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From: IanM on 4 Mar 2010 04:52

"Peter" <occassionally-confused(a)nospam.co.uk> wrote in message
news:uglto5l27m3arng9omf81moe0s3h6ur0ma(a)4ax.com...
> The new EU law came in on 1st March 2010.
>
> It limits monthly bills to 50 euros (or any higher limit if agreed
> with the customer).
>
> This could have been implemented with some agreement system e.g.
> written, or a website page on which you agree to it. If you don't
> participate, you get cut off at the 50 euro billing point. Simple.
>
> INSTEAD, what all/most the phone companies seem to have done (Virgin,
> Voda, T-Mobile I know about as of today) is they probably got together
> and have all implemented a weird and similar package.
>
> You have to either send an SMS or visit a website, and agree to buy a
> bundle each day, or each month.
>
> Virgin and Voda make you buy a minimum ~ �4 bundle. For this you get X
> MB on that day, and the per/MB rate on that is lower than the previous
> roaming rate. But if you just want to pick up a little email etc, that
> will cost you �4. Even at �10/MB, collecting some email headers, plus
> say 1k of each email, used to cost very little, but that is now gone.
> I checked this with Virgin and Voda's business customer departments,
> and T-Mobile just now.
>
> T-Mobile have done the same thing (as of today) but they start at �1
> for a day (max 3MB). This is �0.33/MB which is a lot less than their
> previous rate of �1.50/MB, and the �1 is not too much for low usage.
> The catch is that you have to go to a WEBSITE to arrange this, every
> day! They didn't realise some people get mail via POP/SMTP etc....
> This is not too bad on a laptop with a GPRS/3G radio (you have to
> remember to hit the browser first, each day, and the first Port 80
> access will take you to that website) but is a hassle if you have a
> phone whose browsing facilities are a bit limited.... T-M also offer a
> 30-day "pass" for �10 which gets you 50MB (or �40 for 200MB) so you
> "only" have to hit that website once a month.
>
> It's an awful implementation of the EU ruling. They are obviously
> banking on loads of low data users (who would have previously spent
> pennies - even on a �5-10/MB rate) dropping loads of �1/�4/�5 bundles
> which will hopefully go mostly wasted. Otherwise, why put people to
> the hassle of having to purchase these stupid "bundles" every time
> they want mobile internet?? For years, one just dialled *99# and the
> cost went on your bill...
>
> The only consolation is that with T-Mobile, using the �10/month / 50MB
> option, you blow away �120/year for 600MB/year internet access, which
> at roaming rates is not too unreasonable. I probably used to spend
> �100/year on roaming data and I am sure I downloaded a lot less than
> 600MB.
>
> HOWEVER the above is EU ONLY. Outside the EU, the old per-MB rates
> remain e.g. �5/MB Virgin, �7.50/MB T-Mobile (�2.55/MB USA), and god
> knows what on Voda (their website never bore much relation to their
> actual billing). This exposes the cynicism of the implementation
> because you can still run up that �10,000 bill just by downloading
> some DVD when you are roaming outside the EU e.g. in Croatia.

this has appeared on the Voda internet roaming charges page

<http://online.vodafone.co.uk/dispatch/Portal/appmanager/vodafone/wrp?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=template12&pageID=OS_0097>

"EU data roaming spending cap

From 1 March 2010, new European Legislation lets all customers in the
European Union set a limit on how much they spend on data roaming within
the EU. So you can now opt in to a spending cap of ?50 (equivalent to
about �43). When ?50 has been spent, your data use will automatically be
stopped.
To opt in to this new EU data roaming spending cap, call 191 from your
Vodafone mobile."

Huh, you have to opt in to the spending cap!!

also for EU

"On your phone if you just want to check a couple of emails in Europe
the first MB is charged up to �4.99 in 1KB steps and then the next 24MB
are free."

