How much is enough?
With the arrival of the iPad, which is probably most useful for accessing rich media content online, has caused many end-users to have a think about what, precisely, their mobile broadband requirements might be. At the same time, mobile operators are calculating how best to profit from this data use while remaining competitive.
Last week Vodafone commented on the thread on its own forums asking if 500 MB per month was sufficient mobile data allowance for a smartphone. The question arose of what constituted ‘fair usage', which currently applies to this tariff and eventually Tom from the Vodafone eForum team replied with the news that Vodafone was changing the Ts and Cs of its tariff such that users would now be charged if they went over the 500 MB limit.
This 500 MB tariff is a £5 per month addition to your existing deal with a cap of 500 MB. Until now it seems Vodafone had been pretty tolerant of people going over that limit, as long as it didn't get silly, but now it wants to introduce a formal system of charging as soon as people go over. Here are the important bits from the eForum post:
We are planning to introduce Out Of Bundle charging for Pay Monthly customers from 1st June 2010. The reason we're introducing these charges is to make it fairer for everyone, and to protect our network from data abuse. We're introducing a real-time notifications service to be completely transparent about these charges and keep customers in control of their spend. No Out Of Bundle charges will happen this month but they will take effect from 1st June. The messages you've received this month were sent in error and no more will be sent out from today.
The charging will be as follows:
Monthly bundle customers will pay £5 for every 500MB after the first 500MB
Customers without a monthly bundle will pay 50p for every 10MB after the first 25MB
Whilst you've all previously been used to there not being any Out Of Bundle charging, the current information available online is clear in explaining that we could introduce such charging at any time. The Vodafone Mobile Internet costs page does state: We'll keep an eye on things and let you know your options if it looks like you'll go over your 500MB Flexi or Value Pack limit.
This issue was flagged-up on the HEXUS.community discussion forums and the general feeling seems to be that this was a bit of a sneaky move by Vodafone, especially as it seems to have been introduced with less than a month's notice.However, all operators have the right to change their terms of service and Vodafone would probably argue that it's fair enough to charge people more precisely for what they use. Some people seem to think 500 MB is more than enough, others nowhere near.
To be honest we have no idea what our monthly data usage is but, at home, it's all done on Wi-Fi anyway. We'd like to hear your thoughts on this issue and what you think your monthly mobile data requirements are in the HEXUS.community discussion forums.
