O2 Scraps Unlimited Data Usage For Smartphones

Jagjr writes with news that O2, a major UK wireless provider, appears to be following in AT&T's footsteps by scrapping its unlimited data plan for smartphone customers. New customers, or ones who upgrade, will be capped at either 500MB or 1GB per month. Reader Barence adds this excerpt from PC Pro: In a blog post defending the new policy, O2's CEO claimed 0.1% of the network's users were consuming almost a third of the traffic, while the average O2 user consumes only 200MB of data. By PC Pro's calculations, that means those 26,000 heavy users are consuming an average of 65GB per month over a 3G connection. O2 had 26 million customer accounts at the start of 2010, so it has 26,000 heavy data users. 26 million x 200MB = 5,200,000,000 MB total data usage across the network per month. 5,200,000,000MB ÷ 3 = 1,733,333,333MB per month used by the 26,000 heavy data users. That means the average heavy data user consumes a staggering 66,666MB (so around 65GB) per month."

Comments

Why do I not trust their numbers?

[jollyreaper]

I'm sorry, I'm just too used to corporations lying and making shit up. Have a third party with no conflict of interest audit their numbers and then we can talk. Until then I'll just assume this is another "fuck the customer" move by a major corporation.

Re:Why do I not trust their numbers?

[MyLongNickName]

Who cares if you trust their numbers? They don't need to justify the breakdown to you or me or anyone. They only need to explain their pricing structure, then you and I can decide if we want the service.

Re:Why do I not trust their numbers?

[Threni]

They can start by not calling 3gb, 1gb, 500mb (or even less in some cases) `unlimited`. It's not unlimited if there's a limit. And they should also stop calling them `fair use policies` - they should call them `download limitation policies` or something, given that charging you for an unlimited policy, then charging you again if you download too much can hardly be described as fair.

Re:Why do I not trust their numbers?

[nolife]

When the real caps are listed, you are still free to complain but at least you can comparison shop. If company A has an unlimited plan for 5GB/month, and company B has an unlimited plan with 10GB/month and both are CLEARLY stated and made well known while you are browsing the offerings; You the consumer can compare service and price and take the best one. With "unlimited" being undefined, hidden, tucked away in some web portal under account options--> service -> data -> limits -> your limit -> "amount used" or the last page of your agreement in a size 3 gray font, you can not compare service. These companies go out of their way to call the service unlimited and also go equally out of there way to hide the fact that is it not unlimited.

It is NOT everyone wanting something for nothing, it is about having all of the factors in front of you to choose the lesser of the evils.

Re:Why do I not trust their numbers?

[eth1]

Actually, IMO, most of the caps ARE carefully calculated to be unfair. Look at the plans for data and txt usage. They almost ALWAYS break down to these options:
1. cheap plan with a limit lower than what 95% of people need, with insane overage charges
2. expensive plan with a limit way higher than what 95% of people need, with insane overage charges
3. "unlimited" plan for a few $ more than #2

Basically #1 doesn't work for anyone, so they're forced to spend way more than they need on #2, because there are no other options. (and most probably just go with #3, because it's only a few $ more, and they don't have to worry about the insane scary per txt/MB charges)

Re:Why do I not trust their numbers?

[sxeraverx]

Except what it ends up being is not 10 cents per gigabyte, but 10, or even 100 dollars.

People are (or at least I am) fed up with the exorbitant prices for what should by now be basic services ($99 a month for unlimited voice? it doesn't cost you nearly that much to carry it; not to mention the cost of text messages), arbitrary limitations (no tethering allowed? but i can visit the exact same webpage on my phone, and it'll cost you more bandwidth because I don't have the ability to block ads; only 2Gb/mo? why?) and arbitrary extra fees ($20/mo to enable tethering? "Carrier Cost Recovery Fee"? WTF? So, you're charging us for your costs, and then your charging for your costs again, on top of that?).

Ugh.

Re:Why do I not trust their numbers?

[AlamedaStone]

10 cents per GIGABYTE?

I am very pleased with my data plan. I pay $5 for about 64 kilobytes of data, and then a very reasonable 20 cents per 160 bytes above that. Why, that's only about $1,342,177 per gig. That seems pretty reasonable, really.

I don't know why everyone gets so upset about this kind of thing. You can't expect companies to just give away their services because some bad apples want to use their video-capable, application-equipped smartphones for more than text messaging. After all, they're probably pirates, and they deserve what they get for stealing from honest people trying to make a living.

Re:500mb or 1gb is way too low

[nebular]

I work for Rogers and Fido dealership here in Canada and I can say that the vast majority of smartphone users rarely go over 1gb and most even stay within 500mb (I've been shown the internal numbers). Hell I have a dealer line with 5gb and I find it rare for me to break 2gb without tethering.

It's not the limits I have a problem with, it's the pricing. I'm sure the cost for O2's data plans are WAY higher than they need to be.

yea you decide.

[unity100]

ironically, all the major monopolies which control the market are going that way, so your decision means squat. there is no 'competition'. the empty premise of the 'free' market.

They did this ages ago to me anyway

[Ash Vince]

I used to be an O2 customer until about 8 months ago when they silently changed my (sim only) contract that I paid an extra £7.50 per month to get unlimited data. This was on top of the £15 pound I paid for calls and text messages. They silently amended the "fair use" policy from 4Gb per month to 500Mb. They did not reduce the £7.50. I immediately jumped to a different company and told them why after having been a customer for about 5 years or so.

There network in the UK has been hopelessly overloaded since they got the exclusive deal on the iPhone. In central London you would be unable to get a line quite regularly. They are desperately trying to keep their network alive without spending any money since they know most people will now be leaving them since the iPhone is available from other networks.

Re:500mb or 1gb is way too low

[TomXP411]

I have no idea what O2's data transfer speeds are like, but look at the numbers:
65GB/month is roughly 2GB/day
2GB/day is roughly 83MB/hour
83MB/hour is roughly 230Kbit/sec.

This means that a few thousand customers are using their data connection 24/7 at an average rate of 230kbit/sec, or 8 hours a day at a rate of around 700kb/sec.

Yes, that's excessive.

But based on those numbers, you could bounce past 1GB in one day. Where is the balance here?