[dundeederryboy]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10285910.stm

`UK phone network O2 has scrapped unlimited data downloads for smartphone customers.

All new and upgrading customers will have their usage capped at between 500 Megabytes (MB) and one gigabyte (GB) depending on their monthly tariff.

Analysts said the move was "inevitable" as more and more consumers switch to data-intensive smartphones that can surf the web and show video.

Other networks are likely to follow O2, they said.

"O2 had become the industry poster-child of the capacity crunch era," said Thomas Wehmeier, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms and Media.

Many customers have complained about poor service, download speeds and network coverage.

"It is a victim of its own success - O2 has had so many people sign up for data intensive phones, like the iPhone," Ben Wood of research firm CCS Insight told BBC News.

"Huge amounts of data are consumed by the minority of people."
Video pressure

O2 has said that the changes will affect just 3% of its 21m customers, who will have to pay additional charges for their data use.

"That 3% are using something like 36% of the data capacity of 02's network," said Mr Wood. "If O2 get it right, everybody will get a better service."
Continue reading the main story

Having applied the brakes, O2 must now show that it can deliver a decent mobile surfing experience for those who stay loyal

Rory Cellan-Jones BBC's technology correspondent Read Rory's thoughts in full

Currently, he said, O2 was spending around £1m a day to upgrade its network to cope with the "exponential demand" for data on smartphones.

However, he said, it could not carry on adding capacity if data usage was exploding for the same amount of revenue.

The new charges will be brought in on 24 June, to coincide with the launch of the iPhone 4.

"They are using the iPhone as a mechanism to introduce the tariff change," said Mr Wood.

The new handset has a higher resolution camera and is able to record high definition video, both of which will add pressure to O2's network.
'Dangerous game'

O2 currently has the largest installed base of iPhone users in the UK.

The network's cheapest tariff will cost £25 per month for two years and will allow a user to download 500MB per month. After that, it will cost £5 for every additional 500 megabytes of data consumed.

O2 said that 500MB is two and a half times the average O2 customer's current use and would allow someone to browse 5,000 standard web pages.

Mr Wehmeier agrees with the figures.

"There's a lot of talk about the hunger for data of iPhone users, but our analysis shows that the majority of users will be comfortably served by 500MB of data per month," he said.

The most expensive tariff - at £60 per month - allows users to download 1GB.

Existing customers will be allowed to keep their unlimited data plans until they renew their contract.

O2's CEO Ronan Dunne sad the move laid "the foundation for a sustainable data experience for all customers".

Mr Wood said that he thought that most network operators - who face similar challenges to O2 - would follow the change.

However, he said, others may use it as an opportunity to try to woo customers away from O2.

"That's a dangerous game to play, if that top 3% of users go to another network," he said.

O2's changes follow similar moves by the AT&T network in the US.

[prking]

Just to point out that article isn't 100% correct. Its not 3% of O2 customers its 3% of O2's smartphone customers, which will be affected by this. A tiny proportion of total customers.

[Thine Wonk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by prking

Just to point out that article isn't 100% correct. Its not 3% of O2 customers its 3% of O2's smartphone customers, which will be affected by this. A tiny proportion of total customers.

Yeah tiny - half a million customers affected, by O2's figures which are likely to do everything to swing in their favour.

Data double the cost of the 3 network if you do want an add on, with less 3G data coverage.

You say you want to correct the article prking, but have you thought about that - are you seriously trying to convince anyone that non smartphone users are going to use loads of data? of course not.

O2 is the largest network in the UK by customer numbers and therefore 3% is a lot, it's 100's of thousands of tech savvy internet fans who want to enjoy the content on their mobile phones. More than 50% of mobile phone owners don't use any data, all the grannies and mums etc.

The reason why they are doing it is because the O2 network can't cope, you only have to look at the incidents over the last year to see that.

The network is not fault tolerant, has single points of failure, has the least 3G coverage of any network in the UK and is the most oversubscribed.

[tommo2006]

Just wondering here,
will this change to terms and conditions enable a termination of our o2 contract's early..
be nice to be able to get out of my 18mth contract and get a new phone

8.3 If this Agreement is ended during any Minimum Period, you must pay us the monthly subscription charges up to the end of that Minimum Period.
This does not apply if you end the Agreement for the reasons in paragraph 8.4.
8.4 You may end this Agreement by giving us written notice if:
(a) we break this Agreement in any material way and we do not correct the situation within 7 days of receipt of your written request;
(b) we go into liquidation or a Receiver is appointed over our assets; or
(c) you are a Consumer Customer and we increase charges by more than 10% for calls, messages or data that form part of your inclusive allowance or your
Line Rental Charges or change this Agreement to your significant disadvantage in accordance with paragraph 9.2 of the General Terms, provided you give
us a minimum of 30 days’ written notice (and provided you notify us within one month of our telling you about the changes). This does not apply where:
(i) the increase or change relates solely to Additional Services in which case you may cancel, or stop using, that Additional Service;
(ii) the increase does not exceed the Retail Price Index (“RPI”) figure in any twelve month period; or

how does the new data plan sit with these terms ??? Anyone

[markrduk]

Your current contract should not be affected. The article states that new contracts and upgrades would be under the new system. If you have unlimited web now you will continue to until your contract expires at least (possibly until you choose to upgrade/change the contract).

[jcm193]

Ive just come off the phone to o2 customer services,he said he thinks that its as stated that this affects new customers or upgraders on smartphone tariffs only.Iam on a £35 tariff with unlimeted data plan on my htc desire,He said I should not be affected but he was not 100% sure.I for one will not be pleased if they move the goal posts as I only signed up 3 weeks ago,I realise unlimeted data is not really unlimeted but 500 mb is taking the micky.I have a feeling this is all to e do with the expected infux of new customers they are expecting from the new iphone,and the fact that they have oversold on there network not the customers fault btw.He said they recently upgraded the network which asks the question why they need to scrap the unlimeted plans then.

[JamesParkin]

Makes no sense

£60 for 1gb

Or

£25 for 500mb, then £5 for another 500mb on top of that

Who would sign up for the £60?????

[jcm193]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JamesParkin

Makes no sense

£60 for 1gb

Or

£25 for 500mb, then £5 for another 500mb on top of that which

Who would sign up for the £60?????

I suppose you get extra minutes and texts on top of the extra data allowance

[ney]

02 maybe the biggest UK mobile network next to Vodafone but once in a while its like 02 cant cope when they get a surge of of pepole texting or using internet on there mobiles. You can understand mobile networks not coping at the new year for an hour or two but not at other times in the year.
02 neeed to think about making network improvments and improving there 3g/HSDPA coverage.

Darren

[prking]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thine Wonk

Yeah tiny - half a million customers affected, by O2's figures which are likely to do everything to swing in their favour.

Data double the cost of the 3 network if you do want an add on, with less 3G data coverage.

You say you want to correct the article prking, but have you thought about that - are you seriously trying to convince anyone that non smartphone users are going to use loads of data? of course not.

O2 is the largest network in the UK by customer numbers and therefore 3% is a lot, it's 100's of thousands of tech savvy internet fans who want to enjoy the content on their mobile phones. More than 50% of mobile phone owners don't use any data, all the grannies and mums etc.

The reason why they are doing it is because the O2 network can't cope, you only have to look at the incidents over the last year to see that.

The network is not fault tolerant, has single points of failure, has the least 3G coverage of any network in the UK and is the most oversubscribed.

I didn't say anything about O2's non-smartphone users consuming large amounts of data. So I don't know where you got that from.
You've made the very mistake which I was correcting, its not 3% of all O2 customers but 3% of smartphone users. That represents about 2,000 customers. And not all of those will leave.
When Vodafone did the same (except they have applied it to existing customers as well), the usual suspects predicted mass cancellations which didn't happen.
The truth is few people use anywhere near 500megabytes a month.

[psionic]

This is only for new and upgrading customers (who will still get unlimited data until 1st October as a promotion). Existing customers will have no change until the end of their contracts. That's the way I understand it anyway.

[goomba]

Quote:

Originally Posted by prking

You've made the very mistake which I was correcting, its not 3% of all O2 customers but 3% of smartphone users. That represents about 2,000 customers.

I think you have left off a few zeros

[booie]

Will be intresting to see if Tesco Mobile follow suit, using the o2 network and offering unlimited deals with iphones?

[jcm193]

What I dont understand is why they have to scrap unlimeted plans if most cutomers dont use more than 500 meg a month if your going to promote and sell products on the back of such unlimeted data plans people are going to take advantage of them.The way I see it is that there pinerlising new customers and possibly existing customers in the future for there own shortfalls.O2 have been victims of there own success and they can not cope,O2 please dont give us the transparent pricing model bull s**t we know this is a way of giving us less for the same amount of money.O2 you need to spend more money on improving your network and stop taking the easy option by pinerlising customers due to your lack of investment.I for one will not be upgrading with O2 when my contract run`s out

[Thine Wonk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by goomba

I think you have left off a few zeros

Yes and he still doesn't get the fact that the smartphone users will be the ones using all the data, not the phones that just have WAP etc.

Seeing as O2 has something like 18million customers he has left of a lot of zeros. I worked it out to be around 1/2 million users affected if you take 3%

[goomba]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thine Wonk

Seeing as O2 has something like 18million customers he has left of a lot of zeros. I worked it out to be around 1/2 million users affected if you take 3%

It will be less that though, as its 3% of their smart phone users, not all users as prking points out.

So less than 500,000 and more than 2,000.

[The Geek]

If I ring up to change my tariff for next month then will I be put on this plan?

i'm currently on iphone simplicity 20. I hear if you sign up for 12 months then you can get this for £15 a month. Not worth it if they will change the terms of the data plan though.

[simon69c]

If you get put onto the current Simplicity iPhone plan before June 24th then you will keep the unlimited data, but if you change to it after June 24th then you will be put onto the "Smartphone" Simplicity for iPhones which will have unlimited data until October 1st (as a promotional offer), but then capped to 500GB after that.

I'm not sure what happens if you call them up today to move onto the 12 month plan but your current rolling month doesn't finish before the end of the month. I suspect you will be OK as it would be "today" that you are making the agreement, but I would check with them first.

Alternatively switch to giffgaff where you can get pretty much the same deal for £15 just on a month by month basis using their goodybag PAYG bundles. You wouldn't get inclusive wifi or visual voicemail, but costs outside the inclusive bundle would be lower, and as giffgaff runs on O2's network anyway you wouldn't need to worry about unlocking either.

[taurus_67]

A few people have been telling me about GiffGaff but when i read their website it seems that they might not be as attractive as they used to be.


"Free Mobile Internet:
You lucky giffgaff pioneers can even enjoy free UK mobile Internet up to the end of June 2010.. After that date, mobile Internet will be charged at 50p a day (if you use less than 2.5MB/day you'll pay less than 50p and if you go over 30MB you'll be charged extra at 20p/MB). "

[ohirome]

Quote:

Originally Posted by taurus_67

A few people have been telling me about GiffGaff but when i read their website it seems that they might not be as attractive as they used to be.


"Free Mobile Internet:
You lucky giffgaff pioneers can even enjoy free UK mobile Internet up to the end of June 2010.. After that date, mobile Internet will be charged at 50p a day (if you use less than 2.5MB/day you'll pay less than 50p and if you go over 30MB you'll be charged extra at 20p/MB). "

What a shame. I was intending on signing up when I got my simfree iphone however that puts me right off.

[simon69c]

Quote:

Originally Posted by taurus_67

A few people have been telling me about GiffGaff but when i read their website it seems that they might not be as attractive as they used to be.


"Free Mobile Internet:
You lucky giffgaff pioneers can even enjoy free UK mobile Internet up to the end of June 2010.. After that date, mobile Internet will be charged at 50p a day (if you use less than 2.5MB/day you'll pay less than 50p and if you go over 30MB you'll be charged extra at 20p/MB). "

A lot of people seem to be reading that but getting the wrong end of the stick - think I might have to feed that back to them!...

giffgaff is a PAYG SIM-only network, and up until recently they were solely a basic PAYG tariff i.e. top-up your balance and get charged for calls (8p) and texts (4p), and for the past 6 months data has been free as part of their beta testing (and so they could decide what to charge for it). Originally the free data was due to finish at the end of May but they extended it to the end of June because they changed their pricing model based on customer feedback on what they had been proposing, and it has taken them a little longer to get the mechanism for charging it put into place. That's what that snippet of the website is talking about.

In parallel with their basic PAYG tariff, giffgaff also introduced their goodybag bundles about 2 months ago and these are basically pre-paid bundles of minutes, texts and data that last a month. Aside from the cheapest £5 goodybag (which just gives unlimited texts), these include unlimited handset data and unlimited texts and either 100, 300 or unlimited minutes (for £10, £15 and £35 respectively). These are not part of any introductory offer and are not going to be changing at the end of June - they are a fixed feature and they specifically include unlimited data. It may not be free data, but it's certainly alot cheaper than pretty much anything else I've seen out there - and seems to be just about the only unlimited data left too.

A lot of people seem to wonder if it's too good to be true, but really it actually is that good - and that's before you even start factoring in the payback you can get (look at their blog entry to see the sort of amounts people have got for their first 6 months). The reason they can afford it is that they cut out the expensive customer support call centres and use customer-powered forums for basic queries (you can see for yourself how that is working out), and then a core web-based team for dealing with escalations and/or account-specific enquiries. They also dispense with expensive advertising campaigns and rely on word of mouth and online recommendations (like I'm doing now ) to get people interested. I actually visited their head office this week as they had invited a forum-goer to play a charity golf day with them and I was the lucky volunteer - and they are a really professional outfit.

[taurus_67]

Thanks for clearing up my confusion, Simon. That does make them sound as if they have some very decent packages there. If I could convince some of my mates to change to them I reckon I could save £7.50 a month there.

[Waffles]

I'm happy to be capped at 500mb a month.

I've used my iPhone totally as much as I possible could want to data roaming here there and everywhere as much as I please all day every day. Sometimes on youtube, facebook, google maps (a lot) and have only racked up 1.4GB since September 09 averaging about 150mb a month.

No problems here

[legends wear 7]

I struggle to understand how people rack up gb's worth of data. But even more so people who use very little data.

[AxeVictim]

If giffgaff use the O2 network wont this 500mb cap apply to them too ?