The new bolt-ons, called 'Internet Travel Boosters' and 'Broadband Travel Boosters' will allow a customer to add them to their package on arrival at their destination. The user is simply redirected to a page where they can buy the add-ons when they first connect to a mobile network, T-Mobile said.
"Once the purchase is complete, they can immediately continue to browse the internet, update Facebook, email or download apps and documents without the worry of paying more than they expect when they return from their travels," T-Mobile said in a statement.
The internet booster allows smartphone-only usage while the Broadband booster can be used with "all mobile broadband devices", such as dongles and tablets.
Pricing for the boosters starts from £1, T-Mobile said. The amount of data allocated for each booster depends on the country being visited. For example, within Europe a £1 internet or booster plan would provide 3MB of data usage. To get the same amount of data use while on holiday in the US would require a £5 booster.
However, visiting places further afield, such as Hong Kong, still attracts significant commitments, with 3MB of data costing £20. Currently, and without the bolt-on, T-Mobile customers visiting Hong Kong are charged £7.50 per MB for data. Increasing the amount of the bolt-on does provide some economy of scale, but 20MB of data, even with the bolt-on, will still cost £75.
The decision to reduce costs, albeit primarily within Europe, makes T-Mobile the fourth of the five major UK operators to announce reduced roaming rates before the new EU roaming regulations come into effect on 1 July. Only Orange is yet to announce new rates.– Ernest Doku, uSwitch.com
It's still down to consumers to protect themselves and make bill shock a thing of the past.
Earlier in June, Vodafone also announced it was cutting its prices for roaming within the EU. The EuroTraveller add-on costs £3 per day and allows contract customers to use their normal monthly call time and data allowance. Out of bundle charges are then charged at UK rates.
Despite the clampdown from regulators on roaming rates within the EU, Ernest Doku, telecoms expert at price-comparison site uSwitch.com, doesn't think some of the new measures go far enough.
"We have now seen four of the five major providers take steps to protect their customers. However, with Orange still to show its cards and some of the packages not going quite far enough, it's still down to consumers to protect themselves and make bill shock a thing of the past," Doku said in a statement.
T-Mobile slashes data roaming prices for EU - The Guardian
T-Mobile has unveiled details of a market-leading tariff for consumers who want access to the internet through mobile phones while overseas, and announced plans that will prevent customers experiencing "bill shock" when they return from travelling.
The cost of using your mobile phone to access the internet is set to fall dramatically across Europe from 1 July following implementation of rules to stop UK mobile providers setting excessive charges.
It means holidaymakers may finally be able to chat to friends on Facebook or watch YouTube on the beach without breaking the bank.
Some consumers have suffered bill shock after unwittingly running-up charges amounting to thousands of pounds while on holiday, after leaving data-hungry smartphone apps running in the background.
Source: consumerchoices.co.uk However, mobile providers are introducing lower roaming charges and deals on data allowances in anticipation of tighter pricing controls.
T-Mobile will allow customers to buy "booster" deals, based on how much data they wish to use, and will completely block overseas internet usage until customers purchase one of the new packages (available from 19 June).
Comparison site Broadband Choices said T-Mobile was the best option for consumers wishing to use the internet briefly, buying 3MB worth of data for just £1 or 33p per MB.
However heavy internet users might find other tariffs cheaper than T-mobile's larger bundles, which are priced at £5 for 20MB and £10 for 50MB (both have time limits).
Three is offering an "all-you-can-eat" tariff, the Euro Internet Pass, for £5, while Vodafone will allow customers to use their existing UK plan overseas for an extra £3 a day.
However Three's Euro Internet Pass will not allow streaming or tethering – where a mobile is linked to a laptop to enable internet access.
For frequent travellers Virgin Mobile's new data passes, available from 25 June2012, are valid for three months or until the data is used up, so there is no need to use all the data allowance within 24 hours. This makes the £3 charge for 5MB or £5 for 10MB reasonably cost effective.
A megabyte of data is equivalent to accessing eight normal web pages or 200 emails without attachments, according to Which?. You would need 10MB to download one music track.
The Guardian has reported on several cases of mobile bill shock in recent weeks, including that of Alexandra Xanthaki, who faced a £2,600 bill after using an iPhone app to find restaurants on a short trip abroad.
Consumers can also end up considerably out of pocket if their phone is stolen. Johan Potgieter, was landed with a £9,000 bill from Orange after thieves stole his phone while he was on holiday in South Africa.
The EU ruling caps charges imposed by UK network providers for overseas roaming.
From 1 July, the cost of data can be no more than €0.70 per MB, plus VAT, which is around 69p. This will then fall to 45 cents plus VAT, around 36p, in July 2013 and 20 cents plus VAT (around 16p) in July 2014 – vastly cheaper than some UK providers' current European rates.
Orange, for example, charges £3.07 per MB if you want to surf the net in Europe, while Three's pre-EU ruling fee is £1.28 per MB.
But some of the new pricing plans are not straightforward , with some only available to contract customers, leaving pay-as-you-go users facing higher costs, while others penalise light internet users.
Dominic Baliszewski from Broadband Choices said: "Even with these new lower costs, charges can quickly rack up. A £3 charge is still a lot if you're only using 1MB to quickly check your emails. A £3 data charge per day will cost £42 if used daily over a two week trip."
The EU rule does not affect the prices providers can charge for data roaming outside the European Union but from 1 July, people travelling further afield will at least get a warning text message, email or pop-up window from their mobile provider when they are nearing €50 of data downloads, or their pre-agreed level. Consumers will then have to confirm they are happy to go over this level in order to continue their data roaming.
