Location: London. I am on my way to the Eurostar Terminal on my way to Paris when I noticed two ads in a newspaper.
The first one addresses reliability: Obviously I am not the only one who thinks reliability and high availability are as important as a fair price. BT thinks so, too and tries to attract customers with 99.99% availability for a business DSL line. Not quite the five 9's carrier grade reliability but still far away from 2.5 day nationwide outages of others…
The second ad addresses the fear of massive bills because of data usage with no or a wrong data plan. T-Mobile UK offers an all you can eat 3G Internet access with the promise that it will never charge more than 15 pounds a month. I wonder if that promisse holds when using the offer abroad… As always, read the fine print. The ad also mentions that the offer includes free use of T-Mobile's installed Wifi hotspots. A good way for T-Mobile to offload traffic from their cellular network in hotspots such as airports and hotels. A humble but good beginning of fixed/mobile convergence.
T-Mobile US offers the possibility to combine your local Wi-Fi AP with the special Wi-Fi-enabled phone for free calls at home: http://www.t-mobile.com/promotions/hotspotathomelearnmore.aspx
It seems that smooth transition (when you’re entering your house while talking) is also offered, but I can’t imagine how the network could relay the call from GSM to IP/Wi-Fi (maybe special AP?).
There were also rumors about T-Mobile enabling this APs to be use by T-Mobile’s phones everywhere, and the owner could receive some bonus for other people making calls via his AP.
Hi Simon, We are currently producing a lot of relevant research to your blog, we could add you to our list if you send me your email address. just though id let you know as I enjoyed reading your blog. KR John
Hello. I would like to comment that in Germany I always have Connectivity With Reliability and Peace of Mind because for Euro 49.95 per month T-Com throws in a flat rate for hotspots (for use throughout the land) included with the home DSL package.
An article in the Daily Mail this week reported a man who received a £30,000 bill for data charges incurred whilst holidaying in Portugal. £30k for downloading an episode of Prison Break and some MP3s! After some negotiations the bill was reduced to around £200.
This surely highlights the urgent need for mobile operators to look at the way customers are actually using their mobile broadband services and reflect this accurately in their pricing strategies.