I recently got a letter from my operator Sonera stating that they had changed their general data plan from 6 euros a megabyte to something like 0,9 euros a while hour (domestic, only, though). The hour would be calculated from the first event of the session. The data is unlimited during that hour.
They even have some bulk packages to buy data hours in advance.
This sort of is similar to the way WiFi is billed, so that’s refreshing. Too bad they didn’t give me this last month when we ran up a 240 euro data charge.
It’s not so bad if you cluster your access, such that over time, you have few moments. But if you spread out your activity throughout the day, you could run up a few euros a day, leading to tens of euros a month. Also, it’s a bit more understandable and easier to manage your bill.
In reality, mobile Internet use is usually bursty throughout the day (short times, but many times spread out), so this tariff is really not amenable to the true mobile use of the Internet.
Sigh.
Ok, not so bad as 240 euros for a few hours of downloading.
What do you think of this model?
What happens when you have your browser in the background refreshing a page every hour for a few day without you noticing?
i have saunalahti (unlimited 3g for 9,95e) and when i am out of finland i am almost constantly looking at my phone to make sure no application is accessing 3g and incurring kidney selling debt levels.
if i had to pay 90c per hour (or 6e per mb) i would never use my phone.
> What happens when you have your browser in the background
> refreshing a page every hour for a few day without you noticing?
Easy. 30 days x 24 hours x 0.9e. That would be 648e, sir.
I think this is an interesting charging method, but a bit obsolete in the age of email, RSS, and apps such as Handy Weather or Jaiku.
oh, shit. i didn’t think of jaiku. ouch.