Roaming Cost Reductions

This is encouraging news reported via ZDNet UK, long time supporters of reducing roaming costs.

The European Commission has unveiled its proposals for driving down the cost of mobile voice, text and data roaming for people travelling in Europe.

via EU acts to push down mobile roaming costs | Mobile Working | ZDNet UK.

The figures shown in the article, that the cost of data roaming is a maximum of £0.03 per MB, are very stark compared to data roaming rates that for me are £3 per MB. How many other industries can get away with charging 100x the cost of providing the service. Even allowing for 100% markup, you should be seeing costs of only £0.06 per MB, or a more useful figure… 1GB for £60, at the upper limit of what I would see was acceptable for a roaming data service.

Although encouraging, the retail price caps are really still 10x what they should be for data. With regard to voice calls, many operators already beat these limits – for example I am charged £0.15 per minute plus VAT for making and nothing for receiving whilst roaming.

Still waiting then…

Another Tool in the Travellers Toolbox

You land in a strange outpost with your Smartphone and Laptop, you cannot find any WiFi that costs less than $20 per hour, you dare not turn on roaming data on your phone for the horror of $9 per MB charging, you need to feel close to your home country, you need to be able to find out what is happening at home, you need to make that ‘I’ve landed tweet’, or find out where your Hotel is…. You are stuck. You have to bite the bullet and run up a chunk of charging to your account….

…. or you grab and power up one of the most interesting devices that you can buy today – the Amazon 3G Kindle eBook reader.

What! I hear you say. Why that? It has an extremely interesting feature for the travelling worker – 3G/GPRS Worldwide data service built in, that costs nothing combined with quite an effective web browser hidden away in the Experimental menus. This gives you the capability to do simple web browsing including tweeting, and possibly accessing webmail wherever you are for nothing. You do of course need to buy the Kindle, which will set you back about £150/€160/$200, but there are no transaction costs. Why would Amazon do this? Because of the other more obvious capability of the device – giving you access anywhere to eBook purchasing.

You know you need one…. The books are good too.

Roaming Data Must Change

ZDNet UK are going after roaming charges for data, and I must say I have to agree.

People surveyed about data-roaming charges have described the fees as “extortionate”, “robbery” and “pathological price gouging”.

via Readers vent fury at data-roaming charges | Mobile Working | ZDNet UK.

Simply because of moving from one country to another does not justify the high costs per MB that we all see – for example my provider would charge £3 per MB, which for a little bit of European travel could easily see me charged £600 to £2000 for what would be hardly a blip at home. Of course I have workarounds in place, primarily the trusty MiFi combined with a local Pre-Paid/PAYG SIM which returns me to just expensive data at anything between £20 and £80 depending on how stone-age the mobile operators are in the country. Secondarily there is the Hotel WiFi which ranges from Free to extortionate (i.e. making Roaming Data look cheap) rates.

I do hope that this Campaign for Fair Data Roaming actually does something but I doubt it, it would really require Mobile data to become popular with the Eurocrats in Brussels and Strasbourg as Mobile calling did in the last ten years to really make a change in my view. The EU forced changes to mobile call rates primarily because the one set of users heavily affected were MEPs who had to travel between home country and the two main EU Parliament locations and thus got hit hard by roaming costs. Heres to the expansion of Mobile Data usage by MEPs!

… and then we have the roaming costs outside of Europe to deal with (£6 per MB+).

Tales of ‘Woaming’ …

In some rather interesting timing, I saw that the EC are to look into the cost of data roaming.

The European Commission will soon launch a public consultation into the cost of data roaming, digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes announced on Friday.

via European data roaming consultation looms | ZDNet UK.

I would say interesting timing, because I got caught by the recent bad weather and had to change my normal travel route. I was in Amsterdam and was due to fly back to Gatwick in the UK on Wednesday, however that morning British Airways saw fit to cancel my flight and I was left looking at missing the conference I was on my way to on Thursday. I booked the alternative that I could find that worked – Inter-City Train and Eurostar from Amsterdam via Brussels, Lille and Calais to London.

You have to know that I use an unlocked 3G MiFi to give myself data access in NL through the insertion of a local SIM. I have the same in the UK. In both instances, I have carefully selected the provider particularly in NL, to give myself maximum flexibility. All lovely.

Then I had to make a trip through Belgium and France, countries for which I had not made any arrangements or undertaken any research on how to get a Sim card that is enabled for PAYG data, and to get it provisioned up for the trip. The way I work, only works for when I travel regularly to the particular country – something that I had not done for these ‘new’ countries. So I was basically screwed for any data access, and I did need it. I got off the train a little early in Belgium and needed to confirm where I had to go to and for some reason the signage was not helping me, resulting in the call to the ‘remote access’ Internet – phoning home and doing the info checking talk through with my significant other. The alternative was to pay £3 per MB (O2 UK’s EU Roaming rate), which with the iPhone would have resulted in a bill of about £30-£40 for the query.

