm just thinking about this as I write. I download easily 3-4Gb a month over broadband, at those prices that would be £15-20000  Admittedly most of that data isn't to my PC, but all the same.
Seeing as though the only reason that I can see for getting 3G is for portable internet access, the pricing policy does stink of short termism.
BTW, if I need to speak to my mate down in Cornwall these days, I do it through X-Box live, possibly (but not exclusively) whilst racing him on Project Gotham Racing 3, and it only costs me the price of a yearly subscription. 
David Murdoch, it is a good job that you're loaded, stunningly attractive, and have a way with the laydeez.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Winterhighland, the business model behind 3G is indeed hard to fathom! In fact as far as I remember it was only in Britain and Germany that the governments managed to so shamelessly fleece the operators for licence fees. In Italy the auction collapsed, and in France and Finnland the spectrum was more or less given away. Even so, it still costs billions to put up a 3G network that in the end can only potentially produce higher revenues than 2.5G by getting everyone hooked on doing snowheads anywhere anytime faster than 2.5G! There are a few other arguments in favour of 3G, such that you can theoretically squeeze more users / hertz of spectrum in urban environments, but it's marginal at best. In fact 2.5G currently offers services via EDGE that give you similar effective througput as 3G ( 240KBit/s vs 384KBit/s )
On the other hand I have big problems believing that WiFi or WiMax are going to rule. They just don't offer the same mobilty service as 2.5 or 3G. I find it hard to believe that people will want to run down to the local hotspot to do their surfing. In the same vein, they also don't offer any effective form of load balancing, so once you get more than a few users loading the cell it just starts to grind. All in all 3G is an much more sophistcated system than WiFi, but is currently suffering from slightly retarded management/marketing ( but then who doesn't ).
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FAQ
out there who could knock something up in minutes 