[Hands0n]

There has been a rather interesting development over at Vodafone UK



Vodafone has said it will make it cheaper for UK customers to use their smartphones when travelling in Europe.

UK customers who travel occasionally can take their domestic data plan abroad for £2 a day.

Frequent travellers can take a price plan that includes data roaming within their existing monthly package, with both options being available for consumer and business customers.

The mobile phone giant claims the new tariff is both simpler and cheaper.

Customers will be able to access the new tariffs in all Vodafone's European countries, plus France, Belgium, Switzerland and Austria.

Vittorio Colao, chief executive of Vodafone, said this was the year of the smartphone: "We expect smartphone sales in Europe to grow from 32% to more than 70% by 2013 and we want to drive that growth with what we believe to be the best value market-leading roaming data package."

Source: BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11860582



So, we will all be able to take our "generous" 500MB (or 1GB if we're one of the lucky ones) abroad with us for £28 a 14-day holiday. Actually, that price isn't too terrible, all things considered. And it is a step, albeit a tiny step, in the right direction for the mobile network operators.

What is particularly astonishing is that the EU has not had to unleash Ms Reding on the operator.

Now, will the others follow?

I'm not quite ready to believe that the future is [finally] bright for mobile data when roaming.

[miffed]

There must be a " *Data capped at 10MB a day " somewhere ?

[Ben]

I swear I saw it was £25MB somewhere... lol! We will see.

[The Mullet of G]

Thread title is somewhat misleading, I was expecting price reductions on actual smartphones but instead its some data roaming thing. For what its worth £28 on top of your existing bill is an expensive 14 days, I'd rather mooch around and score some free wifi, there is always a generous citizen running an unprotected router. :)

[Hands0n]

For what its worth £28 on top of your existing bill is an expensive 14 days, I'd rather mooch around and score some free wifi, there is always a generous citizen running an unprotected router. :)

Welllllll, you are Scots :D

Interestingly, while leaving your WiFi open in the UK is all but illegal (it will be one day, and is certainly unadvisable now) the Corfiots (Corfu) all practise a form of civic responsibility by leaving all their WiFi open for anyone to pick up wherever and whenever they want. It seems to work - Corfu is not overrun with pedophiles and all manner of deviant criminal. Perhaps its just a UK thing, something in our water, perhaps Fluoride ;)

[The Mullet of G]

Welllllll, you are Scots :D

Interestingly, while leaving your WiFi open in the UK is all but illegal (it will be one day, and is certainly unadvisable now) the Corfiots (Corfu) all practise a form of civic responsibility by leaving all their WiFi open for anyone to pick up wherever and whenever they want. It seems to work - Corfu is not overrun with pedophiles and all manner of deviant criminal. Perhaps its just a UK thing, something in our water, perhaps Fluoride ;)

My monthly contract is only £20 so paying another £28 just to use it abroad goes against my Scottish sensibility...I'm not a skinflint. :)

I think in the UK our attitude is more of the "Its my internet and you aren't having any" variety. Also we are probably a bit more savvy in regards to security than the average Corfiot, as an open WiFi router is an open door to your computer. It would be nice to have some form of open WiFi in the UK, I believe there are a number of apps across various platforms that have attempted to achieve something along these lines, with everyone who uses the app sharing their WiFi. Unfortunately it doesn't work that well in reality as the nearest open WiFi spot might be 20 miles away or more. Better to just mooch around and find some unsuspecting citizen to borrow some WiFi from. :)

[Hands0n]

The current Netgear firmware has the facility to create a "Guest" WLAN that can be Open, WEP or WPA (in its various flavours). The beauty is that anyone attaching to the Guest WLAN cannot gain access to the Private WLAN and so is isolated. Not suggesting for a moment that the average Corfiot is that sophisticated, however. But we do have precedents here, I believe, where "open" WLANs have been abused and the person who is hosting the wireless facility has had 'some explaining to do' - not sure if there has been an actual criminal prosecution. But there does seem to be a very strong case of liability against the WLAN owner whether or not they actually perpetrated the 'crime'.

That alone would prevent me from any notion of altruistic behaviour. Its a bit like sweeping the snow up outside your house. Already we have precedent of such good citizenship being rewarded by liability being awarded against them for someone slipping on any uncleared snow/ice/WHY outside their premises - an interesting read http://ezinearticles.com/?Clearing-Snow-Outside-Your-Home-Could-Result-in-Compensation-Claims-For-Liability-Against-You&id=3542962

So, generally, altruism in the UK is rewarded by a dirty great hefty fine! The general message being "Don't bother".

Sad really. It breaks societal links.

[Ben]

I don't understand this domestic data plan abroad thing. Everyone else is reporting 25MB for £2/day...