O2 scraps unlimited data for smartphones

movilogo

Under typical data usage, 500 megabytes amounts to watching 60 YouTube videos or looking at 5,000 web pages.

Since networks recently lost in a EU ruling whereby they are foced to reduce roaming call charges in Europe, they are now looking for other ways to screw customers.

All Smart Phones (Blackberry, iPhone etc.) are lame without a good data plan.

flyingscotno1

PaddyUK wrote: »

I agree djrobmac. Also, a lot of providers that offer "unlimited" still have a fair usage cap anyway, Vodafone's is 500Mb and T-Mobile's is 1Gb. At least O2 are being up front about what you can use.

T-Mobile is 3GB on Androids.

ampletime

O2 still offer the Unlim WIFI so when out and about you will more than prop pick up a BTOPENZONE unless of course you have a iphone 4 or ipad you may struggle.;)

Most people these days dont use their phones for calling. Young people will use their phones for text messaging or Facebook and with so many ways to connect to your friends text messages may also become a thing of the past as will MMS.

Most who take a picture or a video on their phone will upload it to Twitter or Facebook. Lots will keep in touch via things such as Yahoo messenger, Skype etc etc.

Nearly all you can do on your laptop you can do on your phone, stream music from Last.FM and the like, use Sat Navs and applications that connect to the internet and update themselves to keep information true and correct.

o2 have real problems with the network not being able to handle the amount of people that use it. 3g often fails and sometimes their network crashes so something needs to be done.

djrobmac

flyingscotno1 wrote: »

T-Mobile is 3GB on Androids.

Android is not iPhone but......let's hope the newest players in the iPhone game do come through for you but quite frankly......T Mobile lol

Yolina

The O2 changes apply to new customers only who take out a contract/sim after the 24th June (or upgrade) if you already have your sim and don't change your plan, then you'll keep your unlimited internet (unlike Vodafone who are applying changes to existing contracts - advice: stay well clear of the "red" company, they're the worst company I've had to deal with for a loooong time)

abdulh

I have an iPhone and when I first read this news on the BBC News site I was a bit worried. I checked my data usage over the last few months and found that on average I was using less then 10MB a month.

The reason for that is that I use wifi when I am at the office and when I am at home.

So before everyone gets upset it might be worth checking if you are ever likely to reach the 500MB limit.

If you are not then this is a good thing. It means that those few people who are hogging the bandwidth will have to pay more and might leave thus improving the service for the rest of us.

BTW: I am on the 02 simplicity plan with unlimited data and although I am toying with the idea of a Iphone 4, I will probably buy it PAYG again and keep my existing unlimited taffif.

Andyblizz

abdulh wrote: »

I have an iPhone and when I first read this news on the BBC News site I was a bit worried. I checked my data usage over the last few months and found that on average I was using less then 10MB a month.

The reason for that is that I use wifi when I am at the office and when I am at home.

So before everyone gets upset it might be worth checking if you are ever likely to reach the 500MB limit.

If you are not then this is a good thing. It means that those few people who are hogging the bandwidth will have to pay more and might leave thus improving the service for the rest of us.

BTW: I am on the 02 simplicity plan with unlimited data and although I am toying with the idea of a Iphone 4, I will probably buy it PAYG again and keep my existing unlimited taffif.

I would say my average use is over 700MB a month.

So i will be sticking with my nice old simplicity deal.

abdulh

Andyblizz wrote: »

I would say my average use is over 700MB a month.

So i will be sticking with my nice old simplicity deal.

Thats a quite a lot. What do you use it for mainly if you don't mind me asking?

I suppose everyone is different. My usage is mainly push email and web browsing.

Andyblizz

abdulh wrote: »

Thats a quite a lot. What do you use it for mainly if you don't mind me asking?

I suppose everyone is different. My usage is mainly push email and web browsing.

Mainly web browsing / email / Skysports app / TvCatchup etc...

It is the video streaming that burns a bit of it and am also hooked on Mousehunt (FB game)

Fire_Fox

Don't know if this is helpful but just looked at my Tesco Mobile bills and my 'Mobile Web' usage volume for month two was roughly 31000. No units so don't actually know what that means!! I am not a heavy user at all (no social networking) and my iPhone is set up to use WiFi at home. Looking at the times I connected to the net via Tesco, I am not sure that WiFi is working every time.

Also looking at the times a lot of that usage is updating apps which I deliberately do at night as my PlusNet broadband is unlimited then. I would strongly recommend anyone spends the first few days downloading apps and podcasts onto their PC and then syncing with the iPhone instead of downloading them straight to the handset: my broadband use was 15GB the first month, when it is normally 3GB. :eek: It is also faster to download to the lappy than to the iPhone.