Vodafone's new pricing model excludes VoIP and P2P

How much is your application worth?

By Bill Ray, 30th April 2007

Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery

While ADSL providers are imposing caps and resorting to traffic throttling, Vodafone has slipped in a clause allowing it to charge different amounts for mobile bandwidth depending on the application, though how it will do so is unclear.

Vodafone's new pricing model for data comes in on 1 June and at a glance seems fair enough - if you use less than 0.5MB in a day you're charged at a penny for every 5KB you use (£2 a MB), go over that and the next 14.5MB is free, then you're back to a penny for every 5KB used.

Most users should fall somewhere in below the 15MB limit, and the current rate is £2.35 a MB, so everyone should be better off.

Well, not quite everyone.

Slipped in to the conditions of use is a clause stating that VoIP and peer-to-peer services (P2P) are excluded from the offer, billed separately at £2 a megabyte, with a minimum of 5 pence per session. Skype is listed as an example of a VoIP service, but the definition of P2P is much broader, including "instant messenger services, text messaging clients, or file sharing".

Vodafone won't comment on how it's going to identify such traffic, though there are concerns that anything other than web browsing might be considered peer-to-peer and thus be subject to the separate charge. Encrypted connections could well fall foul - it would be impossible for Vodafone to identify the application being used, leaving anyone regularly and securely checking email open to high charges.

Vodafone does say it'll be offering a mobile internet tariff, but isn't revealing any details and it's likely it's waiting to see how customers respond to the new data pricing before making a decision. ®

Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery

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Posted Tuesday 1st May 2007 11:39 GMT

nigel

Some users are terribly affected.

Have a read of this:

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Changes in Data charges

I have just received a text from yourselves informing me of the changes in data charges and directing me to vodafone.co.uk/dataprices, (which is not yet working.)

After speaking to 191 I have been advised of the changes and how they affect me.

To explain my position I extended my anytime 200 + 500 texts on the 17th of March specifically to give myself the inclusive data that came with the anytime plans and their text packs. I asked the sales/retention gentleman specifically if this would allow me to keep my data and was assured that it would. Indeed I have a recording of him offering this assurance.

I have been advised this morning that 1) on the first of June I will lose my data allowance, 2) the sales team knew about this at the time. As I'm sure you can understand I'm, and I chose my words carefully, a bit annoyed by this, not least because this is the second time vodafone have changed my contract midway through.

I estimate based on a crude calculation that this change, based on my previous usage, will cost me around £16pcm more than I am currently paying, and under T&Cs 8 a) I, this would comfortably allow me to cancel my contract.

My contract is without a handset. I pay £15pcm for my tariff. By way of a solution, I would suggest the following: I keep my existing arrangement until the 1st of June at which point I be allowed to break my contract and move to a new one with inclusive data bundled.

I would appreciate your thoughts on this matter.

kind regards Nigel.

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So basically this change will more than double my bill....

Have a read of vod's responce. It may make you laugh, it made me cry.

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Dear Nigel,

Thank you for contacting Vodafone Customer Services regarding data charges text message received by you.

As market research conducted in the past few months we have analysed that our customers like the simplicity and reassurance of a monthly data pack and they want it to be similar to their monthly home broadband package. For this reason we have revised

If you access Vodafone live/internet you will receive 15MBs for that day and you pay only 1 pound for that day

What’s exciting is that you can use any of the following up to 15 MBs of data:

– 20 live! or made for mobile pages (EBaymobile.co.uk)

– 10 Sky Sports pages

– 20 BBC homepages (WWW pages not mobile pages)

– 5-10 CCN pages

– 5 EBay pages

• Examples of 15MB:

– 15 minutes of video streaming e.g. TV

– 600 Vodafone live! pages

– 150 pages of EBay auctions

– 7 music tracks (average live! full music tracks are 2MB)

Please note if you access more than 15MBs of data in one day you will be charged according to your price plan.

Please note that we have not breached the Terms and Conditions as according to the Airtime Terms and Conditions, Vodafone has the right to introduce new prices from time to time providing a 14-day prior notice.

If you wish to view the Terms and Conditions, please visit www.vodafone.co.uk

If there is anything else we can assist you with, please feel free to contact us.

Kind regards,

Posted Tuesday 1st May 2007 08:52 GMT

Pete

Images off!

I use Orange PAYG web access, I seem to get pretty good value for money at this level switching images off in the phone - loads 'loads' faster as well. £1 gives a days access, actually pegged at 25 megs, ideal for laptop/Palm use again without graphics where feasible.

Posted Tuesday 1st May 2007 08:52 GMT

Andy Davies