Update: Data Roaming still a rip off.

Paul O’Flaherty writes: I was looking up the charges for WiFi access in Dublin Airport and realized that it was a complete rip-off at 3 euro ($3.78) for 30 minutes. … It turns out that 3 will give me 2 Gigs of data for 10 euro, which is very agreeable to me considering the airport … Continue reading “Update: Data Roaming still a rip off.”

Paul O’Flaherty writes:

I was looking up the charges for WiFi access in Dublin Airport and realized that it was a complete rip-off at 3 euro ($3.78) for 30 minutes.

It turns out that 3 will give me 2 Gigs of data for 10 euro, which is very agreeable to me considering the airport rates, but, if I decide to turn in on in the U.S. it will cost me 5 euro for 1 (one) MB of data.

Yes, I know there is a connection fee involved with roaming and all the carriers want to get their cut, but seriously – 1000 times more expensive?

With an upcoming week long trip to the US and a two week cruise around Europe, I tried the “recommended solution” for data roamers, MaxRoam, and found them to be €3.90 per megabyte for a “Global SIM” and €5.90 per megabyte for an “iPad SIM”.

For the european leg of my travels, I had thought a Vodafone SIM will do the trick as they charged £4.99 for 25 MB in Europe. But as is typical with carriers, they’ve fucked it up by increasing the charge by a factor of 4.

You can use up to 25MB a day (midnight to midnight UK time) for just £4.99 in Europe – and for £14.99 elsewhere in the world. 25MB is approximately 500 mobile friendly web pages.

From 15th June our new data roaming pricing will come into effect:
Europe: £1 per MB for the first 5MB and £5 for every subsequent 5MB
Rest of the world: £3 per MB for the first 5MB and £15 for every subsequent 5MB

It used to be that a fiver would buy me 25 MB, but now it’s £6 for 10 MB (and costs £21 for 25MB)

For Fuck Sake. In this case, new != better. That’s a pain in the butt but it’s still better than any other carrier. With O2, that £6 would buy me 1 MB of data in the US.

Carrier Canute

MacRumors writes: T-Mobile in Germany, however, threatened that it may take action to prevent its customers from using Skype on the iPhone. On the flip side, an open-Internet advocacy group is asking the FCC to see if AT&T and Apple are violating federal rules by restricting Skype to just Wi-Fi. This is serious. On one … Continue reading “Carrier Canute”

MacRumors writes:

T-Mobile in Germany, however, threatened that it may take action to prevent its customers from using Skype on the iPhone. On the flip side, an open-Internet advocacy group is asking the FCC to see if AT&T and Apple are violating federal rules by restricting Skype to just Wi-Fi.

This is serious.

On one hand we have carriers moaning that they don’t want to be relegated to being a dumb pipe and on the other hand they’re screaming and shouting and pulling their hair out trying to stop the future.

It’s that obvious. They’re trying to stop the future.

The future is data. It’s web, it’s email, it’s RSS, it’s Twitter and it’s Voice over IP. While the carriers hang desperately onto their precious voice minutes, limited texts and capped data plans and try to block voice data (like Skype) and SMS rebroadcasts (like Twitter) but the writing is on the wall.

Carriers need to look out. The Future called. We’re coming for you.