Stilgherrian » optus

Vodafone, are you completely brain-dead?

Stilgherrian — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:49:48 +0000

I’ve previously called Vodafone “brain-dead” because they don’t redirect the misspelt version of their web address and couldn’t respond intelligently when I told them about it. But now… [sigh]

A fortnight ago there was confusion over Vodafone’s plans for the iPhone. Were data charges included in the cap or not? Vodafone’s “explanation” seemed to contradict their published terms a conditions.

Even though all their previous plans allowed data to be included within the cap, billed at $1 per 5 minutes of connection, Vodafone reckons that for the iPhone it’s billed separately. Can anyone give a rational explanation for why the data should be more expensive if the device happens to be an iPhone?

Other than price-gouging, that is.

After all, if your mobile device is a laptop they’ll sell you 5GB/month for $39! Given that Telstra and Optus had already announced their pricing, Vodafone could have scooped them both with a better package, rather than looking like a greedy also-ran.

So with this background, I was…erm… thrilled to receive my phone bill this month.

Here’s a picture.

Yes, instead of the usual $79, a busy month saw me go over cap. I’m up for $476.91.

I reckon Vodafone should have given me a warning.

I do realise that I signed up for the deal and I’m supposed to know what I’m spending. I do realise that telcos make Big Fat Profits from mistakes like mine. It’s in their short-term interest not to warn me. But I reckon it’s customer service FAIL. Particularly as I’m not on a contract and I can switch carriers tomorrow.

Vodafone could have made this a customer service win. Noting that my data usage was climbing, noting that I’m a business customer who’s not on contract, they could have called. “Hi, you’re going over cap. Would you like to upgrade now? It’ll save you money, and if you sign a contract we’ll throw in a new phone.”

As it stands, though, I’m unhappy. I used what felt like “a bit more than usual” but have a bill six times more.

I’ll be calling Vodafone tomorrow. Let’s see if they can make me happy again.

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So let’s just start our own telco, eh?

Stilgherrian — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 01:55:21 +0000

While my piece about iPhone data plans brings you the disturbing imagery of Telstra’s Sol Trijillo bending over for Steve Jobs, Mark Pesce’s iPhail is blunt about telcos’ data plans and offers another possibility — creating our own data-friendly telco.

Mark reckons all three carriers offering iPhone have completely failed to recognise the pent-up demand for the device, and the way it will change network usage.

A typical example is Optus’ plan (general consensus holds that Optus has the most generous plans of the three carriers), which provides a maximum of 1GB of internet usage per month — for a hefty $179.

Let’s run some numbers here. The front page of the Sydney Morning Herald clocks in at just about a half a megabyte. That’s fat, but also fairly typical. The widespread deployment of broadband has lead to a proliferation of media-rich pages. Now, if I hit the SMH page (or a similar site) sixty times a day, I’d reach my 1GB cap. Add in any Google Maps activity, or push email, or what have you, and the figure could easily double. Now, instead of $179/month, I’d have that bill plus potentially hundreds of dollars in data charges.

On the other hand, if I wanted to buy 3G mobile data service for my MacBook Pro from Optus, they’d give me a cute little USB dongle with the Hauwei 3G/HSDPA modem and SIM card, plus 5GB of data — and it would cost me only $39.99 a month.

Have I missed something here? After all, data is data. The network usage for the dongle is completely indistinguishable, as far as the network is concerned, from the iPhone 3G.

Mark’s conclusion is that there’s an “iPhone tax”.

Not only are we asked to pay a premium to purchase iPhone 3G, we will also be paying a premium to receive every bit of data on iPhone 3G.

The solution, he says, is to start our own MVNO, or Mobile Virtual Network Operator.

It’s not as hard as you might think,…

If we put the word out through our various social networks (both human and electronic), I’m sure that in practically no time at all we’d have 10,000 or more subscribers ready to sign up for an MVNO. I don’t know how many subscribers we’d need to get to a break-even point, but I doubt it can be many more than that. Given the amazing facility of many members of the community for setting up and running online services that scale to handle many users, I suspect that much of the infrastructure for this MVNO can be created by the community, for the community, at very low cost. The power of social networks — as has been endlessly pointed out by Clay Shirky — is that it allows large numbers of individuals to self-organize quickly and effectively.

I’ve heard people complain about the mobile carriers since before I moved to Australia. I suggest that it’s time to put up or shut up. Passive resistance is no longer enough. It is time to show the carriers that we can do this ourselves. We can service ourselves and our needs. We will do this because doing anything else is abhorrent.

We could name our MVNO the Future AUstralian Carrier, or FAUC.

