Vodafone $1 a day mobile data plan
I only had to wait one hour, and here it is, a discussion about Vodafone's new $1 a day mobile data plan, including comments by Vodafone's man on Geekzone, Paul Brislen.
From July 28, customers will be able to surf the net, download music and games and play on their favourite sites without committing to a fixed monthly data contract.
The $1 a day casual rate gives customers up to 10MB of data – more than enough for most casual users on their mobile devices. Customers who go over that limit will be charged at $1 per megabyte and users who regularly need more can take advantage of our suite of data plans.
The new pricing is simple and affordable, and now applies to almost all internet data, including the Vodafone Live! portal. Sky Mobile TV and Vodafone Compass will continue to be free of data usage costs.
This mean the walled garden may become a thing of the past. It also means more people will be able to realise what mobile data can do for them - Trade Me is the largest web site in New Zealand, generating at some point about 60% of the national data traffic.
Telecom is already doing something in this area, with their "unlimited" mobile data for e-mail, but it is only for a specific phone model, but Vodafone is going a step ahead.
Anyway, a good step in bringing down data costs for the rest of us.
Other related posts:
Some New Zealand companies don't like user feedback
What is wrong with TiVo in New Zealand?
What mobile device to get?
Comment by grayskull, on 23-JUN-2008 09:32
I agree - a step in the right direction but what about a decent monthly flat rate? I pay nearly $40/month for just 200 MB of data, what a joke! (ok, my work pays for it, but still!)
I was paying GBP 3.50/month in the UK for unlimited data.
I guess its all hand in hand with our crap home internet as well!
hmmmm, one day? we can only but hope.
Comment by grayskull, on 23-JUN-2008 09:39
speaking of mobile websites such as trademe, is there a mobile version of geekzone?
what would be fantastic is if email notification of private messages had 2 links - one for viewing on a computer, and another for going straight to the PM on the mobile version of the site (without having to first go to your profile, then click through to the message).
ditto for new posts on watched threads.
Comment by hutchwilco, on 23-JUN-2008 12:22
So the new rate is 10c/MB, and they say it's pay for what you use up to $1 (ie, it's not $1 for up to 10MB). So then what is their charging unit? 1MB? 100K? 10K? 1K? any ideas?
alsonotice the bottom of their announcement says " VOIP use is prohibited"...
It makes me wonder how they justified the previous $11/MB... perhaps now they have a way to detect and stop VOIP on the network so they're not afraid to lower data to a decent rate..
Add a comment
Please note: comments that are inappropriate or promotional in nature will be deleted.
E-mail addresses are not displayed, but you must enter a valid e-mail address to confirm your comments.
Are you a registered Geekzone user? Login to have the fields below automatically filled in for you and to enable links in comments.
If you have (or qualify to have) a Geekzone Blog then your comment will be automatically confirmed and shown in this blog post.
Comment by Foo, on 20-JUN-2008 10:28
This is definitely a step in the right direction. Being on prepay I am reluctant to browse the web with the pay as you go data cost being a disgusting $10 a meg :-( Nice that Vodafone are offering a few free sites until the end of July and no doubt this will flow through to more people using mobile data once they bring in the $1 for 10 meg plan. Time to read the forum posts and see what others think.