Vehicle tracker on Prepay

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astrae

259 posts

Ultimate Geek

#115895 10-Apr-2013 21:07

Hi

I've had a vehicle tracker on Vodafone prepay for 5yrs.

The unit uses 99% data with the occasional text.

The average spend a month over the 5yrs is $2.60 month. The unit costs about $0.465 per 100km. So is cheap

In the past month my usage has gone to $1-$2 a day so excess of $30 month!

Vodafone must have changed their casual data rates.

Viewing my data usage it doesn't make a lot of sense.

$2 for 0.03mb but $0.86 for 0.17mb. How does that work??

The plan the sim is on at the moment is Motormouth. This is obviously an old plan but I've had no need to change it. All the current plans suit smartphone usage and nothing I can find suits such a small amount of data.

I don't know if I can swap to another provider due to APN setups.

Any suggestions?

johnr

19282 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#797418 10-Apr-2013 21:13

Prepay Smart would be a better choice if the unit is sending SMS as this would be 12 cents a SMS and not 20 cents

Mobile data is $1 on the days you use up to 10MB and then $1 per MB after that but it's the $2 charging I would like to look into further

Can you DM me the Prepay mobile number please so I can look into this further please

John

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astrae

259 posts

Ultimate Geek

#797422 10-Apr-2013 21:20

Thanks John pm sent

May only be 1-2 texts a month from the unit. You text it and it will text back an address. I rarely use this as I can view The current location and usage on the net.

johnr

19282 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#797427 10-Apr-2013 21:25

1 to 2 SMS a month is either 8 or 16 cents savings then add that over 12 months you will be rich :P

richms

26392 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#797441 10-Apr-2013 21:42

You should be able to change the APNs by texting it with your password and the APN with some commands from the manual.

Past testing on the only other GSM network by a friend who has a few of these has shown that other network to not be as good as the vodafone one at actually working since the other network will roam you over to vodafone and the GSM trackers seem to not like that and not like to come back to the other network when you return to civilization.

I dont have any GPRS units at the moment, just a cheap nasty SMS only one, but I have a couple on the slow boat from china to have a play with. So cheap now eh.

Richard rich.ms

astrae

259 posts

Ultimate Geek

#797815 11-Apr-2013 15:11

richms: You should be able to change the APNs by texting it with your password and the APN with some commands from the manual.

Past testing on the only other GSM network by a friend who has a few of these has shown that other network to not be as good as the vodafone one at actually working since the other network will roam you over to vodafone and the GSM trackers seem to not like that and not like to come back to the other network when you return to civilization.

I dont have any GPRS units at the moment, just a cheap nasty SMS only one, but I have a couple on the slow boat from china to have a play with. So cheap now eh.

I don't have any details of codes like this. The unit isn't an import.

It is supplied by a NZ company. When purchased they offered prepay. Pretty soon after I purchased they moved to a $20 monthly fee + 22cents per text using one of their own sims. This will be on a business/corp account with shared data I presume.

I've been lucky enough to stay on prepay with the purchase of the unit and sim topups as the only cost.

I doubt I'd get much support if I contacted them regarding changing cell providers.

Talkiet

4689 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#797823 11-Apr-2013 15:27

I run a vehicle tracker as well and happen to use a VF SIM (The trackers I use are cheap and don't support our lovely advanced network so need to use the decrepit old VF network - GRIN!)... I use it only in SMS mode, NOT data... I worked out given the minimum session charges for data it would be in the order of $30/month, even though the ACTUAL amount of PAYLOAD data used would be tiny (buck or two)...

Unfortunately it's just the way mobile data billing works (and no, I don't think 2D or XT were much different)

There don't appear to be any ultra cheap telemetry type plans available that would be suitable for vehicle trackers.

And before people whinge and complain about this, there are valid reasons to do with the amount of signalling required and how the billing system can possibly sensibly work. Turns out providing an essentially persistent data connection over a mobile network for a month might cost more than a couple of bucks :-)

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are the product of my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

jonb

1739 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#797831 11-Apr-2013 15:51

I'm a light user of mobile data on 2 degrees prepay, and it's 50c a MB with no minimum flat fee. This might be a better option for you?

astrae

259 posts

Ultimate Geek

#797834 11-Apr-2013 15:53

jonb: I'm a light user of mobile data on 2 degrees prepay, and it's 50c a MB with no minimum flat fee. This might be a better option for you?

I think I'm going to turn off permanent tracking and go SMS only. If i'm out of town and parking anywhere dodgy I may just activate it for the time I'm away.

richms

26392 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#797835 11-Apr-2013 15:53

Except that IME these devices just drop the connection when roaming to the other network and dont come back with great regularity taking an SMS with the APN settings to kick them back into life again

Richard rich.ms

Talkiet

4689 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#797839 11-Apr-2013 15:59

jonb: I'm a light user of mobile data on 2 degrees prepay, and it's 50c a MB with no minimum flat fee. This might be a better option for you?

Someone would need to investigate how much a user would get charged if they were to use perhaps 2KiloBytes per hour... I don't believe it would be 1/500 of 50c.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are the product of my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.