Do You Use The 3G Features On Your Mobile?
Last week, the Australian Communications and Media Authority released a report that stated that in Australia, one third of mobile users have a 3G phone, but two thirds of those users didn’t use the available 3G service like internet browsing, video calls and music streaming.
Apparently, some people just aren’t interested in using their mobile for anything other than making calls. Others believed that the price was too high, and others just had no idea how to actually use the services.
The report also found that most people preferred using their mobile phone to a landline, and VoIP is still in its infancy here in Australia.
But with all the noise about getting a 3G iPhone and NextG services, I ask you, dear reader, whether or not you actually use the 3G services on your phone? Or is it too cost prohibitive, an unpleasant experience or just too confusing? Let us know in the comments…
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Comments
Imagine you have a capped service – but internet use is extra $’s. Its down to the money – I only ever used the free stuff after an initial trial of the paid service. Now with a new provider it’s not worth the hassle or the expense for the service.
Give me a break. My 3G Mobile phone instruction book already has 93 pages which don’t even mention the neat things I’d love to make work and the instructions seem to be written by someone who cannot think sequentially. This is how I know we didn’t go to the moon.;o)
I have a Next G phone, and only ever use the internet to check google mail on the rare occasions that I may be away from a computer. Other than that, I find the interfaces are usually horrible to use. I’m not interested in music on my phone because I always have my iPod with me.
Reduce the costs, and we may use them more.
Having said that, Since having my iPod Touch, I’m actually very excited about the iPhone. The interface is truly a masterpiece in usability, and I can guarantee I’d use an iPhone’s features far more than I have ever used any mobile phone I’ve owned over the last 15 years. I use my iPod Touch for things I can do on my mobile because a) the interface leaves every other mobile device I’ve used for dead and b) wi-fi is cheaper than using the Next G network.
I have a Telstra NextG phone, and all their 3G data pricing is obscenely expensive. It needs to be reduced to about 10% of the current price. There is a small amount of free stuff, but it’s all trivial bits of fluff or marketing twaddle.
This is being posted from a laptop with inbuilt Vodafone 3G net access, which is affordable, but has been oversold, and the increase in use has exceeded their hardware expansion. The network speed has dropped to the point that it’s not really a 3G service.
Here is how I use it. First of all I do not use your service providers browser such as optus zoo etc or limit its usage. Secondly get a mobile web browser such as opera mini to reduce the number of kb that is downloaded. Opera Mini compresses the data before sending it to your phone so it means that the content is delivered faster and costs less to receive. http://www.operamini.com . Thirdly monitor your usage via your phone’s data usage function and reset it on a monthly basis as you would know when your billing cycle commences. I currently use optus 14.95 plan for 200MB but I know that 3 has got some better offers. I guess the thing with the 3G is that it drains the battery quicker than the GSM (at least it does on the SE handsets) so if you are not going to use the web, switch to the GSM reception and switch back when you need to use the web
I have small place 30 km outside of Bathurst – have set up carkit in house as base station with high gain aerial – cheaper than land line installation – works well but hand held only works limited locations – use for calls and sms only as otherwise too expensive. In Sydney, coverage good and have used video for some interstate catch up calls – occasionally “where is” facility only – don’t need rest of it.
Well I use mine a bit for the 3G data. I pay $10 for 20Mb which is stupidly expensive.
But the 20Mb is enough to do my work emails through webmail and check a few Gmail acounts a few times each day.
Apart from that I read the news and check the weather etc all within Telstras ‘free zone’ so far in the past year or so I haven’t spent over my limit yet :)
I also make occasional video calls to my family when away, so far this hasn’t broken my $79 for $550 worth of calls.
So I guess I do utilize the 3G a fair bit, I also have a Vodaphone 3g modem for my laptop which I find works really well.
i would use the 3 g capabilities of my phone but there is no 3g coverage in Batemans Bay……
To the first Ben who posted, unsure what your issue is, I’m in inner north Canberra and have both home ADSL2+ and access to 3’s 3G services (namely internet access on my N95)…
feel like elaborating on what your actual issue is?
I am with 3, and very rarely use it due to cost, and little need as I have broadband at home and work, and am rarely anywhere else.
I have actually disabled 3g on my pda as i had a 14% dropout rate- mostly from it swapping between 2g and 3g. I am quite happy with the fact that 3 have to pay telstra for every second that i use my phone, as they have refused to fix the 3g reception which is flimsy both at work and home. They are likely losing money. Sadly it chews the battery and I still can’t talk in my kitchen.
I think we pay far too much for communications in general, it is a ridiculous percentage of income.
I would use the 3G capabilities of my phone if it wasn’t such a rip off. I recently was living in Spain where my data use was 0.0012 euro (less than a cent!) per MB, or unlimted data for 1.20 euro a day. This was regardless of whether you had prepaid/contract or how much you spent each month.
Here it’s so expensive and complicated. With vodafone I can’t use the regular prepaid credit from my monthly cap (that is only for phonecalls/sms), I have to buy special “extras packs” for $5-$8 or more. Not only is that ridiculous pricing designed to confuse consumers and make sure their credit often expires before they’ve used it all, most of those “packs” only give you access to vodafone crap or specific sites like myspace/hotmail. I just want to check my email (which is not hotmail) and ocassionally use google maps. Why can’t they just deduct an amount per Kb from the credit in my cap like phone companies do in most other places?
3G Video calls & browsing is still too pricey in Australia.
Another amusing story is the $29 Cap. I guess I was too silly to understand it. I originally thought that it would limit my calls to $29 per month, however, it appears you get $120 free calls and
whatever goes above the $120 mark are calls added to
the original $29, so I ended up with larger bills.
