back to article Vodafone promises more tiers for data hungry customers

Vodafone boss Vittorio Colao has been telling attendees at Nokia‘s annual shindig that they‘re going to have to get used to tiered pricing, and quickly. Not that this should come as any great surprise. Flat-rate internet access is not sustainable once customers start making use of it, so this is part of a softening-up process …

COMMENTS

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  1. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    I actually think..

    data throttling at the IP level makes more sense. 4G is supposed to have lower cost/bit than 3G, and 3G lower than 2G. Moving users down that blew their cap makes sense if the older services are underutilized and have spare capacity but otherwise it really doesn't make sense to move them down to services that actually cost the carrier more to carry the same data.

    But, either way, kudos if Vodafone is throttling rather than charging massive overages like AT&T is doing (Verizon still has an unlimited plan, at least on-phone; aircard has massive overages though)

  2. Dan 55 Silver badge

    They've already done it, haven't it?

    Many operators artificially raise the prices for tethered connections, it's as if the packets from tethered laptops were somehow much more expensive to transmit than packets from mobiles.

    1. Stratman

      title

      Indeed so.

      My employer provides a Blackberry, and is pretty generous as to how we use it. Personal calls, browsing and even international calls are never questioned.

      The only thing they prohibit is tethered modem use.

  3. Andrew Woodvine

    "3 wasn‘t even planning to cut anyone off."

    They may not have been planning to then, but they do now.

    I was cut off last month for exceeding the 2GB limit on my "unlimited" data plan.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Troll

    Its a good thing

    If the mobile networks are as congested as they claim, then its simply because they have under priced their own services. Its simple issue of demand and supply.

    Charging more gives telcos more money to invest in better services. Which is a good thing; a virtuous circle of revenue and investment.

    And if they are not as congested as they claim? Ripping off customers will strip them of their business. Which is a good thing too.

  5. Graham Cobb Silver badge
    Go

    Bandwidth is the logical differentiator

    A move to bandwidth-based tariffs is inevitable. They seem much fairer to people than volume tiers (it seems reasonable to pay more for faster access) and they avoid any issues of discriminating between different types of data (based on protocol, or website, or...). And they actually address the costs: peak total bandwidth usage is used to work out how much network capacity to buy.

    Of course, there will still be lots of differentiation within a bandwidth-based approach: some operators may allow bandwidth boosts in low-usage areas or at quiet times of day, others may offer bandwidth bundles with purchases of content (buy a video and get the extra bandwidth you need to view it included in the price), etc,

  6. Andy Hards
    Thumb Up

    I thought 3 had dispensed with the 'Unlimited' claim.

    In the 5 years I have had a 1gb (now 2) 'unlimited' allowance with 3 I only went over once or twice. The first text I got said that I had gone over my allowance and any more use COULD result in me getting cut off. For the next week every time I logged on I would get the text saying not to but then after the second week they stopped. I think they realised that for the odd time that I did go over compared wit the number of times I got no-where near my allowance limit they couldn't really call it a 'fair use' policy if they did cut me off. I believed that my use was fair. I usually didn't get any where near 1 gig but sometimes I did, that seems fair to me.

    NOW however I think 3 were the first of the operators to say 'ok 1gb is not unlimited it's 1gb' so they have dropped the unlimited from the contract. So for the person above who was cut off after going over their 2gb, it's probably cos now that's what they do. It's no longer unlimited, it's 2gb. I contacted them and got my 1gb changed to 2 as I have the TRULY unlimited music downloads from Nokia's Comes With Music service, now called Ovi music and I do use a lot more than 1gb a month now.

    £ have been the best as far as I'm concerned. They had a bad rep when they started out but are good enough now. I love em!

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    T-Mobile already do this in the UK

    T-Mobile already do this. Unless you're on their premium 3gb allowance, you're capped at 3G speeds even in HSDPA areas.

    Loads of discussion about this on T-Mobile's own forums but the company flatly denies it - although the evidence is stunningly clear-cut!

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