News - O2 abandons unlimited mobile data pricing

[Defiant]

I have to say if you think O2's 3G performance will go up after this... well I dont think your being realistic. This smells of them not wanting invest anymore to keep up with the customers requirements and their new user base coming on looking for the 'unlimited' (I hate that term as even O2 arent even truely unlimited) service. Its a cope out in my eyes.
My existing issues with O2 are more based around the crap response rates from their service when I request data, the data flows fine after its been requested at least twice. Their pings jump all over the shot like there data rates.
Its sad cause I truely felt that mayhe mobile coms was coming of age, but not at a cap of 500mb per month. bugger bolt-ons as well.

Who truely wants to go back to the days of metered dial internet, I sure hell dont want to be clock watching or as its now called 'data watching'.

[arthurleung]

Thing is I could pay 20 quids and get 6 months of mobile internet on my T-Mobile PAYG with 1GB FUP. And I tether through my ancient WM5 phone!
Don't know if the speed is capped though since I'm stuck at UMTS speed. (384kbps ~48K/s)

Completely defeat the purpose of having the iPhone...

[crossy]

Who truely wants to go back to the days of metered dial internet, I sure hell dont want to be clock watching or as its now called 'data watching'.

Couldn't agree more - it reminds me a little of that scene in the film "Apollo 13" where they're trying to arrange tasks so as not to overload the batteries. Do we really want to be thinking "Should I check out Hexus today, or do a couple of emails?"

I realise that this'll probably get me flamed, but I can't help thinking that the guy who proposed load-based QoS controls (i.e. traffic-shaping a la Virgin Media) has probably got a point. Certainly it strikes me as fairer than the "blanket speed cap" approach, and more transparent than the "you can only use 500MB" we've got at the moment.

So you know that your IM/Tweet's will get through, email definitely, simple web probably, and iPlayer only if you're very, very good. Strikes me as a win-win, or at least, making the best of a bad situation.

Bob

[SiM]

Interesting article in the guardian.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...-unlimited-end

Do we really want to be thinking "Should I check out Hexus today, or do a couple of emails?"

Well you can do both multiple times a day (in fact I do - but sometimes using wifi at home, which everybody has tbh) and you will still find it hard to go over 400mb/month.

I really don't see why people have got their knickers in a twist when this does not affect normal, sensible users

1gb is more than fair and if you are using more than that, then you should pay extra for a premium service.

[Rob_B]

O2 says that 0.1% of its smartphone users - that's about 2,000 people - are consuming 36% of its data. Other networks indicate the same.

Ouchy! Why not just terminate them using some vague clause in their contracts that O2 probably put in for just such a reason? Oh wait, because if they did that they couldn't drop the limit for everyone

[Stringent]

So they go by average. They should just limit to 500mb thats more than enough for the 'average' and allow a good amount of flexibility. I probably use 1GB a month on heavy usage, 2 email accounts, web, Android Market, Twitter, Google Maps. I bet with the new iPhone coming out the data usage will go up for the first few months.

[miniyazz]

Couldn't agree more - it reminds me a little of that scene in the film "Apollo 13" where they're trying to arrange tasks so as not to overload the batteries. Do we really want to be thinking "Should I check out Hexus today, or do a couple of emails?"

I realise that this'll probably get me flamed, but I can't help thinking that the guy who proposed load-based QoS controls (i.e. traffic-shaping a la Virgin Media) has probably got a point. Certainly it strikes me as fairer than the "blanket speed cap" approach, and more transparent than the "you can only use 500MB" we've got at the moment.

There's nothing inherently wrong with traffic-shaping. It does seem fairer, in principle. But in practise it hasn't been implemented fairly. To take Virgin Media as an example, heavy-use lines are not deprioritised vs light-use lines - they are arbitrarily capped at a tiny fraction of the normal line speed - which does not restrict traffic fairly; rather, it is designed to reduce bandwidth throughput (presumably reducing Virgin's costs). If the system was installed to give customers the best service, the throughput would remain the same but low-use users would have traffic priority.

Interesting article in the guardian.

[IMG]http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Technology/Pix/pictures/2010/6/11/1276260511792/data_use_annoy.png[/IMG

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...-unlimited-end



Well you can do both multiple times a day (in fact I do - but sometimes using wifi at home, which everybody has tbh) and you will still find it hard to go over 400mb/month.

I really don't see why people have got their knickers in a twist when this does not affect normal, sensible users

1gb is more than fair and if you are using more than that, then you should pay extra for a premium service.

