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vodafone

You are currently browsing articles tagged vodafone.

Vodafone, I just don’t trust you

23 February 2010 in Business by Stilgherrian | 13 comments

Yesterday a long-running “difficulty” with Vodafone was finally resolved. Maybe. After more than a year, a refund cheque arrived. But thanks to Vodafone’s continued incompetence I may not be able to deposit that cheque.

The cheque is for the $9.89 credit remaining on my account when I stopped doing business with Vodafone in November 2008. That it took so long to get that money is a story in itself, and it’s told over the jump.

The stupidity, however, is that after all this hassle Vodafone has made out the cheque to “Stilgherrian Pty Ltd”, as if I’m a company.

How does any competent organisation do that? Especially when there was no “Pty Ltd” in my account details? Especially when I specifically requested in writing for the cheque to be made out to “Stilgherrian”?

Fortunately I’m known at my local Westpac bank branch, so maybe they’ll allow me to deposit the cheque. I’ll let you know how I go.

Other people have told me they’ve had trouble getting Vodafone to refund money too, and had to drop the magic words “Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman” before they saw any action. While in my case the figure was less than $10, if Vodafone is consistently failing to pay out credits then it would amount to a significant scam.

Not good enough, Vodafone. If you owe people money, you return it to them. Promptly. Without questions. And if it takes longer than a couple of weeks you apologise for the delay.

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The pleasure and (minor) pain of Telstra Next G

23 April 2009 in Internet by Stilgherrian | 6 comments

Photograph of Telstra Next G cardbus modem in my MacBook Pro, with a pint of Kilkenny nearby

Over the last few months, I’ve been trialling Telstra’s Next G mobile broadband as part of an experimental “technology seeding program”. Despite my initial doubts, I’ve been impressed.

Previously I’d been using Vodafone 3G, tethering my MacBook Pro via Bluetooth to a Nokia N80. It worked just fine. I subsequently moved to a Nokia N96 and Virgin Mobile, which uses the Optus network under the hood. It’s terrible. I made a big mistake.

But that’s a story for another time…

Sure, Next G is the most expensive mobile broadband out there. But it’s also the best. Clearly.

On our road trip, we could use Next G almost all the way from Cowra back through Bathurst to Sydney. Yes, the signal dropped out as we drove through hilly areas, as you’d expect. But the data link automatically reconnected once it found a new cell — with the same IP address!

Seriously. Here I was in a moving car, running a ping and watching YouTube videos. The link dropped out. It reconnected. And when it did, perhaps six minutes later when the terrain sorted itself out, the video started playing from where it left off. Pings resumed with the very next packet number in the sequence — albeit with ping times of over 370 thousand milliseconds.

In another test, the data link kept the same IP address while I caught a train from Newtown across Sydney Harbour to Pymble. In CityRail’s loop under the Sydney CBD, there was no signal in the tunnels, but the link came back up within seconds of arriving at a station.

Somebody did some great network engineering. They deserve a pat on the back.

But what else?

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This week’s A Series of Tubes podcast is up and running. Richard Chirgwin talks with Colin Goodwin from Ericsson Australia about 500Mb/sec DSL, and with me about Senator Conroy’s comments on the iiNet lawsuit, ACMA’s research into social networks behaviour, and the Vodafone-Hutchison merger. A Series of Tubes is part of the IT Radio family of podcasts.

05 April 2009 by Stilgherrian | No comments

Links for 30 March 2009 through 04 April 2009

04 April 2009 in Daily Links by del.icio.us | No comments

Stilgherrian’s links for 30 March 2009 through 04 April 2009, gathered with the assistance of pumpkins and bees:

