Vodafone does close-up magic on roaming charges

That's easy Mole....

...you see anyone using a phone will be much more careful about the data usage, not enabling auto download settings etc.

On a laptop it's different, the damned thing is forever looking up in the DNS, checking for updates for all those packages you've installed, and grabbing huge amounts of stuff of those web pages you're looking at. So, the user will be expecting a high bill because of all this activity, so it's only fair to double it to help make up for all the reductions in revenue down to that nasty Vivianne Reding at the EC!

Someone really does need to head off to Newbury armed with a pair of large pliers.....

Only a good deal...

... in the same way that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king

@ The Mole

Please could other readers correct me if I am wrong, or fill in the gaps, but, my experience is that budget (e.g. 'free unlimited browsing') data tariffs such as those you get for a mobile rather than a dongle (T-Mobile's inclusive data with Solo 20 & 25 sims, or 3 mobile's payg unlimited nearly free £5 per month data tariff), have a much degraded quality to 'dongled' or higher priced plans - possibly because of poorer contention rates, or some other explanation. When I paid T-Mobile £7.50 a month for data I got fast data and few problems connecting. When I got inclusive data for 'free', e.g. with Solo 20, I often couldn't connect for toffee, even with excellent signal and few other users around. Likewise with the slightly-too-cheap £5 per month 3 mobile tariff.

I'm really tired of getting google maps' "this service requires an active data connection. please check you're connected..." failure message when ostensibly there's great signal, with the cheapo 3 mobile plan!

@The Mole: Way back when...

...back before teh multimedia intensive intertubes, I used a teeny weenie but very capable Nokia 8210 in conjunction with it's infra red port to get online anywhere using my lovely Titanium PowerBook. It was in fact quite reliable and of course, no silly second line worries. More recently, vendors and carriers have done all they can to make using your phone as a RELIABLE modem difficult. All so they can charge for another line. It's a complete waste of time. 3G phones with their modern multi-tasking OSes are more than capable of carrying out a voice call while simultaneously using the Bluetooth or Infra red to get online using a laptop.

The solution to this big rip off is simply to cancel a dongle account (as I'm about to do) and buy a slightly older phone that has not been knobled - or do the reverse, junk your mobile and use your laptop as your phone by firing up Skype. (Keep a small PAYG mobile in your pocket for those essential walking around town calls.) My 3G equipped Sony Ericsson K800i gets me online via my MacBook and Bluetooth. It's not as fast as a dedicated dongle (Vodafone in our case), but to be frank, using cloud apps such as Google docs on ANY wireless dongle is too slow (unless permanently at 7.2MB) - cloud apps need a very fast and consistent connection, and currently, that's only possible when on a good WiFi signal or connected direct to teh interwebs using a cable. I only use mobile wireless for checking email now. Rest of mobile time is used for reading and thinking. Ah yes, those where the days! :)

Less is more. I particular when it's your phone bill.

How!

How can data be more expensive than a phone call! There is no international element required. For data, exactly the same route is (probably) used for roaming customers as local customers (if not then why not).

The only justification for higher romaing as opposed to local data is for billing purposes, and that is miniscule.

Data roaming is the biggest rip of yet.

T-Mobile

While we're at it, I would just like to point out that T-Mobile have actually upped their EU charges blaming the Sterling / Euro exchange rate (not quite what Viviane Reding had in mind, I'd imagine).

https://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/uk/08-09-roaming/

I have dropped them a nice note pointing out their rather poor timing, given the Vodafone publicity machine, but have yet to receive a response.

lets not forget

Lets also remember that a lof ot the countries that people "roam" in, have vodafone companies/networks. So WTF are doing charging extortionate roaming charges if their users are using THEIR network.

@netean

But that would involve a preferential tariff for roaming onto vodafone FR / DE / NL / whatever as opposed to roaming onto Orange / T-mobile / O2lefonica / whatever.

Which would be anticompetitive and illegal under, er, EU rules.

What the left hand giveth, the right hand taketh away.

why bother with data roaming at all?

Just buy local pay-as-you-go data SIM card and plug into whatever appropriate device you have - mobile, card or dongle.

If you have none such device, buy one from "independent" shop, without links (or locks) attached. Simple as that and much, much cheaper.

Assuming you speak local language well enough to buy something as sophisticated as SIM card, that is.

Vodafone's Impressive Creativity

These tariffs must have been concocted at Vodafone Spain. Their spanish unit shows impressive productivity and astounding creativity in this aspect.

They have a seemingly endless stream of new tariffs being disclosed all the time, ever more obscure. It is from difficult to outright impossible to know how much a telephone call will cost: it depends on your contract, the time of the day, the day of the week, whether you are calling a landline or a mobile and what company that mobile is on, the number of calls have you made so far, if you are calling from your home cell, if you are calling to an established clique of Vodafone friends, and much more.

Every parameter can be sliced and diced in several ways, at different prices, with different bonuses, fixed and progressive, making the outcome even less predictable. And with some factors being just impossible to know, like what cellphone company you're calling, the only certainty you have is that it will be expensive.

I've seen Vodafones pricing in the UK, and it is so vastly more simple that makes me want to cry.

@ Ed Blackshaw

Thanks very much for this - I'll check the settings on my phone (I bet you're right about it being set for 3g).

I still think it's a bit too much of a coincidence (from a consumer contract law* point of view) that my paid-for mobile web-browsing with T-Mobile seemed to give me data as fast as it could (especially when I was on expensive metered, e.g. by the KB tariffs), but then when a year later I got the same service bundled in 'all you can eat for free' with a bunch of voice minutes, connecting seemed to be much more unreliable, from the same place, my apartment.

*If a service is "free" or very low cost then one ostensibly has fewer grounds for complaint at/less remedy available for not getting it. Plus one looks like a whinger generally and the company can still look cool whilst delivering something not very good.

@AC - T-Mobile web'n'walk

For what it's worth I'm a reasonably regular user of t'web on me phone, and I've noticed a marked deteriation of the data service on T-Mobile over the last six months or so. It's got to the point where the G-Mail client on my N95 wont work over the network, only when I connect to Wi-Fi.

I've decided my next phone is going to be unlocked and sim-free, and that I'm going to become a network tart.

be ware!!!

the pricing is vague at best. but when it refers to browsing on your phone it presumably mean WAP APN., using the internet APN like most people who know their onions do could cost you £75 a day rather than the 5 you thought.

i also seems that just one email, or even an A-GPS fix will cost you 50p.