Vodafone slashes 3G tariffs up to 80% - Times of India
Vodafone 3G plans now start from Rs 25 for 25 MB data usage and go up to Rs 1,599 for 12 GB data usage. Under the pay-as-you-go for pre-paid customers, the rate has been cut by 80 per cent to 2 paise per 10kb.
With reduction in tariffs, Vodafone also announced there will be no additional charges for roaming on data usage. "Additionally, Vodafone will now allow its customers to use data from their bundle package while on-net roaming across any location in India without any additional charge," a company statement said.
Last month, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Reliance Communications had reduced tariffs for its third generation (3G) high speed internet services.
"With the introduction of these plans, we aim at establishing a foundation for providing a 3G data plan for everyone, making it affordable to the masses in the country," Vodafone India Chief Commercial Officer Sanjoy Mukerji said in a statement.
The 3G tariff war is happening at a time when most of the operators are up in arms against the high reserve price of spectrum proposed by sectoral regulators Trai. The government is likely to take a decision on spectrum price in the Empowered group of Ministers meeting on July 21.
The operators have warned that mobile bills could increase by up to 100 per cent in certain circles if the proposals are accepted. According to industry experts, the price war in 3G tariffs may be an effort to cash huge investments made by telecom operators.
The government had received over Rs 67,000 crore from the 3G auctions held in 2010. With operators taking huge loans to pay for the 3G licences, experts say operators are under pressure to recover the investment.
T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S III leak offers details on pricing and two-phase launch - PhoneDog
Planning on picking up a Samsung Galaxy S III on T-Mobile? Then you'll want to take note of some information that just surfaced regarding the Magenta GSIII. According to a memo leaked to TmoNews, T-Mobile will be breaking the launch of the Galaxy S III up into two phases. On June 21, "select Retail and Branded locations in the top 29 markets" will begin offering the Galaxy S III, and there will also be a limited quantity available from the T-Mobile website on the same date. T-Mobile expects that the remaining locations will receive the Galaxy S III on June 27. T-Mobile's reasoning for the broken up launch is that it feels that customer demand will exceed its expected June 21 launch day inventory.
The leaked memo also contains information on T-Mobile's pricing for the Galaxy S III, which the carrier has so far remained silent on. According to the leak, T-Mobile will be offering the Galaxy S III with Value Plans for a $229.99 down payment and a monthly Equipment Installment Plan payment of $20. Customers interested in snagging a Galaxy S III with a Classic Plan will need to pony up $279.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and two-year contract. Full retail pricing for the T-Mobile Galaxy S III is said to be set at $629.99.
Considering that T-Mobile's Galaxy S III launch (at least the first phase of it) is set to kick off in a couple of days, it's nice to finally get some pricing details for the thing. The two-phase launch is an interesting route for T-Mobile to take, but the carrier is set on having the Galaxy S III in-store on June 21, so it looks like this plan is what it has to do to achieve that. Of course, we don't yet know exactly which 29 markets will be the first to get a crack at the Galaxy S III, so those of you that are concerned that your hometown may not be a part of that list may want to prepare to hit T-Mobile's site early on June 21. Hopefully we'll learn more when T-Mobile officially announces more Galaxy S III launch details. Stay tuned for more info as we get it.
UPDATE: TmoNews has gotten hold of a list of the 29 markets that'll have stores with Galaxy S III inventory on June 21. The full rundown:
- Los Angeles,CA
- Chicago, IL
- Phoenix, AZ
- Houston, TX
- San Diego, CA
- New York, NY
- Seattle, WA
- Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, FL
- Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX
- San Francisco, CA
- Salt Lake City, UT
- Denver, CO
- Minneapolis, MN
- Tampa/St. Petersburg, FL
- Philadelphia, PA
- San Antonio, TX
- Portland, OR
- Austin, TX
- Atlanta, GA
- Kansas City, MO
- Boston, MA
- Sacramento, CA
- Orlando, FL
- Detroit, MI
- Washington, D.C.*
- Cleveland, OH
- Jacksonville, FL
- Charlotte, NC
- McAllen, TX
Via TmoNews
Vodafone cuts 3G rates by up to 80% - rediff.com
Vodafone 3G plans now start from Rs 25 for 25 MB data usage and go up to Rs 1,599 for 12 GB data usage.
Under the pay-as-you-go for pre-paid customers, the rate has been cut by 80 per cent to 2 paise per 10kb.
With reduction in tariffs, Vodafone also announced there will be no additional charges for roaming on data usage.
"Additionally, Vodafone will now allow its customers to use data from their bundle package while on-net roaming across any location in India [ Images ] without any additional charge," a company statement said.
Last month, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular [ Get Quote ] and Reliance Communications [ Get Quote ] had reduced tariffs for its third generation high speed Internet services.
"With the introduction of these plans, we aim at establishing a foundation for providing a 3G data plan for everyone, making it affordable to the masses in the country,"Vodafone India Chief Commercial Officer Sanjoy Mukerji said.
The 3G tariff war is happening at a time when most of the operators are up in arms against the high reserve price of spectrum proposed by sectoral regulators Trai.
The government is likely to take a decision on spectrum price in the Empowered group of Ministers meeting on July 21.
The operators have warned that mobile bills could increase by up to 100 per cent in certain circles if the proposals are accepted.
According to industry experts, the price war in 3G tariffs may be an effort to cash huge investments made by telecom operators.
The government had received over Rs 67,000 crore (Rs 670 billion) from the 3G auctions held in 2010.
With operators taking huge loans to pay for the 3G licences, experts say operators are under pressure to recover the investment.
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