T-Mobile Launches £2 Per Day Mobile Broadband 184
Mark.J writes "ISPreview reports that T-Mobile UK has launched an interesting range of new off-the-shelf Mobile Broadband products that do not require customers to sign-up under a long-term contract. The pay-as-you-go (PAYG) style products cost from only £2 per day for 'unlimited' access (3GB Fair Usage Policy applies). To access T-Mobile pre-pay Mobile Broadband, customers simply need to purchase a USB (Modem) Stick 110, which includes a memory card, for just £49.99 and plug it into a laptop to access their favourite websites. Credit can be topped up direct from the laptop and customers are able to select whichever package suits them at the time." For American readers, that's about $3.66 right now -- plus shipping yourself to the UK.
Re:The daily rate is outrageously expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but it's absolutely fantastic if you travel frequently to the UK for short stints. Paying £7 for a week's worth of fairly generous 3G data access, or £2/day, or any other tiers they may have is a great option for those of us where this is the case. This is especially true of corporate accounts that have disabled international data roaming in the downturn, leaving overseas cell and data usage to a tedious reimbursement system (designed to drive people mad before actually cutting any checks/cheques).
At £2 a day, it can come out of the per diem and no one will miss it enough to file for reimbursement.
For vacation travelers, they've got Internet access without being nickel-and-dimed with usage charges based on kB.
I'm not aware of anything competitive with this in the US, or in most European countries, for that matter--usually I've just seen monthly unlimited plans (for cheap enough prices that it's worth paying, even if you're just there for a week, but still).
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Vodafone in Spain (Score:2, Insightful)
This is because nearly all websites waste tonnes of bandwidth with "Web 2.0" Ajax / Javascript crap. I am stuck on dialup, and it takes forever to load just about anything these days. Even if it is just a page with a few lines of text. Today's "web programmers" suxxors!
Re:The daily rate is outrageously expensive (Score:3, Insightful)
$4 per day with a 3 gigabyte cap per month. I'm not sure which part of the world you live in where you are ok with throwing away $100 USD per month for internet on your phone
I'm not sure what part of the world you live in where you would pay a daily rate for 30 days when a monthly plan at a third the price is available.
Or you could go with Orange, who has £5/month mobile data, but you give up 3G speeds (GPRS only, last time I used it).
Keeping in mind the general high cost of goods and services in the UK relative to Asia and the United States, not to mention the unusually low cost of Internet services in Asia, their $55/month 3G isn't bad at all. Not everywhere can match the blissful data paradise of Asia and Scandinavia.
Re:What is broadband in this context? (Score:1, Insightful)
What definition of broadband is being used here?
If it's anything like Three's UK 3G mobile broadband, I'd say that when it's good it'll be genuinely broadband circa 300kbps upwards (right as I type I'm getting 200-600kbps consistently). It's hard to judge because although the modem gives you speed ratings, it sometimes goes in "spurts" (the fastest speed I've had is just under 1mbps, though I had a one-off "blip" at the claimed max of 3mbps). However, when it's bad (I assume because of the number of people using it) it can be very poor, well sub-dial-up speeds. Yes, we're talking about 20-60kbps.
When I started using it a few months back, I'd have said it was (in terms of usability) somewhere inbetween wired broadband and dial-up. Unfortunately, in the past month or so it seems to have been far too often giving sub-dial-up transfer rates at certain times (I assume because the service is becoming more popular and each mast is servicing more people) and dodgy reliability (the latter sometimes fixed by reconnecting, sometimes not).
Don't get me wrong- it *can* be very fast (for a mobile offering), it's just not always like that. This is only a temporary arrangement for me, so I can live with it, but I'd never recommend it as a choice over wired broadband (*). If you're a traveller though, it's more than good enough in most cases; compared to the ludicrously overpriced (silly prices per *megabyte*) and underspecced packages the mobile telcos were offering until a year or so ago, it's amazing.
(*) Except Virgin's (ex. NTL) cable offering- not because it's slow but because at the time I was having to decide how I'd access the Internet they were trialling the obnoxious Phorm packet spying scheme. I would have been happy to pay for ADSL, but there is no phone line where I'm staying and paying to have that installed on top of the monthly line rental would have made things horribly expensive. The person whose flat I'm staying in was considering Virgin anyway, and was quite happy for me to get it. So you can understand that to forego the convenience of wired broadband for what I knew would probably be a slower and less reliable method of connection says a lot about how I feel about that piece-of-shit company and having *everything* I do online potentially spied upon and tracked by a third party with a questionable reputation, just so that some bunch of pricks can provide me with some targeted ads. Given the amount of weaselling and half-truths in that case, I didn't trust that their opt-out would stop them getting my data completely. C***s.
Re:It can't be both UNLIMITED and 3Gb! (Score:4, Insightful)
Before anyone claims that T mobile say no such thing; It says "UNLIMITED* internet access with no run-on rates". Further down there's a link "* Subject to fair use"
So in essence they're claiming that it's unlimited then using the small-print to claim it's unlimited via an indirect and vague reference to a "fair use" policy.
Small-print should be used to clarify things and make clear the boring details, not to allow companies to outright lie and then weasel out of it without even having the "explanation" on the same page.
Anticipating a possible response to this post, anyone (including the telcos) who claims that the "unlimited" means "unlimited connection time" or some similar BS is being disingenuous. The companies *know* and are operating on the assumption that people will take "unlimited" to mean "unlimited downloading", if only because clearly that *is* what people have already shown they believe such claims to mean. IANAL, but I assume that this is how the advertisement would be judged legally and/or by the advertising standards bodies.
(This isn't to say that the offer of 3GB for a regular fee of £15/month is bad value by mobile standards- but the advert *is* intentionally misleading, like it or not).
Re:The daily rate is outrageously expensive (Score:2, Insightful)
1) Fat Cat Investment Banks encourage US populace to spend more money than collectively exists, based on perversion of American Dream promising infinite growth. "Trust Private Enterprise", they say, "Keep Government small, taxes are daylight robbery".
2) Turns out money doesn't grow on infinite trees: economy goes tits up. "Help us", say Fat Cats, "You've got to bail us out, because you've build your house on our cards".
3) ???
4) Profit!
5) "Hey, we warned you about those taxes", says Big Media. "You should vote for the Rebublicrats next time."
6) Goto 1