Don’t like your plan from Telstra, or Vodafone, or Optus? Well, get FAUC.

As I write this, the Facebook group FAUC (Future AUstrailian Carrier) Interest Group [sic] already has 127 members…

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Aussie telcos bend over for the iPhone

Stilgherrian — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 05:59:17 +0000

Australia’s mobile phone carriers may not completely grok Apple’s new iPhone 3G, but they know it’ll bring them customers — because they’re all scrambling to be Steve Jobs’ iPhone bitches. It’s an embarrassing spectacle.

Three carriers have announced packages available from tomorrow: Telstra, Optus and Vodafone. (Presumably 3, who’ve been asking their customers to beg for iPhones, haven’t bent over far enough.) There’s a comparison over at news.com.au.

According to my sources, all three Aussie telcos have bent over even further than US carrier AT&T. Apple already demands a bigger subsidy from carriers than other smartphone manufacturers. In the US, for example, AT&T pays Apple US$325 per unit compared with the usual $200 or so. However two individuals working within Telstra confirm that all three telcos offering iPhone here are also paying Apple an ongoing percentage of revenue. AT&T has escaped that revenue-sharing deal, but not the Aussies — and that’s presumably reflected in the somewhat disappointing plans on offer.

All three Australian carriers have missed the key point. Yes, iPhone can make phone calls. But its true role is a pocket-sized internet-connected computer.

In May, by my count 80% of the audience at Australia’s Mobile Content World conference were so out of touch they’d never even seen an iPhone screen. “They were deer in the iPhone’s headlights,” wrote entrepreneur Rand Leeb-du Toit. “The full browser experience is going to shake their businesses to their foundations.”

Overseas, data from the first year of iPhone users bears this out. They conduct 50 times more Google searches than other phone users. In Germany, they consume 30 times more data.

Australian iPhone plans are all skewed towards cheap voice calls and expensive data.

As John Allsop’s analysis points out, on Telstra’s data packages just looking at the smh.com.au home page would cost you $8!

When Vodafone release its pricing yesterday morning, comments on Twitter were scathing. “Vodafone gives you 5GB on modem. but all telcos have weighted plans for calls, not data. Wrong wrong wrong,” said one. “Nice to see Vodafone continuing the theme of gouging iPhone customers,” said another. And: “Boo Vodafone Australia iPhone plans, Optus here I come!”

Without a doubt, Apple’s new iPhone 3G is sexy. It will be a huge hit. But it does have flaws.

Just one of the Top 10 reasons to hate the iPhone 3G is the sealed-in battery. A year from now, when you no longer get a full day’s usage from one charge, your choice is $100-odd for Apple to replace the battery or $199 for the new model. Like the iPod, consumer replacement cycles get ever shorter, and the mountain of toxic used electronics grows — just like Apple’s profits.

[Note: This article is based on material I wrote for Crikey yesterday and today.]

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Links for 05 July 2008 through 08 July 2008

del.icio.us — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 05:58:57 +0000

Stilgherrian’s links for 05 July 2008 through 08 July 2008, gathered with string and glue:

The State of the Web - Summer 2008: A million people mentioned this fine commentary on the current state of the web. Nice work.
Future of Media Summit 2008 | Future Exploration Network: The third annual Future of Media Summit will be held simultaneously in Silicon Valley on 14 July and Sydney on 15 July. Why was I not told about this? OK, time to scam…
TuneRanger | Acertant: A tool to synchronise, copy or merge multiple iTunes libraries and iPods over the network. Available for both OS X and Windows. US$29, with 30-day free trial.
Mercury Messenger: Client software for MSN Messenger written in Java and runnable on OS X, Windows and Linux. Allows you to use the Mac's built-in iSight camera for video chats, unlike Microsoft's own software.
Scrivener | Literature and Latte: Word processors are for processing words. Like processed cheese. If you CREATE words, then you need a writing tool. Scrivener is just that, for OS X only.
iPhone in Australia - now for the bad news | Web Directions: A comprehensive analysis of the available data plans to support iPhone in Australia. Recommends NOT getting an iPhone yet to force carriers to lift their game.

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Optus vs Telstra: positive vs negative

Stilgherrian — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 06:36:51 +0000

There’ll be free wireless Internet access throughout the Sydney CBD by early 2008, says the NSW government — and the reactions from leading telcos Optus and Telstra were chalk and cheese.

Optus: “Optus congratulates the NSW Government on its innovative plans… Optus looks forward to seeing more details of the plans and to participating in the expression of interest process.”

Telstra: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch anymore so it will be interesting to see how it is proposed to be paid for.”

I don’t understand why it’ll take so long to set up a few Wi-Fi access points though.