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View Full Version : Super HSDPA 3G high speed whatnot..



3g-g
15th March 2006, 12:18 AM
It seems all the operators will have HSDPA offerings Q2 & 3 this year, and about time. 3G as it is makes such a difference to my working life personally just now, HSDPA will only make things so much better, it'll almost completely remove the need for me to head home to download "large" files. I'll be more than happy to sit in the car (or McDonalds/BK/KFC) and do it! :)

We've mentioned it a few times here on T3G, and I'm sure the operators are aware... the only way this'll work is if the pricing suits. None of this £2.50 per MB.

A piece in itweek (http://www.itweek.co.uk/itweek/news/2151895/carriers-plan-speed-3g-summer) suggests prices around the £34pcm for a 1Gig allowance. What do you think? If you had a 1.8M/bit mobile connection do you think you could eat that data in a few hours, never mind a month?!


...However, for HSDPA to succeed, carriers may have to lower their prices and do more to promote the advantages of fast mobile access, according to analyst firm Informa Telecoms & Media.

Informa’s research suggests the average price for HSDPA data bundles of between 1GB and 2GB is currently between €50 (£34) and €70 (£48) per month.

“What is clear is that mobile operators will leverage HSDPA’s one key advantage [of mobility compared with] both fixed DSL and Wi-Fi to justify pricing the service at a premium,” commented Devine Kofiloto, principal analyst at Informa.

Other recent research suggests low uptake of 3G services is partly due to the complexity of the pricing as well as the cost, a fact acknowledged by vendors at the recent 3GSM congress.

Kofiloto said 3G providers could learn from the experience of fixed broadband suppliers – who greatly increased custom when they dropped prices and offered flat-rate tariffs. He added that many carriers seem to be resisting this model, though volume limits have been raised. “They have been increased significantly and a consensus on a ‘fair use’ limit appears to have settled between 1GB and 2GB,” he said.

Hands0n
15th March 2006, 07:29 AM
Premium pricing will be the throttle to increased use of mobile data. The sooner the mobile operators [and so-called expert analysts] realise this the sooner ordinary folk will become consumers (and payers) for it.

I want to make use of mobile data, but I simply will not pay £34pcm for the supposed privilege of doing so. Mobile data is an adjunct to my wired internet connection. There is nothing on the cards so far to make me even consider eschewing the wired connection for a mobile one - the practicalities will not allow (it is a shared connection so if I took it with me that would not work for the other household members).

No, my take on mobile data is that the ops can do all they like to up the speeds, make it flashy, attach all sorts of bells and whistles to it. But if they continue with this "its a premium service with an attached premium charge" then mobile data will remain in the niche that it has been since its inception.

Shame really! Give it over to Wal Mart, they'll show the mobile ops how to market and sell mobile data by the container load!

getti
15th March 2006, 01:57 PM
Over in America they get things like unlimited data a month for a set fee (with a fair urage of course). This is the way forward i think and they will get many more people using data.

Im sure i am not the only one who thinks again before using their mobile to check emails or to browse the net simply because of the cost.

Hands0n
15th March 2006, 03:27 PM
I not only think again, I simply do not do it precisely because of the cost coupled with the lack of a true "need" to be in such contact when mobile. Now, if the price was nice then my "nice to be able to" would be satisfied and I would indeed make use of mobile data.

As it is, there are very few times other than the very few or when demonstrating the capability to someone not in the know ("oooh, I didn't know you could do that!!").

The mobile ops "need" Us to use data more than we, the Consumers, believe or actually need to ourselves. They won't be doing that by charging premium prices for what they [still with their PTT ideologies] believe are premium services. They haven't got that message yet, as is evidenced by their slow and inadequate progression towards pricing data for the masses - I contend that they are a very long way off still!