Posts by Nigel Jones 16 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Jun 2007
WRONG! Three *DO* offer unlimited data in the UK. The 25GB affects "free roaming" abroad only... and even then you have to exceed it repeatedly.
"If you use more than these amounts in any 2 months within a 12-month period, it could affect your roaming services and prevent you from using international roaming in the future. We’d tell you about this first"
I contacted my local borough council in Jan this year after hearing this data existed, and the council planning dept replied to me in less than 24 hours with the spreadsheet -- lucky find.
So I can confirm Test Valley borough council (hampshire) have had a request & do keep the data!
It's a shame though the info is limited - I wonder what the legitimacy (for example) of importing the data into OpenStreetMap might be. That has a lot of details on power lines (voltages etc, # cores) but not seen much evidence of mobile basestation data.
The info also is more related to new rollout than existing sites (from a quick look)
Quick to criticise what happens -- and sure there will be questions around procedures etc, but fundamentally this is driven by all major economies insatiable lust for oil, which also is a major cause of trouble throughout the world.
How about more time discussing how to tackle a move to alternative energy sources & reducing of consumption.
Today it happened to BP. tomorrow it could be SHell. Drilling for oil in deep water is risky.
Quick to criticise, not quick to suggest proper long term solutions.
And as usual much of the general press is jumping on the spill itself - yes this needs to be reported on, but let's bring the other issues to the table too rather than just "create news" to stiumulate viewing/reading figures.
As far as BP's actions in terms of getting engaged with social networking, making use of google adwords, youtube etc, I actually think it's a good thing -- far more clear simple (and technical) communication rather than highly polished PR, and actually trying to re-engage with the population. After a initial pause they're right into it now, and I've been impressed with the content.
Bad news I think for end users -- I've been on a number of cruises -- each time the ships had an onboard GSM cell, but rates are huge.
As such the hour or so when close to shore makes for an ideal time to make calls/send textx etc at slightly more reasonable roaming rates easily. Now with the local signal being so strong users will have to be very very careful not to get hit by a big bill.
Not a step forward IMO
Just on the "good luck with coverage comment" -- if you're a long running customer on 3 you can currently roam on
- 3 3G
- orange 2G/edge
- O2 2G
That's actually pretty good! T mobile would obviously add the extra 5 transmitters they have. (and vodafone always seem great) -- mind you 3 have a data sharing agreement with T-mobile coming up so what does that mean - data works on any or 3/tmobile/orange/o2. That would be cool!
I've got no intent to get an iPhone - the Nokia NSeries devices are far in the lead for me & my usage.
However
- It's good to have competition - stimulates innovation
- It's upping the idea of mobileweb to the masses (although in the UK I think 3Uk have done a good job of this too)
- The large sums paid to the operators by those not worried about cost help to keep good deals out there for those that are a bit ahem prudent. (just got a N95 8Gb with mins/textx/1Gb data at 10 pcmx 18 months + 30). Compare that!
Personally I'd like to see some flat-rate offerings and/or operators allowing user-defined caps. The biggest issue with data roaming today is the risk factor - so easy to spend a fortune.
Something like 20 UKP / 1 Gb / 1 month would prob do me ;-). Actually even 50,100,300 Mb would prob be ok.
(In Uk thanks to 3UK I of course get up to 2Gb for 5 UKP pcm...)
Forgetting the rip off rates sometimes applying to mobile data, IMO the network were irresponsible in not detecting this as an abnormal pattern and suspending/investigating earlier. That should happen at speeds comnesurate with the rate of charging ... and the owner should be warned by text etc.
very irresponsible vodafone = you need to build controls/detection in. Also allow setting of credit limits and user controled caps on data.
I don't get how apple talks about this being a first since Symbian S60 phones such as N80 have been able to do this for at least the last year. I guess anything above a regular phone call is probably a world first. SMS text - not heard of that?
Screen res & size is important - the N80 has > 400x300 screen (but a bit small). The N95 is lower res, but bigger.
I've tried the new opera and actually think in many ways it's even better - probably due to the server optimization.
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