It is at this point that roaming data is a real annoyance, and I hope that the EC investigation results in the reduction in roaming rates to something more reasonable, like £0.20 per MB or a fixed price £10 for 500MB. I can only hope. The other thought I have is I need to research all the ways of getting online in the EU, and even further afield (as the US Roaming Data cost is £6 per MB!)

Extending the Internet on the move

When I travel I generally make use of whatever hotel WiFi I can get, preferably of the free variety but I have been known to use paid services. I also try and find any other sources of WiFi as I go, taking precautions when that WiFi is open (use HTTPS with my Google hosted email and VPN for privacy if needed).

Hotel WiFi can get expensive, particularly if you have more than one device (Laptop+iPhone)and for that I have started making use of Windows 7’s key hidden feature, the WiFi Hosted Network. This allows the extension of a WiFi or wired network to second devices, without the extra device cost that paid WiFi can have or for those places where WiFi has not been provided. Connectify is the one that comes up most often if you search around, providing a simple UI that allows you to easily setup but I have found it to be clumsy, unstable and buggy – particularly in that it causes my laptop to crash on suspend/hibernate. I have found an alternative that is a lot more stable and still free (although they appreciate donations)– Virtual Router. This simple open tool, provides a slightly more bare set of features but it works very effectively, without the problems with suspending and hibernating. I can recommend it. The only thing you have to remember is that the UI requires you to select the connection you wish to share and then activate it, when then switches and shows which network you are sharing over – a slightly confusing switch that is not explained. The alternative is that you can configure the command line for the feature as described by Paul Thurrott – I find the Virtual Router UI better Smile .

However sharing WiFi or Wired networks does not always fit what I need, and for that I need to make use of 3G. This is primarily when I am between locations. 3G roaming is an expensive business and I heartily discourage it but sometimes it is necessary. What you can do to make it much more workable is to figure out the various pre-paid mobile data services in each country that you travel to and buy a local SIM card. For this to work you do need an unlocked data device, and mine is an Huawei E5830 MiFi. Rates and systems do vary per country, but there is normally ways around problems like everything being in a local language you do not know, through to countries not allowing you to buy service online with credit cards. Best thing to do is talk to the people you are visiting for info before arrival for advice.

You will find that you will need to make use of all of these approaches as you travel to ensure that you are never knowingly under-connected.

Free WiFi

One of the most under appreciated features of the iPhone is its ability to auto connect to WiFi hotspots as you go. With my current repeated travel overseas to a few locations, I appreciate the way that it picks up connections to free access points and those Hotels I have stayed in that use constant WPA/WEP keys that rarely change. So much, that I almost can get away with not using any roaming data as I ‘drive by’ pick up as I walk through the city.

Of course this works only when there is no registration or login mechansim, which points to the need for the setting of a standard mechanism for doing this which makes it ‘interaction’ free. We can only dream… although wasn’t this supposed to be what 3G data was for? Oh yes, but that was before data was made more expensive than Gold by Roaming costs!

Mobile Broadband Affordability for the Traveller

Interesting news around the Internets today – BBC News – EU moves to prevent ‘shock’ mobile internet bills.

As a mobile worker around Europe, I have to struggle with the most cost effective way of having data access for both smartphone and laptop wherever I am. This mostly consists of finding free or low cost WiFi at whatever accommodation or working location I am in, or negotiating the local pre-paid/pay as you go market for mobile broadband. The big challenge for more mobile data working is the cost of mobile data itself, which is still mostly charged in MB chunks such as £1.50 to £3 per MB. This is pretty much extortion when you see that non-roaming data can be between £2 and £4 per day with acceptable use policies applying, and the average web page or email today can be greater than 1MB in size.

So it is good news that the EU has moved to limit the amount of money you can accidentally spend on mobile broadband so you do not end up with the £2000 bill for a little bit of surfing, but personally I believe that they should be spending their efforts investigating the true cost of providing roaming data and limiting the mobile companies profits in this area, or at least educating them that encouraging data use is a good thing for them to sell more services.

What do you think?

iPhone Battery Life… improvements

The iPhone has (like many 3G smartphones) always had poor battery life when using connectivity for email sync etc. As new firmwares have become available, this life has improved generally, so that I have only had to recharge twice a day sometimes. However with the release of the 3.1 firmware, my battery life took a tumble so that I was in fact charging four times a day. This has been documented elsewhere on the Internet, and as a travelling man this had become almost impossible to keep going through the whole business day. Even with going to the 3.1.2 firmware, there was no improvement.

Then I accidentally left the WiFi on after leaving one office with WiFi and went to another office without WiFi. I did not really notice but suddenly my phone was back to and exceeded my previous battery life. WTF! Further tests with both my iPhones (yes I have two, one for each country) concluded further that this is a real affect and is not proven explainable although I have a theory that I would love checking. Technically turning WiFi should cause a REDUCTION in battery life.

