Fashion Contrast

This Morning I read an interesting press-release for the site Broadband Choices. The Title of the release was “Is Pay As You Go Mobile Broadband a giant step backward” and for ease’s sake I have copied it here for you to read…

In studying and comparing pay as you go broadband plans and one of my favorite consumer choices websites Broadband Choices, an odd remembrance came to me. Vodafone, O2 and 3 all offer pay as you go mobile broadband on a per unit cost basis.

This means that you connect to the Internet at a rate of approximately 15 pounds per gigabyte of download. For light users this creates a savings of approximately 50%. For heavy personal and business mobile broadband users this represents the potential to pay triple the contract rate.

So what was this on remembrance? It was the early days of the Internet connection by means of dial up. In those days in the mid 1990s we accessed the Internet via now familiar portals such as AOL and Prodigy. In order to use the connections and graphic user interfaces of these portals one paid by the minute for time spent online. True growth of the Internet did not occur until AOL and other portals began to offer flat rate unlimited usage. In the United States all plans and options for mobile broadband include unlimited usage. For some reason UK suppliers refuse to give up these few pence of profit.

When one considers that mobile broadband coverage from many of the United Kingdom’s suppliers only approaches 80% availability in the UK, it becomes clear that England’s mobile broadband providers will need to lower prices and improve the service if they hope to compete with the convenience of ADSL.

Of course the use of a contract with say an un-capped download limit far outweighs having a Pay As You Go Mobile Broadband dongle – but lets approach this wish a different much more unbiased feel.

Sure a contract is pretty essential for any form of heavy mobile broadband usage, say for instance whilst travelling – the curse of every business person around the world having to travel which is awful and then adding to that the stress that comes with working and using a mobile broadband signal which perhaps not always works!

Being a young person myself – im fully aware at how easy it is to be stung by any form of ‘contractual agreement” between oneself and a provider, several times since I have taken out a mobile phone contract I have unfortunately had to cancel the direct debit as my ability to pay has dropped due obviously to several factors! As I said earlier the benefits to a contract – such as the ability to have essentially unlimited minutes, texts, or on the flip side unlimited data usage far outweigh a pay as you go ability, but lets look at it this way…

A Pay as you go system essentially for a single person, who perhaps moves house every so often is perfect, you simply have the ability to move jobs and can easily track how much money you spend on your device. A contract ties you in financially and inability to pay can be very costly (bad credit rating etc) Equally with a Pay as you go feature you can drop the provider you have very easily (not paying) and move over to a ‘better provider’ be that signal or… Modern contracts are generally in the 18-24 month variety so it means you cannot change provider till your term is up.

Its not a step backward its great that companies still provide a cost effective, manageable scheme for users.

There it is, my few thoughts on the press release for Broadband Choices.

Australia is one of those countries you just would never place in the top of any list relating to any form of technological advancement. Why this is I really don’t know, but it just seems right not to lumber our friends from down under in any form of ‘doing well’ category, whether this is down to there excellent Cricketing history and our unique jealousy at anyone who ‘does’ a sport better then us – I don’t know. But one thing is for certain, that presently Australians are amongst the most connected on the planet, or perhaps the most sensible…

With the recent explosion in Mobile Broadband, Netbooks, and the ubiquitous Smart-phone (IPhone, Nokia 5800, HTC etc). Comes the question ‘What is the point of a fixed phone line?’ which millions of Australians seem to have answered. Of course there is nothing better then having a home phone line; the ease and it ‘just being there’.

Home Phones - The Old Way

The fact remains that Is Money Saving the New Money Spending? as it seems that these ‘millions of Australians’ after realising that if they encourage all of their friendship circles to use VoIP services such as Skype they can have very cheap phone calls under a single package in a Pay-As-You-Go way. They can communicate easily and cost-effectively…

The Brisbane Times did however bring the hopes of the fervent down a few notches:

The pricing of mobile data also makes mobile broadband a bad choice for people who like to download movies and music from the web. Entry-level pricing for fixed and wireless mobile data is now similar, but if you want more than 5GB per month you’ll still get much more bang for your buck from DSL or cable.

Without wanting to say I know everything – I’d assume that the majority of online users say within the 16-30 age range, will use the internet then none other then checking emails, Face book, and streaming soon to be released movies? Any thoughts? So does this mean that its the older sector of adults who are seemingly disconnecting there fixed lines? Suprising? Of course as long as you have un-capped download limits on a contract Broadband service, you should be fine, the real issue comes with using a Pay As You Go Mobile Broadband to service the needs of the entire house : Phone, Connection to the Internet etc. As you may find that you spend a hell of a lot more money, as data charges seem to be extortionate if you go over your limits…

For the Original article please look here

Recently I wrote about the genius Idea of MiFi a recent initiative from 3 Mobile Broadband

Priced and Ready to Go

3′s Marketing & Sales Director Marc Allera said this:

Consumer demand for easy and affordable internet access on the go is growing fast and we’re responding to that by announcing the UK’s first wireless modem

Quote Courtesy of Tree Badger

As I wrote previously

“It is a wireless router you can take anywhere and use on any WI-FI enabled device (Laptop,Netbook,mobile phone, I pod Touch etc), the service is down to 3’s 3G service so it will work pretty much everywhere. What is so good about this device is unlike is father, the Dongle, it allows multiple connections, whereas the dongle only allowed one connection so you share Spotify Playlists or what not with your friends, whilst, yes checking your requests on Facebook.”

Now down to the nitty gritty what you really want to know! There will be 2 price plans available for the MiFi service which will be around from the 17th September are either contract or Pay As You Go Mobile Broadband

The ‘Broadband 5gb 1 Month” package is a contract based package. However you will have to pay £69.99 for the device (a one of payment) and £15 a month for the ‘airtime’.

The alternative to a contract is the £99.99 one of fee for the device which includes 3GB of data to use over 3 months and the ability to ‘top up’ whenever required, thus continuing on a Pay As You Go Basis.

Now personally 5GB of Data a month is not bad, but whether it is worth waiting a few months until ultimately the prices will drop and the device and plans will have changed forms and prices to better suit everyone. Of course a contract is a contract and as far as I can see there is no indication as to whether
the contract length will be in the 12 month, 18 month or the longer term 24 month variety, hopefully it will be in the 12 month form rather then the generally cheaper 24 month form.

Excellent reading on the subject of MiFi is available here and here