Mobiles2day - Mobile Industry News

T-Mobile is now offering bundles for international calls for new and existing Flext customers. This announcement follows popular Eastern European Pass for Prepay customers, which I blogged about here. If you call overseas regularly, check them out, you have few options available:

International Pass
There are three options to choose from with the International Pass, each providing a bundle of minutes to a different region of the world:

• USA & Canada - £5 per month for 125 minutes (4p per minute to mobiles and landlines)
• European & Australasia Pass - £5 per month for 50 minutes (10p per minute to mobiles and landlines)
• Caribbean Pass - £7.50 per month for 50 minutes (15p per minute to mobiles and landlines)

International Open Pass
These offers give flat rate pricing to International mobiles and landlines to a selection of countries (see list below). There are two options:

• International Open Pass Light - for £2.50 per month, international calls to both mobiles and landlines cost 20p per minute

• International Open Pass Max - for £5.00 per month, international calls to landlines cost just 4p per minute and calls to mobiles only 15p per minute.

List of countries that you are eligible to call with International Open Pass:

Australia
Austria
Bangladesh
Bulgaria
Canada
China
Croatia
Czech Republic
Estonia
France
Germany
Hong Kong
Hungary
India
Indonesia
Italy
Israel
Jamaica
Japan
Korea
Latvia
Lithuania
Malaysia
Netherlands
New Zealand
Pakistan
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Singapore
Slovak Rep
Slovenia
South Africa
Spain
Sri Lanka
Taiwan
Thailand
Trinidad & Tobago
USA
Ireland,
Ghana
Turkey

Please note that calls to premium rate numbers and other non-geographic numbers aren’t included.

If you’re a Max customer, there is a minimum call charge of 15p (to mobiles) and 4p (to landlines and for all calls to the USA and Canada). If you’re a Light customer, there is a minimum call charge of 20p.

You can opt in by calling to Customer Services on 150 from your T-Mobile handset. Terms and Conditions on T-Mobile’s website state that you can opt in by texting shortcode of chosen bundle to 879, but I could’t find shortcodes anywhere on the site.

T-Mobile is revamping it’s U-Fix tariffs. On 3rd March T-Mobile has announced few changes to U-Fix tariffs which will benefit all existing customers and may attract new ones.

If you are on T-Mobile’s U-Fix tariff and ran out of credit, you may now send free text to your parents or friends asking them to call you back! I think this is a nice feature, U-Fix is popular tariff with parents who have given mobile phone to their children and want to control their bills. By using this, children will never be out of touch with parents or you will always be able to contact your friends or girlfriend/boyfriend!

“Call Me Back” free texts are limited to 5 a month, so use it when you really need it! Service is available to all existing and new U-Fix customers.

New U-Fix35 now gives you unlimited calls and texts to other T-Mobile numbers all for £35 a month!

Great updates from T-mobile and more value for customers, check these tariffs here.

Today O2 have introduced new £15 tariff. You can choose unlimited O2 to O2 calls or unlimited texts. It is only available as 18 months contract and with limited selection of phones:

Nokia 6300

Samsung D900i

Samsung D900i Pink

Sony Ericsson K800i

O2 Cocoon

Not a great selection but I think this tariff is ideal for students or people on tight budget. You won’t find many tariffs as low as this one which also gives you a free phone. You can get unlimited texts option and always stay in touch with your friends. Also if you buy online now, O2 delivers it to you for free!

Check new tariffs here

O2 is changing it’s iPhone tariffs effective from 1st February 2008. Now new and existing customers on certain tariffs will get at least double allowance for the same money! Table below shows comparison of old and new allowances:

As we can see existing customers on £35 per month now get 3 times more inclusive minutes and 2.5 times texts! Customers on £45 now get double of inclusive minutes, £55 tariff is now discontinued and all existing customers on this tariff will be moved to £45. There is 1 new tariff introduced: £75, which gives 3000 minutes and 500 texts inclusive.

O2 informs on their website that existing customers will be upgraded to new tariffs latest by mid March 2008. Customers do not need to do anything, O2 will send sms informing them about changes.

All tariffs come with unlimited (subject to O2 excessive usage policy, check here for details) data and Wi-Fi usage, visual voicemail and reduced roaming rates. Same as before, minimum contract length is 18 months.

If you are new customer, you still have to pay £269 for the handset. Considering that new customers have to pay so much for this ‘Jesus phone’, it is a good move by O2, their tariffs are now more competitive comparing to other mobile operators. In effect O2 is rewarding existing customers and makes iPhone tariffs more attractive to new ones.