  • The Australian Sex Party: “The Australian Sex Party is a political response to the sexual needs of Australia in the 21st century. It is an attempt to restore the balance between sexual privacy and sexual publicity that has been severely distorted by morals campaigners and prudish politicians.”
  • Measuring the Information Society: The ICT Development Index 2009: Australia is ranked #14 based on figures from 2007. In 2003 it was at #13.
  • Ho Hum, Sweden Passes new anti File Sharing Legislation | Perceptric Forum: Tom Koltai’s analysis of that new Swedish law: It’ll make no difference long term.
  • As Sweden’s Internet anonymity fades, traffic plunges | Ars Technica: A new Swedish law that went into effect 1 April makes it possible for copyright holders to go to court and unmask a user based on an IP address. Sweden’s Internet traffic dropped 40% overnight.
  • Study: online sexual predators not like popular perception | Ars Technica: This survey rejects the idea that the Internet is an especially perilous place for minors, and finds that while the nature of online sex crimes against minors changed little between 2000 and 2006, the profile of the offenders has been shifting — and both differ markedly from the popular conception.
  • What Is Fail Whale?: The complete history of the Twitter’s error-bringing Fail Whale, along with all the art and craft it’s inspired to date.
  • Voda/Hutch merger rattles ACCC | ZDNet Australia: Australia’s competition watchdog tonight issued a strongly worded statement of concern that the proposed merger of mobile carriers Hutchison and Vodafone could lead to increased retail prices on mobile telephony and broadband services.
  • All the news that’s fit to tweet | guardian.co.uk: The Guardian has also announced a new 140-character commenting system. “You’ll never again need to wade through paragraphs of extended argument, looking for the point, or suffer the unbearable tedium of having to read multiple protracted, well-grounded perspectives on the blogs you love.”
  • Share This Lecture! | Viddler.com: Mark Pesce’s annual lecture for “Cyberworlds” class, Sydney University, 31 March 2009. About the significance of sharing across three domains: sharing media, sharing knowledge, and how these two inevitably lead to the sharing of power.
  • Twitter switch for Guardian, after 188 years of ink | The Guardian: One of the better April Fools’ Day pieces. I particularly like the extracts from the Twitterised news archive. 1927: “OMG first successful transatlantic air flight wow, pretty cool! Boring day otherwise *sigh*”
  • Flappers, wine, cocaine and revels (Pt II) | The Vapour Trail: A few hours after five Melbourne girls were arrested for vagrancy in late March 1928, the headline of Melbourne’s Truth broadcast their misdeeds: “White Girls with Negro Lovers. Flappers, Wine, Cocaine and Revels. Raid Discloses Wild Scene of Abandon”.
  • A Blacklist for Websites Backfires in Australia | TIME: Time’s take on the leak of the Australian Internet censorship blacklist portrays it as a joke and a scandal. There are some factual errors in the story, but this looks like how it’ll end up being perceived internationally.

Yes, episode 8 of Stilgherrian Live Alpha will be recorded tonight at 9.30pm Sydney time. See you then.

07 August 2008 by Stilgherrian | 3 comments

I’ve been too busy during business hours to phone Vodafone about their surprise bill. That’ll have to happen on Monday now, unless today goes remarkably well. However there’s plenty of discussion in the comments, including links to new iPhone plans from Virgin Mobile, Telstra and the 3 Network.

01 August 2008 by Stilgherrian | Permalink

Vodafone, are you completely brain-dead?

30 July 2008 in Business, Internet by Stilgherrian | 16 comments

Vodafone Logo

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.

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There was plenty of discussion on Twitter last night about Vodafone’s iPhone plans. Yesterday we thought that data outside the “included” amount was still billed within the cap. But then people started reading Vodafone’s confusing and legalistic Terms & Conditions and got confused. I contend that failing to clearly state the price of your services is in breach of the Trade Practices Act — and if a dozen smart people can’t answer the simple question, “What will I be charged for 5GB of data?” then the T&Cs are misleading, I say. Stay tuned.

12 July 2008 by Stilgherrian | 12 comments

Is Vodafone Australia so stupid that they didn’t promote the most attractive part of their iPhone plans? Mark Pesce went a-hunting today and found that on the business plans, yes, the “included data” is a small 250MB or 500MB or whatever — but data usage after that point is billed at 12c/megabyte inside the monthly cap. He Twittered this news [1, 2, 3, 4] earlier today, but you should check the Terms & Conditions yourself before signing up. [Update: You should definitely read the follow-up post before proceeding.]

11 July 2008 by Stilgherrian | 2 comments

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

11 July 2008 in Internet by Stilgherrian | 6 comments

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.

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