Click below to
find interesting
information from our
July 2011a
newsletter
relating to:
Roaming
Travel
Mobile phones
Roaming
When a
free
update
is
unaffordable
A US man
recently had to
travel to Japan
to help his
near-death
grandmother and
took his new
iPhone4 with
him.
While
there (and
unknown to him),
his phone
company "pushed"
a series of
updates to his
phone. Over $600
in data-roaming
charges later,
Chris got the
bill and of
course, was
shocked and
tried to
complain.
To no avail.
Even though he
didn't request
the updates (and
wasn't even
aware they were
being sent), he
was
contractually
obliged to pay
the roaming data
usage.
We'd love to
give you some
really useful
tips to stop
this size of
bill, but the
best we can do
is suggest you
simply turn
data off on your
smartphone when
roaming.
Or of course,
use our vSIM
post-paid
alternative
for cheaper
roaming.
Travel
Overweight
passengers
If
you've
ever had
to sit
next to
an
extremely
overweight
passenger
in
economy
class on
a
long-haul
flight,
you'll
have an
opinion
about
whether
airlines
should
allow
extremely
large
passengers
to
occupy
single
seats,
or force
them to
occupy
two
seats.
However
overweight
passengers have
a valid point -
perhaps airline
seats are simply
too narrow.
Airline policies
vary widely,
whether the
decision is made
at checkin or
on-board,
whether
passengers are
forced to buy a
second seat.
Opinions can
easily become
heated on this
topic, but to
our mind, the US
airlines United
and Southwest
have perhaps got
the balance
right. Their
policies require
travellers to be
able to fit
safely and
comfortably in
one seat and be
able to lower
their armrests
or else buy a
second seat.
However
passengers can
claim a refund
on the second
seat if the
plane is not
full.
Mobile phones
Disappearing
networks
There's a
disturbing trend
happening
worldwide.
Mobile networks
(and therefore
your choice of
provider) are
disappearing as
they merge or
get taken over.
In
the UK, Orange
and T-Mobile
merged to form a
new network
called
Everything
Everywhere; two
Danish operators
are about to
merge and in the
USA AT&T and
T-Mobile (the
only two big GSM
networks) are
also planning to
merge (although
this may get
blocked by
regulators).
It's even
happening here
in Australia,
with Vodafone
taking over the
3 network.
The experience
here has been
typical. When 3
was a new
network, it
pioneered
different (often
lower) pricing
models, incuding
cheap roaming on
its overseas
partners. The
cheap deals have
mostly dried up
since Vodafone
took over.
A rough rule of
thumb in
network-land is
that the biggest
network makes
lots of profits,
the
second-biggest
barely
breaks-even and
the rest lose
money and
eventually go
out of business.
And when that
happens the
competition dies
away and prices
rise.
We're seeing it
happen here
already, and we
expect more
(probably really
kicking along
when the costs
of moving to 4G
networks get too
much for the
smaller
networks).
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