Samba Mobile Closing Down

buglawton

Lycamobile Data 12 Lasts 1 month and tablet use/tethering is unclear.

Due to the demise of Samba, people are hoping to find either non-expiring data deals or at least cheap deals with long, e.g. 3 months, expiry with tethering and tablet use being must-haves.
Hen's teeth and all that.

max_beerbohm

buglawton wrote: »

Lycamobile Data 12 Lasts 1 month and tablet use/tethering is unclear.

Due to the demise of Samba, people are hoping to find either non-expiring data deals or at least cheap deals with long, e.g. 3 months, expiry with tethering and tablet use being must-haves.
Hen's teeth and all that.

The best deal I've seen is £15 for an EE sim with 10GB of 4G data valid for 90 days. It also includes £15 of extra credit to spend on voice calls or texts. It's on Amazon from EE direct.

I was surprised that Samba managed to sell their system to advertisers on the basis that people were actually WATCHING the ads. It's not surprising everyone just played them and then minimised the window while doing something else. With rival 'play and pay' systems like Nectar Adpoints you have to click on prompts to show you are still watching.

The Samba software also didn't limit the number of times you could watch a particular ad either.

In the early days the Samba software let you play the same ad in multiple tabs and browsers simultaneously. I managed to clock up 1GB in 45 minutes once. That was changed but even this week you could still click on 'earn credit' without being logged in and be presented with unlimited ads. Once the ad started playing you simply had to open another tab and log in to be credited when the ad finished.

Multiple views of the same ad by the same person wouldn't be that attractive to advertisers.

droopsnoot

slenderkitten wrote: »

my paid alternative is giff gaff pay as you go 3gb data for £12.50, its the best deal out there.

When I went in to the 3 shop to buy a top-up voucher because their renewal site doesn't work for me, I was told by the chap in the shop that they have a 10Gb per month for £15 deal, rolling 30-day contract. I might well take that on, as I'm paying the same but only getting 3Gb at the moment.

alanjuk

I'm tempted to get a giffgaff sim and just use it on a PAYG basis, it costs 20p per day (if you use it and 0p if you dont) and you get 20MB for that. I use my tablet on 3G so infrequently that this would probably be the best deal for me. Also if I was going away somewhere and would likely want more data I can buy one of the gigabags that lasts a month

Chorlie

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/phones-broadband-gps/mobile-phones-and-broadband/pay-as-you-go-mobile-broadband/three-mobile-broadband-1-gb-preloaded-pay-as-you-go-sim-card-13828907-pdt.html

£2.99 for 1GB (30 days) also Micro and Nano Sims.
(Less than £9 for 3GB / 90 days)

I've bought several and will put one into my iPad only when I need it that will last me 30 days, but I could then go weeks without needing one so will wait, rather then just putting one in after another ever 30 days.

I can't find cheaper at the moment for a low user.

buglawton

Yeah ordered 4 earlier today, they were back in stock for home delivery.

redux

Perhaps the people talking about 3 to 10 GB a month were not Samba users anyway. Well not every month.

Earthworm

epm-84 wrote: »

I disagree about it being 'something for nothing'

Firstly, you have a pay a few pounds to join - the sims were not free and you had a pay a hefty £2.50 P&P charge on them. You also needed to buy a dongle if you didn't already have one.

Secondly, the number of adverts were limited and if you needed more credit then you had to top up using cash.


Thirdly, the amount of credit per ad view was minimal. 3 Mobile charge £10 for 1GB of data and Samba gave you 3.5MB per ad view so you got 3.4p worth of data for every ad you viewed.

Have you heard of Freeview television channels? Apart from the BBC ones they work on the basis that the adverts pay for the channel, so why couldn't mobile Internet work on the same basis?

The reason this business model seems to fail is because the target audience doesn't buy the extra add-ons. Why take a free service (or almost free) to then pay more? They also don't make money from the dongle I am assuming they are bought separately.

hessian

My Samba SIM was deactivated by 3 Mobile soon after their email. Shame as I was 9.8Gb in credit.

System

Chorlie wrote: »

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/phones-broadband-gps/mobile-phones-and-broadband/pay-as-you-go-mobile-broadband/three-mobile-broadband-1-gb-preloaded-pay-as-you-go-sim-card-13828907-pdt.html

£2.99 for 1GB (30 days) also Micro and Nano Sims.
(Less than £9 for 3GB / 90 days)

I've bought several and will put one into my iPad only when I need it that will last me 30 days, but I could then go weeks without needing one so will wait, rather then just putting one in after another ever 30 days.

I can't find cheaper at the moment for a low user.

Thats the sort of thing I'm after