Vodafone starts charging customers for browsing Live!

toasterman

Thats impressive Paul.
Although as they've not sent me details, and I don't know what my usage is, I'm not sure what I'd put in the spreadsheet.
It'll almost certainly go over 10% more though. My current contract is only £20 a month, and I'm on and off of Gmail and BBC News most of the day on my phone.

Edit: Just checked my bills. That's very odd. I'd say I use gmail on my mobile quite frequently. 4-5 times a week minimum.
Yet they haven't charged me for any data since January.
I don't use vodafone's own pages at all - only gmail, google, and bbc news really.

Edit2: Damn. Just found this month's bill unopened. It's not a big one and its paid by direct debit, but I have a leaflet with it explaining the new Vodafone Live charges
This month I've been on gmail a lot, testing out browsing other sites through my phone, seeing if I can log into my internet banking through it (you can on this phone, but its very slow/small)..and oddly enough my data usage is zero.

I'd reckon if they've not been charging me for it at all, it'll result in considerably higher bills when they do...I'm not sure where I'd stand in that respect

toasterman

I'm just looking through the leaflet thing.. new charges for brand new service..rehashed old service...whatever.

I don't really understand this charging.. from what I can see, they state in one paragraph that:
"For no more than £1 a day, you'll be able to surf pretty much to your heart's content - right across Vodafone live! and the rest of the Mobile Internet - with up to 15mb usage per day".

Then in the next paragraph:
"But don't worry if you only want to check a few pages for football results or news stories. £1 is not a minimum daily charge. If you view less, you'll only pay for what you use. For instance, clicking through five made-for-mobile pages will only cost around 25p"

Lets say these mobile text-only pages are quite long - 300k each.. 300k x 5 = 1500k

So if my maths serves me:
15mb (15000k, for sake of argument) = £1
but
1500k = 25p.


The figures don't add up...unless there are different levels of this system.. so once you get over 1mb you pay more per kb.
Aside from there being this 15mb for £1 capped lower limit, it doesn't tell you what anything under the 15mb limit actually costs.


Edit:
The website makes moderately more sense but I still find it confusing.
"You will be charged at £2 per MB (including VAT) on any calendar day for the first 0.5MB of chargeable usage"
How can you be charged at £2 per mb for the first 0.5mb? Talk about over complicating it.

0.5mb (which they probably equate to 500k) = £1.
For whatever reason they're not charging you for the next 14.5mb per day. Like a data stop-the-clock. Email for 15mb, pay for 0.5mb.

So it's really 20p per 100k, capped at £1 a day, so long as you don't use more than 15mb a day.
Or 0.2p per kilobyte.
On my highest bill that has shown data usage, I had data costs of £1.90. Somehow I think the new method of calculation will work out more expensive, as I've been getting it for free for a while.

moneysaver05_2

warwick_paul wrote: »

I also received the text a few weeks ago and contacted CS using the email us section of the website.

I received this email:

Thanks for your email to Vodafone about costs of your GPRS use, I'm happy to help.

I've checked into your account and you'll need to send us written confirmation of these changes that they will cause your bill and uninclusive usage to increase by over 10%.

Please send your written confirmation of these changes to the following address:

Vodafone Ltd
PO Box 549
Banbury
Oxon
OX17 3ZJ

Upon sending the letter (with a spreadsheet showing the costs increases), I received a letter back from Voda stating they had checked out my account and as it would increase the bill by 10%, they had removed the minimum term restriction on my account and to call them if I still wanted to cancel. I have requested my PAC and will be porting out later this week.

Hope this helps someone!
Paul

Hi can you PM message me a copy of your letter so i can do the same.
cheers

KENNETH_BATTY

I Have Just Taken A New Contract This Week For Two Phones, With 1000 Minutes And 50 Texts For £82.50 Per Month, I Intend To Take My Laptop On Holiday In June What Will It Cast Me To Access My Email On Bt Internet Via Vodafone, I Foresee Excessive Time If I Have Joke Or Photo Emails Downloading Will Be For Ever.

Thanks In Anticipation
Kenneth Batty

kai666

KENNETH_BATTY wrote: »

I Have Just Taken A New Contract This Week For Two Phones, With 1000 Minutes And 50 Texts For £82.50 Per Month, I Intend To Take My Laptop On Holiday In June What Will It Cast Me To Access My Email On Bt Internet Via Vodafone, I Foresee Excessive Time If I Have Joke Or Photo Emails Downloading Will Be For Ever.