Unfortunately my Wifi is many times slower than O2. I was downloading a ~200MB patch yesterday and was getting speeds of 20-30kB/s. It also loses the connection a couple of times an hour on average. So I don't ever use Wifi on my phone at the moment!


So, if 97% of smartphone users don't go above 500MB, why have allowances for Android users been increased? Since they encompass far more than 3% of smartphone users and must have been routinely passing 500MB for 500MB-1GB caps to be considered insufficient?

[directhex]

I've gone over 500 meg more than once, without excessive usage patterns (i.e. no streaming or p2p)

[miniyazz]

I've gone over 500 meg more than once, without excessive usage patterns (i.e. no streaming or p2p)

Indeed, I've done this several times. I'm curious to know how much usage is in the background, i.e. checking email etc. I might do nothing data-wise with my phone tomorrow, just letting it do what it normally does in the background, and see how much it uses.

[pp05]

The networks dont have capacity.
3 are going for high volume shear route. Not is their service appalling, their dongles are slow.

O2 especially in London was not reliable with Iphone.

I am with t mobile. These web and walk is frustrating. I get the dial up speeds if that. I have given up on 3g for the phone in general. Not very productive.

Wifi offers the best smart phone experience in general.

The government should define what a quality service should look like, network capacity and quantity of users. Networks that dont have the capacity in place should not be allowed to sell data products to consumers.

[miniyazz]

Wifi offers the best smart phone experience in general.

The government should define what a quality service should look like, network capacity and quantity of users. Networks that dont have the capacity in place should not be allowed to sell data products to consumers.

No, the faster connection with lower latencies will give the best experience. In most cases that will be Wifi, but certainly not all by a long shot.

How could the government decide what a service should provide? Things that make a quality service will change over time as usage patterns change, and I for one wouldn't want my tax money going towards something as vague as defining a 'quality' service. On the other hand, what should be done is increased transparency of what you get when you sign up to these data products. For example, unlimited =/ as much as you like (one which seems to be resolving), or saying "we're going to limit your 3G speeds to 48kB/s" since you'd be perfectly within your rights to assume that you'd get the same 3G speeds on O2 as on T-mobile, when that doesn't seem to be the case.

More Government regulation is not the way IMO.

[crossy]

So they go by average. They should just limit to 500mb thats more than enough for the 'average' and allow a good amount of flexibility. I probably use 1GB a month on heavy usage, 2 email accounts, web, Android Market, Twitter, Google Maps. I bet with the new iPhone coming out the data usage will go up for the first few months.

You're right on the money there - certainly I've gone for months without using more than a couple of KB/month. Then if I'm holiday I'll be blowing through many, many MB (web browsing for the "what can we do today", traffic updates for the satnav app, etc) and end up paying a lot. In which case what would be fairer for me would be a yearly allowance - backed up with the ability to buy more allowance as a top-up/add-on for a reasonable amount (say £20-£40).

So, if 97% of smartphone users don't go above 500MB, why have allowances for Android users been increased? Since they encompass far more than 3% of smartphone users and must have been routinely passing 500MB for 500MB-1GB caps to be considered insufficient?

I'd say that was a fair assumption. My take on this is that Android, even more than iOS, is an inherently "connected" OS. All those nice web browsing, Web2.0, etc burn bandwith, plus it's doing online updates (I've not got one myself, so I'm relying on others who are telling me that this is switched on by default).
Again, on a personal level, I could probably live with 1GB as a limit, (although 2GB or even 3GB would be far preferable), but the current limits - which are half that - would probably have me having to think about my data "ration", rather than just using the phone as the makers intended.
Like I said before, if my teleco (Three) was to put up the limit then they can count me in as a contract customer, but with the current amount I'll stay with what I've got now.

Bob

[Philipp]

My total usage for my iPhone since the beginning of my contact (13months ago) is 1.8Gb, I check and send emails every day, browse the web and use news apps.

500Mb a month is fine in my book, iv rather 500Mb at current speeds rather than Unlimited at snails pace.

[miniyazz]

Yesterday I did nothing with my internet except receive emails. In total there were 43 emails, mostly if not all text. According to my online bill I apparently used just under 7MB (it hasn't fully updated yet so I expect it to increase to just over 7MB). This is with my phone using Push email for one account and check every 5 minutes for another account, and that was the only internet usage.

I'm reluctant to increase the checking time interval for my emails. Based on that estimate I'm using 210MB each month just on emails - then there's routine web browsing and the occasional use of Google Maps or similar. I'm sure that data usage can be reduced by increasing the email checking interval, but I don't think I should have to these days.