Eh?

Advantage of what exactly.

On the one hand you are claiming most people don't know what a mb/gb is so a broad unlimited covers that uncertainty. However you get banned from giffgaff if you go over a certain amount, how would you be able to assess this amount in real term usage if you don't know what a mb/gb is

I'm asking you, since you want to change the current regime, what would be the advantage and to whom?

It's great reading some common sense comments being made about the "unlimited' or whatever guise that proposition is marketed as. Clearly wireless data is limited by spectrum availability and there is only a finite amount of bandwidth to serve an ever more data hungry customer base on all mobile networks. There can be no argument that price is the most effective way to control usage. We have seen traffic management which grinds people with all you can eat to a snails pace, the full Monty which only delivers within a speed cap and now unlimited unless you use too much and you are banned! The best solution is pricing to encourage efficient use of mobile spectrum but a good alternative was suggested in another thread and that is to allow uncapped and non speed restricted use whenever possible but where congestion issues arise those over a stated limit have their speed restricted to a level that is handset friendly for Internet browsing. That seems to offer the best of all worlds and allied to a tethering limit would solve the issue of marketing proposition and delivery capability.

Latterly there have been some hints and the opinions of some who have been staunch supporters of 'unlimited' has shifted so I expect it's not only giffgaff who are in the process of announcing reviewed policies and offerings.

Well clearly those people being kicked off giffgaff may find it preferable do you think

The problem is if the very small number of very heavy users is not managed there won't be a worthwhile level of service for the average users.

So what is the solution?

To offer real levels of service 20, 40 go etc and unlimited if it is unlimited.

You can always equate the levels offered to real world usage to make them easier to understand.

Limit the speed for those over the 35gb to browsing say as long as that is clear at the outset so you have a firm of unlimited.

Whatever the answer it is not the claim of blanket unlimited conning customers with promises that are not deliverable. Look at broadband now we have the ludicrous position of saying it is 'truly unlimited'

I'm definitely in the unlimited should mean unlimited camp on this one. Or rather they should just stop using the word 'unlimited' at all.

I personally don't buy the argument that because many people wouldn't know the difference MB and a TB, networks and telcos feel that is justification to carry on the practice of using the 'unlimited' term. They really should stop patronising us and just be open and up front about limits IMHO.

The solution for Giff Gaff is to be more open and honest about their hard and soft caps.

Other networks often give an outline of how much data is acceptable before a soft/hard cap kicks in.

Virgin for example state 3.5GB before speeds are slowed to 384Kbps
Lyca for example state 10GB before speeds are slowed to 2G speeds
T-Mobile state a 4Mbps speed cap at all times and as much data as you want.

If you read the Giff Gaff fair use page right now it says-

Traffic management and caps are different. Traffic management is in the name, it manages the amount of traffic used at peak times. What Giff Gaff members are reporting is that they are cut off for using over a certain amount of data. Yet Giff Gaff mention nothing about being cut off for using over a certain amount.

If Giff Gaff came out and said that "If you use more than X in one month then speeds are slowed/cut off" then not many people would have an issue.

But to use the word unlimited and then cut people off for using too much is wrong.

This is something Three have done right, when they said unlimited data use they mean it. I've seen people use over 300GB in a month.

Begs the question why are you guys sticking with GG ?

I'm with 3

But if something has no limits how could anything be too much? If they say there is no speed limit on a road but said subject to a fair speed policy is that right?

I have unlimited texts with my contract but that is subject to 5000 use policy. Why not say 5000 texts that is more than enough for most and is honest.

This is the classic mistake. It's one step thinking.

Unlimited means unlimited doesn't mean that those people being kicked off giffgaff wouldn't. It means the unlimited tariff would go and they would be paying more for less.

So who else do you think would benefit?

Those providers who are open and honest, you should not have to look in the fine print for something so apparently clear as unlimited.

There is no reason to pay anymore unless the tariff bring offered was never sustainable in the first place. What do you think would happen if every customer used their 35gb allowable but never went over?

But you tell me who loses through properly described tariffs? Only the providers who get customers under false pretences as far as I can tell.

I suspect there is a 'dumbing down' agenda now re some prominent contributors who have previously promoted networks unlimited data marketing as the landscape has changed and what was once great to shout about looks like it's about to be revised and rebranded as something quite different.

