DS Forums

 
 

Sambamobile gone bust.


Reply
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old 28-04-2014, 08:27
bendyone
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Posts: 7

http://www.sambamobile.com/

Bit of data lost but thats all.
bendyone is offline   Reply With Quote
Please sign in or register to remove this advertisement.
Old 28-04-2014, 08:29
moox
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Posts: 14,641
Seems like a much more orderly shutdown than Ovivo.
moox is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28-04-2014, 08:47
jp200300
Forum Member
 
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 53
Nooooooo
jp200300 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28-04-2014, 10:25
SkipTracer
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: The City and County of Bristol
Posts: 2,623
They have not gone bust; they are just closing down because they can no longer buy data at a reasonable cost.

Anyone who has bought credit, sim or dongle in April will get a refund.

At the moment my dongle is still working and as it’s about to die I have been wasting data doing a few speed test and I’m still clocking an impressive 18.42Mb/s down and 2.4Mb/s up so this is a sad loss when it dies but like they say “All good things must past”.

As with Ovivo I’ve saved £££ over the past 2 years with Samba so I wish them luck in any future projects but for now I’m off to EBay to see what the latest deal is for the 6Gb EE PAYG data sims.

Samba R.I.P.
SkipTracer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28-04-2014, 10:28
bendyone
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2009
Posts: 7
They have not gone bust; they are just closing down because they can no longer buy data at a reasonable cost.

Anyone who has bought credit, sim or dongle in April will get a refund.

At the moment my dongle is still working and as it’s about to die I have been wasting data doing a few speed test and I’m still clocking an impressive 18.42Mb/s down and 2.4Mb/s up so this is a sad loss when it dies but like they say “All good things must past”.

As with Ovivo I’ve saved £££ over the past 2 years with Samba so I wish them luck in any future projects but for now I’m off to EBay to see what the latest deal is for the 6Gb EE PAYG data sims.

Samba R.I.P.
If they are just closing down what about the data people have earnt but not used,
bendyone is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28-04-2014, 10:41
Redcoat
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: The wilds of West Tyrone
Posts: 2,122
Ah well It was good while it lasted. Data is still working ATM, but will probably close later.
Redcoat is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28-04-2014, 10:48
jonmorris
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: a land filled with trolls
Posts: 12,014
Got my email this morning.

Always thought this would have gone before Ovivo to be honest.

To be fair to Samba, it has handled the shut down a lot better - including giving some money back - so the accounts must have been managed better, but it just adds to all the other ad funded services that have been tried over the years. Have any been successful? Are there others still working?

There were barely any ads to watch - so you usually had to watch the same ones over and over (subject to the usual restrictions, such as a daily limit) so advertisers were either not interested or not seeing a return. Once there were public service announcements from the Government, the writing was surely on the wall? They obviously pay, but not much. They're the last resort fillers.

What I do think can work is for someone to offer a decent allowance of data for a very competitive price (under £5) which means a regular income. Ideal for people with tablets or multiple devices that they want to get online.

500MB or 1GB for £2-3 a month would be the sort of figure I'm thinking of. I don't know if a company could turn a profit for that, but these companies all appeared to be run on a shoestring budget anyway. When my Samba SIM arrived, it looked like it had been cut with scissors and I'm pretty sure it was a handwritten envelope with a normal stamp.

Unlike Ovivo, however, Samba seems to be managing things fairly and honourably. Thus, I'd support any new venture from the people behind it unlike whatever the director(s) of Ovivo go on to do.
jonmorris is offline Follow this poster on Twitter   Reply With Quote
Old 28-04-2014, 10:49
SkipTracer
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: The City and County of Bristol
Posts: 2,623
If they are just closing down what about the data people have earnt but not used,
Nobody spent any money so they have not lost anything, only time watching ads and if it’s like myself and others I know that just run the ads in the background while doing other things, they, we did not lose much time either.

BTW I've got 6 Gb of credit on my sim but I'm not crying.
SkipTracer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28-04-2014, 11:04
Three
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Manchester
Posts: 1,114
A copy of the email for anyone interested.

http://imgur.com/a/SQBoW
Three is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28-04-2014, 13:48
neil402003
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Posts: 149
Who will be next?.Any companies business models that are unsustainable?.
neil402003 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 28-04-2014, 16:07
SkipTracer
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: The City and County of Bristol
Posts: 2,623
Who will be next?.Any companies business models that are unsustainable?.
Yes two I can think of, HMG and EU.
SkipTracer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 29-04-2014, 01:23
Redcoat
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: The wilds of West Tyrone
Posts: 2,122
Once there were public service announcements from the Government, the writing was surely on the wall? They obviously pay, but not much. They're the last resort fillers.
Government PSAs were there for over a year. The last time I logged in last week there were quite a few adverts available, though I hadn't been logged in for a while as I had a healthy bank of data built up during last year.

I had three sim cards with them attached to my account, the first one went blank late yesterday morning, the second one disconnected in the middle of the evening but the third one is still on network with data - I'd expect that to go within a few hours though.

Just need to look for a cheap alternative for my tablet now when I'm not in a wifi hotspot.
Redcoat is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 29-04-2014, 14:06
jonmorris
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: a land filled with trolls
Posts: 12,014
Government PSAs were there for over a year..
Maybe I wrote that badly, rather the fact that on some days these were pretty much the only ads I saw.

You are right though, there were more ads in the final weeks. Perhaps this was down to agencies having new budgets, or having to spend old budgets, around March/April time. Nevertheless, the choice of ads were still poor and I doubt any advertiser intended to have the same people watching their advert daily - and paying each time.

I think the whole business model is flawed. It works for Google, as we're talking revenue on an unprecedented scale - and many different platforms for advertisers to experiment with.

Facebook and Twitter also works thanks to the sheer volume of users, even if a large number never engage with adverts at all (but perhaps they don't have to, as some of it is just about brand recognition, not directly selling there and then).

Samba, Ovivo and any others that have tried (or will try) just don't have those benefits.
jonmorris is offline Follow this poster on Twitter   Reply With Quote
Old 29-04-2014, 16:45
Redcoat
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: The wilds of West Tyrone
Posts: 2,122
...aaaaaaand my last sim went dead at around 2.30pm today!
Redcoat is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 29-04-2014, 19:53
Three
Forum Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Manchester
Posts: 1,114
Just got an email recommending some other alternatives. All paid, one was Mobi-Data.

I would have posted the email but I moved it from another folder on my email account it seems either my email client or the email server has lost it.
Three is offline   Reply With Quote
 
Reply




 
Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 17:39.