Not what I realy wanted. So beware.
I don’t know if anyone else has this problem but I’ve noticed an interesting and mysterious trend with my 3G data services on Three mobile. My phone can be sitting on the table for an hour and be showing the “3″ for network in use. Then literally within MINUTES of picking it up and using it to browse the web, it switches to “Roaming”. Methinks 3 Australia is a little hooked on roaming charges…
I have an iPhone and I use it mainly for web browsing esp. when I’m on the train. That’s the main reason I bought the iPhone. I must say however, that the cost of web browsing is a big worry. That is definitely a factor that caused me to limit my browsing to a minimum.
Hardly use it due to cost & the fact that coverage isn’t very good outside the cities.
I just wan’t a PHONE to be a PHONE and not all this rubbish with Internet and Music..I am still using my old fashioned phone and will not change.I went into a Telstra Store a month ago and all i got from the Sales rep was,It can play this music and that music and you can go on the Internet….i said to him are you going to keep blabbing about all thia music and internet bullshit ..amd would you believe he was so brainwashed he did not hear what i said..so i stood up dropped his you beaut phone in the waste bin and left the premises saying …ALL I WANT IS A PHONE NOTHING ELSE . So Telstra you loose another customer.
too expensive, and too slow scolling around looking for the info you need especially with a small PDA or phone screen, and not optimised for mobile browsing. Also I dont use picture or video because A. dont like having my picture taken at all and also B. most people I contact dont have a phone capable of showing video yet anyway. The internet is handy to have when you are lost though.
I’ve been with 3 ever since they first began and I use the data services more than I can possibly count. Sure the prices can be rather high but you have to really sit and work out what you want before jumping into any deals. Just like any complicated purchase, if you don’t get enough information or are unsure of what exactly you will be doing with your 3G services, you will be hitting pretty high bills.
I don’t know about other carriers so I’ll just go with what I have with 3.
My phone is a Dopod 838 Pro on a 49 dollar plan which basically covers all my calls for the month due to the cap. I also pay an additional $30 a month for mobile internet on the device which covers me for 2GB of data usage. This allows me to send and receive email on my phone and also check my other pop emails addresses (with Optus for instance) should I so choose to.
Surfing on the phone isn’t exactly something you enjoy doing due to the size of the screen and the huge amounts of scrolling. However, I use the phone to connect to my laptop meaning that the 2GB of data usage I have on the phone, can be also used on the laptop as long as I use the phone as a modem and pretty much set it up to share the internet with my laptop. This gives me 2GB of data which may not be much, but is more than enough for a more than reasonable amount of surfing and my World of Warcraft addiction on occasion. And all this for an extra $30. Sure to a lot of you, it may not be justifiable or seem quite expensive but I think that the price is rather fair. Should it be cheaper? Of course…like everything in life it can be cheaper but I for one do not believe the cost is too high, or maybe I am just content with the service I pay for considering the amount of use I put into it.
Oh and just in case any of you were wondering, I do have a home ADSL2+ Optus internet connection so this is only for times I with to use the net away from home.
After CDMA i just wanted a phone, yeah SMS IS a handy feature, but i didn’t need a full-blown communications centre with services that cost the earth.
I use a 3.5g phone and Virgin’s $20/mth V2V service with a $10/mth 300mb data plan. I use the GPS on my phone, Handy Weather/Clock, and an application called Fring which allows me to use Skype/MSN Messenger/ICQ/Google Talk et cetera. MSN on my phone has become my main form of communication other than voice. It’s dirt cheap and comparing it to SMS is akin to the difference between dial-up and broadband.
VOIP is the future and, hate to sound like a commercial; but the future is now.
If someone were smart enough to implement a viable naked DSL option (IINet and Internode are rorting $’s from people unnecessarily) I’d be there in a flash.
The things that keep Australia a third-world country, technologically; are high-cost limited (ie:traffic should be unlimited) internet and telephony.
I’m tech aware, work at ADSL2+ on an 802.11n network; but find it financially prohibitive to support Australian companies for my technological needs.
The current trend is to take the Australian market for as much money as possible while providing a substandard service.
In a global economy all this does is drive people who know better to offshore source/s. Not good for Australia or its future – which is a damn shame.
I was forced into getting my NextG simply for the coverage… I go bush quite frequently.. after CDMA closed. I hate it! All I want is a simple phone like my old Nokia 2112. Light, simple and robust!
And no, I’m not a luddite, in fact I’m IT support for a multinational!
Well, I have a 3G fone, and I *was* on a Vodafone data plan a few months ago, but the damn thing just kept freezing everytime I tried to access 3G services, and I’m not buying another handset.
Apart from that, I found 3G is not as reliable as I’d like (dropping out in Sydney Metro). So, I tossed in the towel and dropped off the data services.
Bottom line: When the technology is reliable enough, I’ll embrace it.
I accidentally hit the Virgin Vibe button on my phone and quickly cancelled it but it still connects to the internet for a second or two before the cancel cuts in. I got the bill for my 2 seconds net access yesterday – $1.10 . no wonder no one uses teh services , they are ridiculously overpriced
I think a lot more Aussies would use these services if they werent so darn expensive i use my phone constantly and use a lot of the 3G features but when the bill comes in sometimes i wonder if it’s worth it at all…….annoying but useful……why cant these services be made much cheaper to all…. right there your figures would go straight up and more and more people would embrace this type of technology.
I have an N95 which is severly handicapped without a proper data plan. As with most new phones, only a very small percentage of the phone’s capabilities are actually locally available on the phone. Most of the power requires data access, which in this country is just far too expensive. The download speeds are there, but the download cap is too low and the cost simply too high for all but corporate users.