In coming months the data offerings of some of the networks may look very different for sound business and operational reasons.

Heh I'm not calling you stupid, you just said something I think is stupid

Unlimited should mean unlimited. And if it doesn't, they should at *least* mention it somewhere and explain what the limitation(s) are.

I like 3's "All-You-Can-Eat" bundle because 1000GB a month is plenty enough of data for mobile use, even for a power user in my opinion. If you are using more than that, you'd probably be better served on a wired connection anyway.

People may not understand what a GB is, but it's not difficult for a sales rep in EE to explain to a customer how much data they might need based on their usage.

Those same people that don't know what a GB is will be the same people saying they don't need unlimited data (thinking they don't use much data), because they have no idea how much data their apps use, because they don't know what a GB is...

You said you couldn't get 35GB for £12 a month, well you can get 1000GB if you pay an extra 90p. That's all I'm saying

I doubt many people come anywhere close to 1000GB in a month, or certainly not often.

I can use 100-200GB in a month on ADSL. That's a lot of streamed or on demand video content, and certainly isn't what I consume every month.

35GB on the other hand is not that hard to reach. 10 films, or maybe a box set or two.

As I've said before, if you're not using video over the net, your usage is probably very small. But every network seems keen to promote 4G on the basis of streaming HD video. Rather like Three tried 11 years ago but failed because video quality was low res and low bit rate, and there weren't on demand services like we have now.

Give it time and lots more people will be needing more data than most tariffs offer.

1000GB is a soft cap.

You can actually go over it if you want.

Similar to how the original One Plan had a 80GB soft cap, then 450GB and now 1000GB.

1000GB a month is notional. It's not deliverable to many especially in urban areas and that's why TrafficSense is deployed to manage data consumption. All you can eat depends on how much is laid out on the table and also depends on how big the table is! What has been advertised is pretty unrealistic once people use mobile networks as an alternative to fixed lines. Expect changes to ensure mobile customers can access data with a high quality of service on their expensive smart phones soon as it is margin from hardware that is the big prize for networks now with call and data revenues dropping.

1000GB a month may not be deliverable to people in congested areas on 3g, absolutely. My average data speeds are around 1-2mb lately, and that isn't going to let me pass 1000GB if I maxed it out for 30 days. That's not the point though. The point is, I'm still able to use as much data as the masts can handle. At 1mbps, it would take just over 3 days maxed out to use 35GB, it's entirely possible to go well over that on Three.

Three aren't going the way of allowing people to use their network for home broadband, that's why they stopped allowing unlimited tethering on their new plans. The changes currently happening are 4G upgrades. That's making data speeds much faster than 3G and capacity is getting much better.

how much do we think costs giffgaff to buy 35GB of data from o2?

They don't actually pay O2 anything as they are 100% owned by Telefonica as is O2.

Looking at the costs in a white paper published by Nokia Siemens a couple of years ago they calculated that if a network can get 500 users per site (about what 3 UK have on average 18,000 sites X 500 users = 9M) and they can keep each user under 2GB per month the cost to deliver the data would be €3 per month with the depreciation of the sites over 8 years. Costs can be lowered further (to €2 a month) if the same metrics apply and voice is combined into the equation. Those are delivery costs and data delivery can fall to €1 per GB if the subscriber density is very high or usage is heavy. So the cost to deliver data is at best €1 per GB per subscriber according to one of the leading suppliers of mobile network equipment.

The Nokia Siemens HSPA and LTE - Costs and Capacity Aspects White Paper can be downloaded from the following link:

http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/e...d-cost-aspects

there's the licence cost too. additionally O2 customers would appear to pay more and there is a cost associated with impacting on those customers. when your capacity is full the cost of selling to one customer is the opportunity of selling to another.

but however you look at it the cost of supplying the data is more than they are charging. something has to give.

happen when the network had spare capacity O2 were happy to flog it for whatever they could get.

That is the key factor. The network costs are fixed once you install and power it up so any revenue is good revenue when there is lots of spare capacity. As the number of users increase they hit an efficient level and that is what the stats in the white paper are based on as the optimum. Once there is higher demand than capacity can cope with there are only two solutions. 1. Ration by price or 2. Throttle speed or data delivery to users to provide a reasonable service to average consumers.