Oops. Turns out Vodafone Australia hasn’t been charging mobile customers for data use involving peer-to-peer, password-protected web-based email and banking sites, or VoIP services. More »
Vodafone’s just refreshed its mobile broadband plans, adding a heap of extra data to their post paid offerings. Yay for bonus data! More »
On top of checking out Lifehacker’s guide to mobile broadband, if you’re in the market for a mobile broadband plan, you should know that Vodafone’s just dropped the price of their prepaid starter pack to $129. That gets you a USB modem plus 2GB of data if you pick it up before the end of September (after that you’ll just get 500MB). More »
A mobile broadband connection is like the Batarang in every good gadget hero’s belt – you don’t need it every time you head out to fight crime, but it comes in handy more often than not. If you’re wondering which mobile broadband solution is the best for you, make sure you head over to Gus’s Road Worrier column on Lifehacker this week, as he runs through all the Aussie 3G networks and rates them accordingly.
The complicated tango between the iPhone and AT&T’s network isn’t a new story, but the latest stats—web browsing eats 69 percent of phone bandwidth—highlight the fragility of networks, allowing fresh portents of doom.
Despite the fact that the 3 brand could disappear completely in this country as they merge with Vodafone later this year, the little-network-that-could is still popping out products. This time, it’s an internet key that swivels through 270 degrees, so you can “optimise reception and position your Internet Key for ultimate convenience”. Indeed. More »
Hey, this makes sense. No one wants to hear (or pay for) in-flight voice calls, and since only grandpa uses the voice feature of his phone these days, why not simply allow data plan usage?
We’ve seen netbooks bundled with a mobile data service contract popping up in other parts of the world, but a report today by the WSJ finds HP considering the same tactic here in the US, where it hasn’t been done effectively yet. This would let you buy a Mini 1000 or any other HP netbook at a steep (hopefully), smartphone-esque discount on carriers that may include AT&T and Verizon.
It looks like the mobile data wars are starting to heat up, with Vodafone today dropping the price of their mobile broadband offerings.
For 20 bucks (or $19.95 for the pedantic among us) over 24 months, you get 1GB of data over Voda’s 3G network, plus it will cost you $5 per month for the USB Internet stick. That price is $10 a month less than the previous offering.
If you’re a data hound, you can get 5GB for $39.95 a month, with the USB modem included for free over 24 months. That’s down $10 on previous pricing as well.
Considering Vodafone pops you on their 2.5G network when you run out of 3G (rather than charge you roaming fees on Telstra’s network, a la 3), this is a pretty solid deal, and potentially the best offering on the market at the moment.
[Vodafone]
Shockingly, AT&T has discovered that *gasp* people are abusing their unlimited pre-paid data service by tapping into it with their laptops. As a result, the plug is being pulled on the $US19.99/month option starting on November 12th. AT&T will also place a cap on the legitimate laptop DataConnect plan that works out to 5GB a month for $US60. Overages will be billed at $US0.00048 per kilobyte, which translates into a bank account-busting $US480 per gigabyte. However, rumours claim that AT&T will terminate service once a $US100 overage threshold has been reached. [PhoneNews via Engadget Mobile via MobileBurn]