The theory that I have is that Apple have boosted the transmission power on the iPhone 3G radio to allow it to better operate on the US ATT network which is notoriously poor in many US states. This causes the battery to drain further, and also explains why it was not ‘fixed’ in the 3.1.2 release – as it is not something they want to fix as it is solving a US issue that they are getting a lot of flack for. However, the moment you turn the WiFi on I believe that drops the 3G transmission power back to previous levels, which when WiFi is only beacon’ing (trying to find another WiFi network) means a reduced power draw and better battery life. The other evidence is that I note that the iPhones are noticeably warmer when only on 3G.

Not sure if this is really true, but all I know is that my phones now last a lot longer. Try it, it can only improve things.

Internet Access on the Go

For the last few months I have been spending my time in multiple countries, which in Europe means that the almost universal 3G high speed access I enjoyed in the UK is no longer available to me. What I hear you say? well the issue is not one of service but one of cost. 3G data roaming is pitifully expensive in the region of £1.50 per MB – yes per MB. There are a variety of options for reducing the cost slightly but they still price my usual traffic levels in the £150+ range, if not higher.

I could get a contract service in some of the countries but that is darned fiddly and also I have challenges about payment as I would not have a local address/bank and they get a little awkward with that. I could also get a PAYG SIM for the country I am in but it seems that this provision is low speed (less than 384kbps at best) and still remarkably expensive – nothing as enlightened as the PAYG tariffs that are appearing in the UK.

So I have been relying on Wifi – not exactly a perfect solution as I have found. In many hotels, the WiFi service is a charged for service which makes some of the Roaming or PAYG options look cheap. Really, is €25 for 2 hours a cost plus percentage service or a big fat fee with a tiny cost attached? However with judicious use of the options on sites such as Booking.com, you can find hotels with free WiFi – an absolute godsend when away from home and for working in the better comfort of the hotel room rather than the client site.

However, not all free WiFi is created equal. I have come across hotels that have WiFi only if you cross yourself and place the laptop in precarious positions… in the hotel lobby… only on particular floors or in specific rooms, and (my personal favourite) with WiFi so maxed out that you have trouble actually sending and receiving email never mind running a Skype call. All in all, this is something a little trial and error needed in your selection of hotels.

The last week has introduced a new one on me, which is the WiFi Access Point and laptop incompatibility. An incredibly frustrating situation that left me out in the cold for a few days until I figured out the setting in my driver to force it to be compatible (oh and the installation of a slightly older version of the driver that worked/works perfectly fine at home and in the office).

So watch out… particularly if you have Realtek Wifi built in or if you happen to use a hotel with Apple WiFi kit. I am thinking one thing I could do next time is to have a USB WiFi adapter to deal with the incompatibilities…at least reducing the possibility that I have a complete no-go situation. Or reconsider my 3G possibilities.

Mobile Phones – is 3G worth it?

I recently changed my mobile from a GSM only HTC Vox S710 to a HTC Touch Dual 3G mobile phone. The switch is a short term one as the switch was because the S710 was really beat up and scratched, and the Touch Dual was available at a steal of a price. It has given me however a chance to see if 3G on a phone is actually useful.

I hear you say, of course it is.. but right now I am edging towards the view that 3G for a phone is of little or no use except in the most extreme of instances. I am not talking about using the device as a modem for PC browsing, but whether the increased power usage and higher browsing speed are actually ok or not. To be honest for PC access over 3G, the best option is to get a 3G dongle or a laptop with the required radio already inbult – this allows you to use your phone and laptop at the same time, something I am always doing.

What I can say about the on-phone browsing and email download side of things, well I really do not notice the difference. With the email, I am reading small text messages and rarely open any attachments which explains it pretty much. With browsing, the performance is just simply not noticeably different – and I am talking about full screen browsing through the Opera Mini browser. Opera does a great job of compressing/caching the content so that operation over 2G is absolutely fine. The only place I saw a benefit for the speed is when I did have cause to open an attachment, but this is so rare as to not matter and we are talking about at most double the download time. I could see this difference being greater as I receive bigger attachments, but that just does not happen right now nor do I make use of it yet when running around. One special thought though is that I now have Qik video on the phone and that definitely does justify the speed of 3G, but using Qik I run directly into the other big problem of 3G phones – they suck power like it was going out of fashion.

I hear you say this must be the phone – after all it is a sucky Windows Mobile 6.1 device. Nope, I hear the same complaints from persons with other 3G phones such as the iPhone. Making use of the 3G service and the video on the device can really empty the battery purely because 3G phones require more processing power than the bog standard 2G phones.

So like many others who have moved to 3G, I now manage my life differently. I try not to be far away from a power source and recharge whenever I can. I am also eyeing up a spare battery or even the enhanced life version that makes the phone really thick. I am not however going to drop back to the 2G life – the video features are very nice, and that processor speed is also very nice in the OS giving the phone that nippy feature. It has however made me think twice about a non-replaceable battery phone like the iPhone, as charging is needed twice a day in real use because of my addiction to data access and push mail. I will just have to see what is available in August this year, when I feel I will need to upgrade again.

My thoughts however may be swayed if I do suffer too many battery out incidents.

What do you think of 3G phones?

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