that would work for me






From: andy on 4 Mar 2010 05:03
On 4 Mar, 09:52, "IanM" <nos...(a)nospam.co.uk> wrote:
> "Peter" <occassionally-confu...(a)nospam.co.uk> wrote in message
>
> news:uglto5l27m3arng9omf81moe0s3h6ur0ma(a)4ax.com...
>
>
>
>
>
> > The new EU law came in on 1st March 2010.
>
> > It limits monthly bills to 50 euros (or any higher limit if agreed
> > with the customer).
>
> > This could have been implemented with some agreement system e.g.
> > written, or a website page on which you agree to it. If you don't
> > participate, you get cut off at the 50 euro billing point. Simple.
>
> > INSTEAD, what all/most the phone companies seem to have done (Virgin,
> > Voda, T-Mobile I know about as of today) is they probably got together
> > and have all implemented a weird and similar package.
>
> > You have to either send an SMS or visit a website, and agree to buy a
> > bundle each day, or each month.
>
> > Virgin and Voda make you buy a minimum ~ £4 bundle. For this you get X
> > MB on that day, and the per/MB rate on that is lower than the previous
> > roaming rate. But if you just want to pick up a little email etc, that
> > will cost you £4. Even at £10/MB, collecting some email headers, plus
> > say 1k of each email, used to cost very little, but that is now gone.
> > I checked this with Virgin and Voda's business customer departments,
> > and T-Mobile just now.
>
> > T-Mobile have done the same thing (as of today) but they start at £1
> > for a day (max 3MB). This is £0.33/MB which is a lot less than their
> > previous rate of £1.50/MB, and the £1 is not too much for low usage..
> > The catch is that you have to go to a WEBSITE to arrange this, every
> > day! They didn't realise some people get mail via POP/SMTP etc....
> > This is not too bad on a laptop with a GPRS/3G radio (you have to
> > remember to hit the browser first, each day, and the first Port 80
> > access will take you to that website) but is a hassle if you have a
> > phone whose browsing facilities are a bit limited.... T-M also offer a
> > 30-day "pass" for £10 which gets you 50MB (or £40 for 200MB) so you
> > "only" have to hit that website once a month.
>
> > It's an awful implementation of the EU ruling. They are obviously
> > banking on loads of low data users (who would have previously spent
> > pennies - even on a £5-10/MB rate) dropping loads of £1/£4/£5 bundles
> > which will hopefully go mostly wasted. Otherwise, why put people to
> > the hassle of having to purchase these stupid "bundles" every time
> > they want mobile internet?? For years, one just dialled *99# and the
> > cost went on your bill...
>
> > The only consolation is that with T-Mobile, using the £10/month / 50MB
> > option, you blow away £120/year for 600MB/year internet access, which
> > at roaming rates is not too unreasonable. I probably used to spend
> > £100/year on roaming data and I am sure I downloaded a lot less than
> > 600MB.
>
> > HOWEVER the above is EU ONLY. Outside the EU, the old per-MB rates
> > remain e.g. £5/MB Virgin, £7.50/MB T-Mobile (£2.55/MB USA), and god
> > knows what on Voda (their website never bore much relation to their
> > actual billing). This exposes the cynicism of the implementation
> > because you can still run up that £10,000 bill just by downloading
> > some DVD when you are roaming outside the EU e.g. in Croatia.
>
> this has appeared on the Voda internet roaming charges page
>
> <http://online.vodafone.co.uk/dispatch/Portal/appmanager/vodafone/wrp?...>
>
> "EU data roaming spending cap
>
> From 1 March 2010, new European Legislation lets all customers in the
> European Union set a limit on how much they spend on data roaming within
> the EU. So you can now opt in to a spending cap of ?50 (equivalent to
> about £43). When ?50 has been spent, your data use will automatically be
> stopped.
> To opt in to this new EU data roaming spending cap, call 191 from your
> Vodafone mobile."
>
> Huh, you have to opt in to the spending cap!!
>

That's for now, but I think there's a later date (maybe July) by which
networks have to cap everyone to a default level, even if they haven't
set up a custom one themselves

I'd need to check that, as from the other examples there are obviously
some people carefully reading things for creative loopholes

From: Andy Burns on 4 Mar 2010 05:38
Peter wrote:

> What apparently (T-M tell me) happens is what happens with pre-payment
> wifi in hotels etc: you go to any website and *their* web page pops up
> instead...

<evil>So IPoverDNS should work</evil>


From: andy on 4 Mar 2010 06:44
On 4 Mar, 11:39, occassionally-confu...(a)nospam.co.uk wrote:
>  "IanM" <nos...(a)nospam.co.uk> wrote:
> >Huh, you have to opt in to the spending cap!!
>
> >also for EU
>
> >"On your phone if you just want to check a couple of emails in Europe
> >the first MB is charged up to 4.99 in 1KB steps and then the next 24MB
> >are free."
>
> >that would work for me
>
> Not according to Voda yesterday. Their business support line was
> adamant that the "in 1KB steps" is now gone, and you will get a
> minimum bill of 4 or so. The woman I spoke to checked with her
> manager and he confirmed it.
>
> x----------x

And I very recently checked with Vodafone about very low data use when
still in the UK, was there any pro rata element up to the 50 pence a
day?

No, it's 50p minimum charge, I was told. It could be wrong, but that
is what CS are saying [well some of them, after the first person
didn't know, put me on hold for 5 minutes, and hung up]
From: andy on 4 Mar 2010 06:53
On 4 Mar, 11:47, occassionally-confu...(a)nospam.co.uk wrote:

>
> My guess is that the situation is going to be fluid for some days, as
> the networks get flooded with calls from pissed off users who do not
> want to send a f*cking SMS every morning, or access a f*cking website
> on their mobile phone <banging head on a wall> every morning, just to
> collect some little emails...
>
> I went to France on Monday (1st March) and was collecting my emails at
> about the instant that Virgin implemented this scheme. I got about 5
> emails and then got cut off, and got a text saying I need to text to
> 23456 (or some such) to buy a £4 bundle which will last 1 hour...
>
> Like I wrote earlier, T-Mobile is the least bad I have found to date,
> with a £1 bundle. It's just the need to visit their website which is a
> hassle.
>
> x----------x

Yes, I saw that other thread of yours, and it was me who posted the
(anonymous) comment on TheReg article about this, which someone then
quoted back to on your thread

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