What competitors offer for similar monthly payments? Let’s have a look at O2’s basic £35 tariff and compare it to other operators. T-Mobile’s Flext 35 + Web’n'Walk (18 months) gives you up to 900 minutes or 1800 texts and unlimited browsing for £37.5 per month. Vodafone for £35 per month on 18 months contract gives you 500 minutes and 500 texts. As you can see O2’s new iPhone tariffs are a big improvement. The only problem is that other operators give you range of mobile phones for free on these tariffs and some of them are as good as iPhone.

I would say that £269 for iPhone is pretty high and you are tied for next 18 months. O2 and Apple have to cut the price of iPhone like Apple did in US. I am sure many more customers will be joining O2 then.

What do you think?

Nowadays every operator is offering mobile broadband packages. If you thinking about getting one, I have compiled data from all operators for you to have an overview and comparison. You can see what different options available and decide which one suits you best.

Vodafone

Vodafone offers range of devices for mobile broadband: USB Modem, USB Modem 7.2, USB Modem Stick and ExpressCard. See table below for quick overview.

Device	Device Cost(12months/18months)	Cost Per Month	Speed	Comments
USB Modem	£99	£30	up to 3.6Mbps	No long term commitments, you can cancel anytime with 30 day notice. Plug and play on desktops or laptops and Macs.
USB 7.2	£57.58/FREE	£30	up to 7.2Mbps	Speeds of up to 7.2Mbps. Plug and play on desktops or laptops and Macs.
USB Stick	£116.33/£57.58	£30	up to 7.2Mbps	Small, slim and fast, only on Vodafone
ExpressCard	£57.58/FREE	£30	up to 7.2Mbps	Advanced receiver, ideal for laptops, adaptor for PC card slots supplied

USB Modem 7.2, USB Modem Stick and ExpressCard can also be purchased on Mobile Broadband 24, any of the listed devices will cost £199.75 and 24 hour access will cost you £9.99. This is ideal for occasional users who do not go online everyday.

Also you can purchase Mobile Broadband Travel price plan, which will cost you £111.63 per month but gives you 200MB per month included on any network abroad and £4.99 per MB after that. This is ideal for people who travel abroad regularly and have to be connected all the time.

All broadband tariffs are subject to fair usage policy, 3GB download limit applies to monthly plan, 500MB limit to 24 hour access. If you do not use your monthly or daily allowance, it is not rolled over to next month/day. So you either use it or loose it.

Vodafone’s terms and conditions say that if your usage is continually excessive, Vodafone will warn you and charge you, may limit the speed of your service or ultimately terminate contract.

3

3 offers only USB modem with it’s broadband packages but have bigger range of price plans. See table below for available options.

All of the above packages are available as Pay As You Go options with same allowances and cost but you will have to pay £99.99 for USB modem (available in various colours), you will have 1 month to finish allowance and every 1MB over allowance will be charged at £1.00.

Available colors:

T-Mobile

T-Mobile gives you a choice between USB Modem or Data Card. See table below for price plan options for USB modem:

Data card options:

T-Mobile also gives you access to Wi-Fi hotspots for free if you are new customer. This can be handy if you like to surf web while sipping coffee in Starbucks or travel often and need access at airport.
Prepay option also available, you will have to buy USB Modem for £99.99 and 24 hour access will cost you £4. It makes sense to buy a contract if you will be connecting more than 5 times a month.

So how do they compare?
If you travel abroad a lot and you need constant access to internet, Vodafone is best option. Other carriers do not give you bundles with international allowance, but at the same time Vodafone is the most expensive. Vodafone also claims that speeds can be up to 7.2Mbps, which is the fastest but I am not sure what speeds you actually get when using it.

If we compare 12 months contract with 3GB allowance and USB Modem, 3 comes cheapest at £20.83 per month (including £69.99 for modem), followed by T-Mobile at £29 (you get free Wi-Fi connection) and then Vodafone at £38.25 (including £99 for modem). Good thing with Vodafone’s package is that you can cancel contract with 30 day notice, so no long-term commitments!

Comparing to basic BT broadband package, you will have to pay £11 phone line rental and £17.99 per month for 5GB package. In total you pay £28.99 per month, you get speeds of up to 8Mbps but you are not mobile. So as we can see, there are now mobile packages which are even cheaper than this and you have advantage of taking it with you whereever you go!

I personally tried T-Mobile’s USB Modem as well as Datacard. USB Modem is much more easier to install and use, it is really plug and play as they say. Datacard is compact and can sit inside your laptop, but there are problems if you remove it and then insert again. Drivers may need to be re-installed and your datacard will not be recognized. I would say USB Modem is much morefriendlier option and gives you flexibility to use it with laptop or PC. I found that daytime there could be times that you may not get decent connection speeds, eventhough you have full 3G reception signal. Night time connection is pretty reliable and you get decent speeds as well.

So decision is yours, it all depends on your choice of what you need and what you going to use it for!

If you have any comments or experience with mobile broadband, leave a comment!