Thanks In Anticipation
Kenneth Batty

where are you going on holiday? UK or abroad?

it will be incredibly slow

I would have thought it would be cheaper and easier to go to the nearest internet cafe

Alfie_E

toasterman wrote: »

So it's really 20p per 100k, capped at £1 a day, so long as you don't use more than 15mb a day.
Or 0.2p per kilobyte.

Unless... they can’t figure out what you’re using the data for, when it could well be a flat £2/MB with no capping, and a 5p minimum charge for each session. See The Register’s Vodafone's new pricing model excludes VoIP and P2P. If you make lots of small sessions, for messaging say, that 5p minimum could have a huge impact on your bill.

I’d like to know when either Vodafone or Carphone Warehouse are going to inform all the Onetel customers of the change in pricing for the Vodafone Live! pages. I know Vodafone has chosen to exempt the Live! home page from the new charges. If no-one’s going to bother to tell the Onetel customers, that page is going to have to have a very prominent and long-lasting warning message.

TwistedPsycho

toasterman wrote: »

Thats impressive Paul.
Although as they've not sent me details, and I don't know what my usage is, I'm not sure what I'd put in the spreadsheet.
It'll almost certainly go over 10% more though. My current contract is only £20 a month, and I'm on and off of Gmail and BBC News most of the day on my phone.

Edit: Just checked my bills. That's very odd. I'd say I use gmail on my mobile quite frequently. 4-5 times a week minimum.
Yet they haven't charged me for any data since January.
I don't use vodafone's own pages at all - only gmail, google, and bbc news really.

Edit2: Damn. Just found this month's bill unopened. It's not a big one and its paid by direct debit, but I have a leaflet with it explaining the new Vodafone Live charges
This month I've been on gmail a lot, testing out browsing other sites through my phone, seeing if I can log into my internet banking through it (you can on this phone, but its very slow/small)..and oddly enough my data usage is zero.

I'd reckon if they've not been charging me for it at all, it'll result in considerably higher bills when they do...I'm not sure where I'd stand in that respect

Do you have a Vodafone Extras pack? The VF extras pack until 1 June have allowed some of your text allowance to be used for data.....

Just a thought

bob4jane

I use the Vodafone service for checking footy scores or train details.
A little while back they suddenly stoped me getting so far for free with train info, adding a monthly fee for the privalidge ("sssscccrreeewww youoo!")
Now they add some Saxa to the wound.
Bunch of cowboys.

I'm going to have to play it safe and just never use my mbile internet for fear of being charged stupid prices.

Unless someone can tell me... I also use my phone to check webmail (yahoo and gmail) How will occasional users of non-Vodey-Live be affected?

djsban

I think that this new pricing structure works either way. If you are a regular user of mobile internet then this could actually save you money with the £1 for 15mb fee!! Another thing to note that it wasnt so long ago that Vodafone had a 25p fee for accessing Vodafone live anyway!

If you are only a light user of Mobile internet and imagine that this is going to increase your monthly bills then why not use this opportunity to re-assess your tariff and get better value for money on your base cost per month.

This and many other things that I imagine we will all see coming from Vodafone in the future are all part of there plan to increase the average spend per customer.

scaldyflash

djsban wrote: »

I think that this new pricing structure works either way. If you are a regular user of mobile internet then this could actually save you money with the £1 for 15mb fee!! Another thing to note that it wasnt so long ago that Vodafone had a 25p fee for accessing Vodafone live anyway!

If you are only a light user of Mobile internet and imagine that this is going to increase your monthly bills then why not use this opportunity to re-assess your tariff and get better value for money on your base cost per month.

This and many other things that I imagine we will all see coming from Vodafone in the future are all part of there plan to increase the average spend per customer.

Why should anone who took out a new contract in good faith on the basis that browsing would be free then have to up their monthly payments just to get that which they are already getting ?

Like I said the only fair way Vodaf*** could have done it would have been to bring it in for new customers or perhaps even those who wanted it. They are penalising those light users who are stuck in contracts which are no longer any use. :mad: