A while ago I read about the fashion brand, Ted Baker, jumping on the mobile bandwagon.

I like to find out about these sorts of things. Other brands have entered the mobile marketplace before Ted Baker and, in some cases, done a reasonable job. While they might not be my cup-of-tea (or glass of Irn Bru), some folk love them.

I have to draw the line somewhere though and I thoroughly tripped right over the line yesterday when I was walking by Carphone Warehouse on Tottenham Court Road.

I glanced in and noticed this:

That’s right. A Ted Baker concessionary stand featuring the Ted Baker branded handsets.

Rubbish.

100% rubbish.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such a cynical stick-our-label-on-it approach from a fashion brand before. This is nothing short of ridiculous.

Three Samsungs and an HTC Touch, coloured pinky purple. That’s the ‘exclusive’ collection.

Nothing different.

Nothing designed.

No thought, no flair, certainly no Ted and no Baker.

Appalling.

I’ve been playing with GoGrid — the first multi-tier, grid hosting platform (backed by ServePath) that allows you to manage your internet infrastructure completely on-demand, via the web. I signed up for an account (you just need a credit card, but it’s not charged at sign-up and you get $50 credit to play about) and added a few servers to my account.

You can add load balancers. Servers. Databases. It’s wicked!

There’s a lot of mobile developers reading so I thought I’d post up this service credit offer via GoGrid Account Executive, Tom Cory. He whacked me over this promo code:

GGTC

He writes:

The code is good for a $100 service credit, to redeem sign up at http://www.gogrid.com/pricing/index.php and enter - GGTC

Cancel anytime no obligation.

Give it a go! $100 is a good amount to experiment with.

That’s what I’ll do, I said to myself this afternoon, I’ll update my Nokia N73 firmware. It’s a bit old, you see, my N73. It’s a bit 2006. I found this news on the Nokia Updater site and reckoned it’d be worth a look:

Nokia N73 software version 4.0812.4.x released - 22 May 2008

This software version includes support for mobile TV (when used with SU-33W receiver) and Express Mail clients. This release also includes updates and improvements to Nokia Maps and improved Java support.

I fired up the Nokia Software Updater thinking that ‘they’ll surely have fixed that Vista problem by now’…. but no. Still screwed.

Arse.

I tell you, I’m looking forward to getting hold of an Android-capable handset to try out all these wicked applications coming our way. There’s so much developer freedom — *so* much.

One application that caught my eye recently was Trak.

“Trak”, the site’s front-page reveals, “is an Android based Twitter client that can Tweet your geolocation, and read and display the geolocations of your Twitter friends. With street maps, satellite view and all.”

I’d have that in a minute. Here’s a screenshot of some Twitterers on the Trak map - I highlighted’em in red:

I can imagine applications like these being heavily, heavily used. I can’t wait to see how they perform in the real world!

I came across this offer the other day from PC World, one of the leading electrical retailers in the UK. Working with mobile network 3, they’re offering a free laptop to any subscriber to a 3 mobile broadband package. Or, they’ll offer 350 pounds off a higher spec laptop. Genius!

There is a catch. Obviously. Well, it’s not that bad, really. You get a wicked laptop from Compaq, but you do need to commit to 35 pounds a month for 18 months (with the USB modem).

Here’s the offer:

Celeron processor, aye. A gig of ram, 80gig of disk space, Windows Vista… come on, you can’t argue with that, can you?

Total payable over 18 months? 630 quid. You *could* buy the laptop separately for £329.99 and then do a tenner-a-month contract with 3. That would certainly work out cheaper. But if 300+ is a bit too much to spunk out (as it is for most customers of mobile phone handsets) then this does make sense.

I do like the subsidised model applied to laptops. Very smart. It’ll help get a lot of folk converted. You can, by the way, get a MacBook for just 349 quid up front.

More information here.

I’m continually surprised by how many people want to ’speak’ to me, audibly.

It never ceases to amaze me. There’s a certain amount of overhead that goes into a live audio call when you’re interacting real time. You can avoid that overhead to get the message through or get a response easily with instant messaging. I use it all across the day, wherever I am.

The brilliant thing with IM is that if I’m busy, momentarily or continually, then, well, you won’t get a response — until I’m not.

I sometimes need quick responses when I’m working on a post. If I can find the PR or the relevant person on IM, I’ll ask the question and generally wait for a response. But email? It’s not real-time enough…!

Add me and say hi: ewanmacleod@gmail.com, ewanmacleod@hotmail.com, ewanjmacleod@yahoo.co.uk, ewanjmacleod on Skype

$13,465.60

yes that’s right dear reader. Ewan’s pockets would be hurting a lot more than they currently do if he was in our fair country.

Here’s how we figured it out.

Ewan would have the exact same plan I do. On Fido, the now defunct $18 value pack that gives me 12MB of data a month.

Data usage by our Ewan was 275MB for the month.

He gets 12MB included in the plan, that’s 263MB left over.

263MB equals 269312k

Now at the ever gouging rate of 5cents/kb that would be

269312k * 5cents = $13,465.60

which at the current exchange rate is…. 6,864.618 GBP

Yup. Feel free to pick up jaws off the floor now.

This is what I was busy writing when I got a call from Jakub, Vodafone spokesperson…

£1,120 to buy me out of my existing contract commitment with Vodafone. I just called their terminations line to establish how it would work. The lady, to her credit, did her best to try and win me over — but she wasn’t able to do anything on data other than 500mb.

So it’s just over a grand to exit from my Vodafone deal. I already paid 20% of that, effectively, in my data charges for April. I’ll do as the terminations lady suggested and wait ’til August — then I can swap my price plan to 20 quid a month and bish, bash, bosh, I can retire the account.

I’ve decided the way ahead. I’m going hunting for a Nokia N95 8GB to use on 3. I’ll sell my E90 — useless on Vodafone if I can’t use it for data purposes properly — and I’ll get a small, simple Nokia business phone to make calls with.

I’ll write up the call in a moment. You might be surprised by the outcome. I was. I missed a fundamental element with the new price plans…

I talked to Lee of the Vodafone Forum Intervention Team (”FIT”). He’s a smart chap - kind, friendly, professional. I went through my issue: That my data usage has been substantially lower than I’d like, that I’ve been intentionally limiting myself.

Lee made the point that, all things being equal, if my usage in April stays the same (roughly 275mb) then I’ll be perfectly fine for May since I now come under the 500mb allowance.

The trouble is, I think I’ve already ramped up my usage since I knew I had a larger allowance.

I can’t go another month of 2.35 + VAT per meg for over usage.

Data on the handset is a critical business requirement for me and it’s surprising that Vodafone, together with their 13 billion of profits haven’t recognised that there is a market for people like me who will pay more for a larger inclusive bundle.

I think the Vodafone strategy is highly focused on the fact that if you want more than 500mb, you’ll pay for it. Why else would they NOT have any other data bundles?

And here I am: A stupid customer, paying 2.35 +VAT per meg for 80 odd meg in April. Goodness knows what the bill will be next month, even allowing for the 500mb increase. Lee suggested I check my usage regularly via the online billing control panel. It’s a helpful comment, however I’m afraid it’s not what I want. I don’t want to have to keep checking. When I do, by the way, the unbilled calls section continually times out:

I discussed with Lee the possibility of using my Vodafone USB dongle’s sim card in a mobile handset for data only (and having another handset for phone calls). I wanted to make sure that was an approved thing to do. It is. He was careful to point out that all calls I make from that data-only SIM will be charged at the full rate. Good point, that. (Incidentally, at 35p/minute, I’d have been able to make almost 630 minutes worth of calls for the 220 pound data charges I had last month.)

I can’t see why I have to do this though.

Why do I have to use TWO phones because Vodafone’s weak, incapable, inpaired and infirm billing system can’t handle it?

Or worse, because some numpty in Vodafone, some head-of-price-plans, has decreed that it’s 500mb on a handset or nothing, goodbye?

It’s simply not good enough. Not from the world’s largest mobile company.

Two choices.

Put up, shut up.

Do something about it.

Well, I’ve got 250,000 of the world’s most influential mobile readers glued to the site. Let’s see what we can do. Your ideas, please?

So, there you have it. I talked to a very helpful Jackie in Vodafone who tells me that in April, I used 275mb of data.

In April, of course, I was on the ‘unlimited’ 120mb data plan. So I was whacked for the cost of 155mb of data at ridiculous rates (totaling an extra 220 pounds).

As of the 1st of May, this inclusive data bundle headed north to 500mb. So, theoretically, provided I keep my data usage highly restricted, I will be fine. I won’t be billed extra.

I’m not sure how to view this.

Yesterday I took four photos on my Vodafone E90 and used ShoZu to upload them to Flickr. That took about 3.5mb of my data allowance. Just sending four photos. Now if I do that daily, that’s 105mb per month. That’s hardly a lot of photos, either.

I’m massively restricting myself when I’m out, you see. I don’t take any photos unless they’re for ‘business purposes’ and even then, I severely restrict what I upload, because of this inhibiting 500mb limit.

I also panic like no tomorrow when I’m using services like QIK. You’ll note that I rarely do more than 2-3 minute videos because of the stupid limitations on Vodafone. The 10 minute interview I did with Adam from Esendex (coming soon) took 32mb. THIRTY TWO MEG. Nothing if you’re on 3 or T-Mobile’s data plans.

Ah. Hold on.

I’ve just realised what I did. Idiot. At the very end of April, I went to Internet World and produced a series of QIK videos from the show. I interviewed a lot of people and must have done, what, 50-60 minutes worth of streaming video (so much so that my battery went flat in that period). A rough fag-packet calculation of 3.2 meg per minute x 60 minutes = 192 meg. There’s your problem.

Or, more specifically, there’s my problem.

How do I respond to this then?

Well, I didn’t go nuts at the kind and efficient Jackie. I could just hear her waiting for me to demand a refund. I could sense she wasn’t looking forward to telling me there was nothing she could do. There isn’t. I signed the contract, I knew the limitations. I’m the idiot who’s using Vodafone for data. I’m responsible for the costs.

I think that’ll do it though.

220 pounds? Ridiculous. Absolutely 100% ridiculous. My fault, obviously. But it’s ridiculous that I was exposed to that. It’s ridiculous that Vodafone can look me in the eye and take that money from me.

I knew this though. I knew it when I signed up.

I can’t simply rely on them not to screw me again. I *need* to use data on my handset (NOT just my USB modem) as it’s part of a requirement for my business. I understand — as Jackie from Customer Services explains — that the 500mb is fine for most people. I am not ‘most people’ though. And Vodafone’s utter, utter, UTTER failure to recognise the subset of their subscriber base who NEED these kinds of services, shouldn’t be rewarded.

I feel a fool — a total fool — for rewarding it and trying to go-with-the-flow. I was doing the worst possible thing you can do in business: Hope. I was living in the hope economy, hoping that if I did use more than my allowance, it’d be gently shrugged off. I was hoping I wouldn’t be billed for every extra byte. I was hoping that Vodafone’s price plan setting chaps recognised that 120mb (and 500mb) are brilliant for normobs but an utter joke for people like me. I was hoping that the Vodafone response would be better than ‘Well, if you use more than 120 or 500mb a month, then you’re clearly a power user and what’s more, you can probably afford it, right?’

Well I can’t afford to take the risk that if I interview someone on QIK or take a few too many photos or use Nimbuzz or Palringo a little too often, I’ll be spunking TWO POUNDS and THIRTY FIVE PENCE (PLUS VAT) per meg over my bundle.

No, it’s absolutely ridiculous.

I am enjoying the audio quality on Vodafone. That’s it though. The data, particularly from my E90 has been abysmal. This is in part because the E90 won’t do 3.5G. But more often than not, when I’m out and about in London, I continually get 2G coverage. Great for audio but piss-poor for data. Now and again the 3G icon will pop up … only to swap back to 2G. Usable for Google, for contact and calendar syncing, or for IM. But shit for QIKing and uploading anything fast. Shit compared to 3 and T-Mobile. Unlike most, I’ve got direct, real time experience of the other networks, every day. I’ve accounts on every network except Orange. I’m not comparing an idealistic grass-is-greener experience. I’m comparing reality. I’ve been putting up with it up until now, but it’s really quite annoying. And now I have to massively limit my usage to avoid being screwed every single month.

What next, then?

Do I dump Vodafone? Jackie from Customer Services has got someone there working on a price-plan review.

“You are on one of our biggest tariffs,” she says.

“Jackie, that’s so I don’t get surprises. 3,000 minutes, unlimited landline calls, that’s so I don’t ever go over it.”

“Ah,” she says. I reckon she was hoping the price-plan analysis person would suggest I drop to a lower voice call tariff. Not if I’m anywhere near in danger of being billed 35p a minute for calling my friends on different networks. No sir-eeee.

“Do you do custom data plans?” I asked. I’m a business customer with Vodafone, so I thought perhaps, there is something they might be able to do.

“How much,” I said, “Would you charge me for a gig of data per month? Or can’t you do that?”

“We can give you 6GB on a USB modem,” she replied.

Yeah. But they can’t or won’t give me anything better than 500mb on a handset. WHO is it that sets this limit? They need their head examined. They really do. I’d pay more. Like 3’s X-Series (1GB) or T-Mobile Web’N'Walk Max (10GB).

Half of me reckons stay with Vodafone and get a Nokia 6500 to make voice calls and get an N95 8GB/N82 on 3UK and use that as my workhorse.

The other half of me says don’t bother rewarding this 500mb limitation and pull my business entirely from Vodafone. And put up a prominent advertisement on SMS Text News telling everyone and anyone not to use Vodafone for data.

Viewpoints?

I’m about to call Vodafone. I’ve got a bit of space in my day dedicated to calling up to see what they say about whacking me for 220 quid’s worth of data. Dear me.

Here’s what I think will happen:

- I get connected to a nice person at customer services
- They look at my account and tell me I used ‘XX’ megs of data.
- I explain I understand this but I can’t tolerate being billed this much for it, not when there are other operators with (arguably better) data services that are priced a lot more sensibly.
- I think at this point, the customer services person will have to do a virtual shrug. I doubt there will be much more they can do.
- If that’s the case, that’s me. I’ll swap right-away to another operator. I don’t think there’s much point in phoning the Vodafone PR team. It’s a company-wide issue, right? There’s hardly much they’ll be able to do for me. I cannot be arsed to wait for them to introduce a higher level data bundle. Not at 220 pounds a month EXTRA.

Pah. Let’s call’em then…

Ricky is back with his Blykwatch…and he thinks a little C.P.R. is necessary.
—

Lifeguard needed to save BLYK

Firstly contrary to what both Ewan and James Whatley promised on the podcast there will be no pictures of me in Speedos and running on the beach. If that’s what you are into check out this YouTube link.

Joking aside, let’s look at the last two weeks of using BLYK. For those of you who are regular readers and listeners will know that over the last 2 weeks, there was an extra blog post about the current SMS issues and the issues has been raised on the last two podcasts. The problem is all SMS sent through the BLYK network and brand messages received from BLYK repeat up to 5 times, the worst bit these can be spaced hours apart. The result is you receive lots of annoying messages throughout the day below is an example with SMS conversation with my friends who is on BLYK.

The 1streply was received 19:40 the same message was then delivered 4 more times at 19:55, 20:05, 20:20 and 22:30. During this time I also received some of his other replies duplicated and triplicated, in the end I actually gave up and just rang him. He also told me that similar thing was happening with my replies and he was confused by what was going on.

The same happens with SMS brand messages eg I received one message at 19:48, it was then delivered 3 more times at 19:49 and then at 20:04 and then 21:31.

As you can imagine utter confusion, when I get a SMS on my BLYK phone I wonder if it is going to be something new or just an echo of a message I have already received. This issue has been going for 14 DAYS, 14 DAYS and to be completely honest if BLYK was main line (luckily it isn’t I have a T-Mobile contract), I would have said BYE BYE BLYK and left. The reason is reliability firstly I think my friends would be extremely annoyed if my messages repeated themselves for two weeks (I think two or three days they would understand the situation , but 14 days and still counting is not). The other thing as a university student (and many of BLYK’s members are) who lives away from home I need my network to be reliable, as it’s the only way people can reach me by phone, if BLYK can not sort an issue like this quickly what would they do if I could not make calls, would it take them 14 days to fix that as well?

I may come across as being quite critical at the current issues, especially as I have never topped up my BLYK phone since I got it in November 2007, however I feel the issues I have raised are very important to me and the other BLYK members. The forums are covered in posts asking about the multiple text problem and some members concerned they are paying for each multiple text however although the customer care forum team responds quickly assuring members they are not being charged multiple times they still have no date when the problem will be fixed.

I did however receive a call from customer care and they left me a voicemail on Friday 23rd May, which I expect was due to the extra blog post that was published on here the day before. The voicemail asked if clarify some of the issues I have been having, however I was not carrying my BLYK phone so was unable to speak with them.

I just hope BLYK can sort this out sooner rather then later; otherwise the threat of losing customers may be very real.

Now its time to look at the brand messages, I have received over the last two weeks.

Monday 12th April 2008

I received a fashion forecast MMS, this is basically outlining the weather for the following week and some suggestions of what types of clothes to wear, pretty handy as a weather report for the upcoming week. I received a SMS from a member of customer care telling me that the new survey we discussed was online, for more details about the data survey check out last weeks blykwatch.
I also received a MMS telling me the band The Futureheads had joined BLYK music and I could receive a free wallpaper for my phone.

Wednesday 14th April 2008

A profiling SMS asking how I played the national lottery, online, instore or on my mobile. I replied saying in store and I received a reply back saying online is much better as you can’t lose the ticket and it saves trees. There was also a web link with an exclusive offer for one free play at www.lottofreetoken.co.uk.

Thursday 15th April 2008

Firstly a SMS asking if I had bought The Kooks new album (The Kooks have signed up with BLYK music). I replied back with a no and I received a SMS telling me I can buy it in shops and I can listen to some tracks on their MySpace (www.myspace.com/thekooks). I also received a SMS whether I listened to Radio 1 during their coverage of their big weekend (more details click here). I replied No and I was sent a web link where I could look at the highlights, Wicked!!!
I also received a MMS from t3 telling me to have a look at the universe at the following link www.worldwidetelescope.org. Looks like a very nice bit of software similar to Google Earth but for the universe!

Friday 16th April 2008

A MMS advert from the lottery telling me about the same offer as before however they also gave the estimated jackpot for tonight Euro Millions Draw!

Saturday 17th April 2008

A SMS advert from the lottery, telling me the estimated jackpot for tonight, they also asked if I wanted more updates from the lottery, I did not reply I think I have had enough lottery updates for the time being. I also received a SMS from STA travel telling me their sale was now on!

Saturday 17th April 2008

A SMS advert from the lottery, telling me the estimated jackpot for tonight, they also asked if I wanted more updates from the lottery, I did not reply I think I have had enough lottery updates for the time being. I also received a SMS from STA travel telling me their sale was now on!

Sunday 18th April 2008

A SMS from BLYK and STA Travel offering a competition to win a lonely plant guide, all I had to was reply with a dream travel destination to win one! I love competitions like this from BLYK that are free to enter and all you have to do is just reply back!

Monday 19th April 2008

I received another fashion forecast for the upcoming week in a MMS. I also received a MMS from the Futurheads, telling me their album release date and a sound clip!

Thursday 22nd April 2008

A profiling SMS asking how I top up after using my free balance, I did not reply. I also received a MMS from Toddla T, telling me the release date of his new single, a link to his MySpace and also a small sound clip!

Saturday 24th April 2008

I received two adverts sent by MMS today; one was from WKD and the other from COORS. I also was given the opportunity to send feedback by SMS about the adverts.

Sunday 25th April 2008

Today I was sent a brain challenge via MMS. It was a mathematical question regarding dice and I was given the option of three answers, I answered incorrectly however they sent me a reply and the correct way to get the answer. Kind of cool, however there was no brand associated so was kind of an odd message to receive.

That’s covers the last two weeks on using BLYK, as usual if you have any question please feel free to post them below, or free to email Ewan, who will pass them on to me.

If a The Telegraph report is right, departing CEO Arun Sarin will be replaced by his right hand man Vittorio Colao, latterly head of Vodafone’s European operations.

The Telegraph says Sarin’s departure will be formally revealed at the company’s half yearly results announcement later on today, after five years in charge with the operator. Sarin had a rough time a few years back after shareholders attempted to oust him from the CEO role, but he weathered the storm and has proved a safe pair of hands since.

Under Sarin, Vodafone’s gone deeper into emerging markets, talked up WiMax and mobile advertising, got into broadband and mobile broadband alike, tried to reposition itself in the enterprise market and promised to get speeds of over 20Mbps on its network before long. Can’t wait to find out what Colao’s got in store.

Channel 4 is hoping mobile users can be persuaded to take up listening to DAB radio with the help of a new plug-in device, The Times reports, after the technology has struggled with take up.

According to the paper, Channel 4 is in discussions with electronics manufacturers to create a branded radio receiver that can be plugged into mobile phones or iPods and cost less than £20. The device could launch about the same time as the broadcaster’s E4 digital radio station, later this year.

Targeting mobile users for DAB isn’t a bad plan - plenty of people carry headphones or hands free kits with them, so why not a plug-in gizmo that will give them music to while away the long hours on their commute? That said, I think Channel 4 might be better off teaming up with an operator and bundling the devices for free with media-centric mobiles like Sony’s Walkman range - if Channel 4’s aiming for the youth market, even saving £20 could be the difference between teenagers taking up the service and not.

It looks like Vodafone’s Germany head isn’t too impressed with mobile TV so far. After getting turned down for a mobile licence in the country, which went instead to Mobile 3.0, a consortium of publishers, the operator said it will now focusing its mobile TV efforts towards selling add ons. According to Forbes, Vodafone plans to offer services through which customers can buy products seen on mobile TV, such as songs aired on music television.

Another Forbes article reports the German head Fritz Joussen as saying he doesn’t see a viable business in offering pay television via mobile phones after the emergence of phones that receive regular terrestrial TV signals. “These devices came as a surprise and call a payment based subscription model into question,” he adds.

While I can’t help wondering why, if Vodafone was so unimpressed with mobile TV, it bid for a licence in the first place, but it’s right to pick up on the question of whether paid TV is the way forward. Vodafone has repeatedly championed the cause of mobile advertising - I’m surprised it hasn’t already starting giving away mobile TV clips in return for ad viewing. After all, it’s what we’re used to on terrestrial TV - we know the model works, why not export it to mobiles?

That’s it!

Arun Sarin’s off. Yes, he’s announced that he’s stepping down as CEO of Vodafone.

He’s done a good job, I reckon. He’s been a safe-pair-of-hands and, if I’m honest, a little bit too safe. That said, he’s presided over a period of record profits (£13 billion) and he’s been supervising some pretty nifty acquisitions of late.

It’s a good time to exit though. Big high.

Who’s going to replace him? Well, there’s lots of rumours. One chap ‘close to the situation’ reckons it will be an outsider. Another chap at a competing operator tells me that Big Red’s European CEO, Vittorio Calao is widely tipped.

This is more or less what Lilly Peel, Telecoms Correspondent at The Times is reporting too.

A while ago, if you recall, I swapped from using T-Mobile to Vodafone, for my primary mobile telecommunications needs. It was a big deal for me because I’ve massively disagreed with the operator’s pricing strategy for years. 35 pence per minute to call a friend on another network (out of bundle) is frankly, in this day and age, nothing short of a joke.

12.5 pence per text message, too, (again, out of bundle) is just ridiculous.

But I took the plunge. I needed the confidence of being able to speak to people on my handset reliably. T-Mobile just kept on cutting out.

I got an 18 month contract and a Nokia E90 from Vodafone. What’s more, I loaded up, *big time*, with allowances. I didn’t want massive bill shock. I still remember getting my invoices from years ago when I was originally with Vodafone and trying to figure out how I was using up so much money (hundreds of pounds per month) on something that, really, shouldn’t be that expensive.

My first month’s invoice came and, well, it was pushing 400 pounds. No bother, I thought. Why? Well I was the idiot who ran up a stupid bill calling the UK from America. I mistakenly thought that Vodafone Passport, their much advertised international roaming service, applied to America. America’s a first-world country, right? Surely it’s the same as France. No. 125p or 135p a minute. I can’t quite recall but I blew a good few hundred with that mistake. Fair enough. I should have checked.

My second month’s bill has just arrived electronically. It’s well over 300 quid. Again.

You what?

I’ve got three lines on my Vodafone account. The first two — a Blackberry and a USB modem are fine. 25 quid’s worth between them.

It’s my main account number - the Nokia E90 - that’s ridiculous.

Read this breakdown for that number and weep:

So what are you seeing? First, you’re seeing £68 quid spent on 3,000 minutes to any mobile handset, 500 inclusive texts and unlimited landline calls. I’d need to be a total communications freak to go over this, right?

Then you see the 7.50 mobile data bundle with 500mb inclusive. Then insurance. Then 8 quid’s worth of fooking annoying ‘calls’. Fair enough.

Well, actually, NOT fair enough. That 8 quid is how Vodafone rakes in more cash from you when you call 0800 numbers, 0870 numbers and what not. 8 quid is manageable.

Move your eyes to the final row: Messaging, Mobile Browsing & Data.

One hundred and eighty seven quid? Or 220 quid including VAT.

On what?

I haven’t been using my handset stupidly. I haven’t been sending every single photo I’ve taken to Flickr via ShoZu. I’ve only sent the *relevant* ones. You have to piss about being selective when you’re being restricted to 120mb or 500mb per month inclusive.

James Whatley, regular SMS Text News contributor, assures me that, despite his copious data usage on his Vodafone account, he’s never once been billed more than 7.50/month.

Hmm.

I’ve done some QIK videos. But few and far between. I’ve been incredibly careful (which has really annoyed me. I didn’t bother when I used T-Mobile or Three).

I’m going to call Vodafone’s Customer Services tomorrow and establish exactly what this 220 quid accounts for. I’m pretty sure it’s not text messaging. It’s gotta be sodding data, hasn’t it?

If it’s data and if I’m being charged ridiculous per megabyte fees, I’ll demand a refund. Now I know that I signed the contract etc., etc., but we’re in the year 2008. Half way through it. This kind of billing is entirely unacceptable. I haven’t used the service copiously. And if it’s going to cost me 220 quid in extra charges per month to hardly use the service then, bollocks to that.

I will demand a refund on this 220 quid. Absolutely RIDICULOUS.

Further, I’ll demand 10gb of data per month at a rate of 20 pounds per month. That works for me.

It is, I’m sure you will agree, highly unlikely that customer services will react favourably to this. No bother. I understand their position. But I need to get this out of my system and I want to give them a chance to retain my custom.

I could have bought an N95 8GB on 3UK at 30 odd quid a month and used it for 6 months for the cost of these additional data charges — for one month!

So if I can’t get this resolved tomorrow, then I will swap at 5pm today to another provider.

What’s your perspective?

If you’re reading this, your DNS has updated and you are now viewing the ultra shit-hot version of SMS Text News. At least, that’s the concept. That’s the hope.

We deleted our infrastructure. We are now infrastructure-less. Instead, we’re worth a few hundred meg and distributed across goodness knows how many servers, courtesy of Mosso, the cloud-computing company.

Aye, that’s right. We don’t have a single point of failure any more. Previously, we existed on a single, static (and fast, but, not really) dedicated server. It’s our duty, we reckoned, to support new and emerging technologies. And, obviously, if it sounds shit-hot, it might be worth a poke about. And the Mosso service definitely sounds interesting.

You should, for example, get a blazingly fast SMS Text News service, every time you access. The site’s code and databases are distributed throughout Mosso’s architecture so, theoretically, we can scale to the size of Microsoft.com without doing anything at all.

It’ll at least solve the digg-death issues that we sometimes get when too much traffic hit our server and shut it down.

Got any feedback? Is it any faster for you? I hope you notice some improvement!

Simon Usborne at the Independent has conducted a few interviews with a few notable British luminaries who either refuse to get a mobile, or who don’t see the point in bothering. It’s useful to remember that although I’m now seeing normobs (”normal mobile users”) on the streets of London with two mobiles in their hands, not everyone is, as one interviewee puts it, ‘mobiled up’. An interesting read…

We chat, we text, we roam and we run up huge bills. Most of us couldn’t imagine life without them. But there remain a smattering of rebels who refuse to adopt mobile phones. Why do they resist? And how on earth do they manage?

Good morning from London on this rainy Bank Holiday.

It’s nice weather for ducks. And today, we’re changing hosting providers so you may see a few errors on smstextnews.com for some or part of the day. Standby — we’ll see you on the other side!

With the world’s biggest mobile market, China, has decided that its communications industry is ripe for a shake up. And what a shake up: the Chinese government has decided to create new, merged telecoms companies to sell mobile, as well as internet and fixed, connections.

As a result of the changes, China Unicom and China Netcom will merge and China Mobile will buy Unicom’s CDMA network, according to Reuters, while China Mobile will takeover China Railway Communication.

It’s an absolutely fascinating series of changes, all apparently aimed at balancing China Mobile’s dominance in the country’s mobile market. Rather puzzlingly, the Chinese government hasn’t put any timeframe on when the changes will happen - or provided that much detail on how all it will all work out. Watch this space.

Another iPhone rumour to come out Down Under, this one promising blistering speeds from the Apple handset. According to Aussie tech site Channel News, a Telstra spokesperson has said the device will be running speeds of 42 Mbps by the end of the year.

“We know what is coming we have seen the new device and it will be available on our network as soon as it is launched in the USA. By Xmas this phone will be capable of 42 Mbps, which will make it faster than a lot of broadband offerings and the fastest iPhone on any network in the world,” Channel News quotes the Aussie operator’s spokesperson as saying.

I’m not sure I’m convinced about these speed claims. For a start, as far as I know, Telstra’s planning to go to 42Mbps next year, rather than this year - although it does have a history of getting its network build-out projects finished before deadline.

Telstra also has a habit of complaining about a lack of handsets that can run at the top end of the speeds its network promises - I’m not sure Apple is going to go from a 2G phone to the fastest 3G phone in the world in one iteration, just for Telstra: a pretty minor mobile player. I think it’s more likely that Apple’s iPhone will be in the 3.6Mbps or 7.2Mbps region, and able to run on Telstra’s Next G network, which will promise speeds several times faster than that by the end of the year.

BMI has become the latest airline to consider ditching paper tickets for a mobile equivalent. According to the Glasgow Daily Record. The paper says the airline is trying a new system which works by sending a barcode to a passenger’s handset over MMS, which is then scanned at the boarding gate as well as when passing through airport security.

The mobile plane tickets were introduced last week in Edinburgh, with BMI set to expand the system - created by local company Real Time - to other Scottish airports including Glasgow and Aberdeen.

The Herald says that “dozens” of customers have tried the mobile boarding system since it was introduced. Dozens? Was it a slow week at BMI or is the airline not really pushing the mobile ticketing system? Surely, given that everyone carries a mobile with them at all times, it’s way more convenient to have a mobile ticket than a bit of paper that can get lost - there’s got to be more than a few dozen people willing to give the system a go.

Recorded on Friday, the latest SMS Text News podcast is now available complete with traffic noise ‘atmosphere’. This week we ridicule mobile operator, Orange and take lots of listener questions and do our best to answer them. Our applications of the week…. aren’t. That’s a surprise.

Thanks to the guys from Ping.fm who have given us the beta code ’smstextnews’ so you can try it too!

Listen now using the player below or see the links below for other options:

[Annotated on-line version coming soon, but not right now courtesy of Three Ireland's blistering 100kbs 3.5G connection speed which makes sending 20MB of audio onto the interwebs impossible]

Episode link and feeds:

[Link] Direct link to this episode’s MP3 to download
[iTunes] Subscribe or listen in iTunes
[RSS] Subscribe via your feed reader or another podcatcher
…or listen by phone on +1 206 438 4026 thanks to Greg Farrell and his team at CommerceTel.

—-

Sites mentioned in the podcast:

Dan Lane’s blog is at http://invalid.name. He’s CTO at Howler Tech.
James Whatley’s blog is here. He works for SpinVox doing clever social media stuff and their blog.
Steve Rowlands blogs at S60blogger.com.
Jonathan Jensen is sevendotzero.
How do you pronounce Vodafone’s latest acquisition Zyb?
RickyC writes BlykWatch.
Qik and FlixWagon are the mobile video sites that SMS sign-up links.
Ricky Cadden writes the Symbian Guru blog.
Mark Guim writes The Nokia Blog.
Stefan Constantinescu’s 160 character blog on all things mobile is Thumb Report.
Opera Mini 4.1 is available here. No excuses - get it.
GerryMoth writes the Nokia Addict blog.
Eqo (the mobile VOIP service) misses James Whatley - don’t we all.
Palringo is an innovative mobile-based IM service with voice and image sharing.
Ping.fm is our favouritist universal status and micro-blogging tool thingumy. Use the beta code ’smstextnews’ to share our love (metaphorically).
The Flip is the ‘normob-friendly’ video camera with built-in USB connection.
James wrote about Nokia’s camera sequence-mode here.
Billy Pot Prince’s wierd (and possibly viral marketing, but we’re not sure) site is at http://www.whatsbehindthepot.com/. Go there. Do potty stuff.

We’re really keen to get your feedback on the podcast - please let us know in the comments.

“If you’re female, please e-mail…” or if you’re over 50 please tell Ewan what you want - ewan@smstextnews.com

I’m in Co Kerry, Ireland for the bank holiday weekend, visiting the girl’s family. Good food, good drink and good company - all is well. Except that Three’s data here is abysmal.

The images at the top of this post are the maximum and minimum speeds I’ve achieved over a 3.5G connection… and have validated with multiple other tests. Noting close to the 3.6Mbs that Three say can be achieved. If I weren’t roaming for free I certainy wouldn’t pay for this…!

It seems I’m not alone. How do the Irish mobile firms cope? There’s quite a cluster in Cork.