Tag Archives: allowance

Vodafone reminds us that competition isn’t their middle name by reducing mobile broadband allowances with no cost reduction

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Vodafone has today taken the opportunity the opportunity to remind customers that they don’t understand the word “competition”.

They’ve made a very risky move of informing customers that as of 1st February 2011, a £15 top up will no longer grant them a 3GB allowance. Instead, for the same price, it will give them 2GB.

Vodafone claim that the reason for this change is the belief that 90% of their customers use less than 2GB in a month. They notify customers that if you want the same allowance, you’ll have to top up a bit more regularly.

Three (UK) currently offer 3GB allowance for £15 and currently have no intentions to remove this – so Vodafone may lose out to Three, who undoubtedly have better 3G coverage and faster speeds.

Customers have expressed their outrage and there are claims that several people are writing to trading standards. I happen to think it’ll be a risky move – and may cost them large amounts of customers.

PlusNet Extra broadband – a fantastic package with unbelievable value

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Following the release of the new broadband plans, I was quite intrigued by the Extra package.

The new plan costs a mere £11.49 a month (in Market 3 areas – go to www.samknows.com to check your exchange). For that, you get a large 60GB monthly usage allowance with unlimited usage between 12 midnight and 8am. You also get a connection up to 20MB and the possibility of not having a contract.

So, we took the offer up. We got the offer with the first 4 months free too (offer expires 27th May) so the only down payment was a £25 setup fee and we chose not to have a contract. Within 5 days it was up and running, and I was astonished with the results.

Our previous provider, IDNet, was giving us a speed of 5Mbit per second (on average), but now with PlusNet (we are still in testing period, I know) we’re getting 8-9Mbit per second – a huge improvement.

There is traffic management, but it’s very well organised. YouTube is throttled to 2.5MB per second between 6-10pm, and many large download sites (such as Megaupload – which often contain illegal content) are throttled during most of the evening and night, but that’s about it. At least we actually get to know how the traffic management works – most ISPs don’t reveal that information.

The offer almost seems too good to be true – but evidently it isn’t. I’m really happy with the fantastic value service. So overall here – a definite win. A fantastic price that can’t be beaten. Amazing!

Orange really wind me up…

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So as you probably know, I recently built my own computer. It’s all going brilliantly. Except from one thing…

Orange are a little bit annoying sometimes. In fact, they aren’t what you’d call an A* ISP. Their router is a little shabby (it can’t decide whether it prefers English or French, and it often forgets that it has ever been turned on), and their customer service isn’t brilliant either.

However, the one thing that annoys me most of all is the poor management of bandwidth usage. It’s a pain. I know that Orange seem to provide 40GB of monthly usage but they give you no means whatsoever of monitoring how much bandwidth you have consumed in one month.

Then, they say that if you use more than 40GB a month they’ll send you a warning and then cut your speed to 512kbps!! What the hell? They won’t let you monitor your bandwidth but they’ll send you a letter if you go in the slightest over 40GB.

And then if you fail to lower your usage after that, they’ll cut your connection!

Frankly, I’d rather pay a little extra per month than have my speed throttled if I go over my usage. Doesn’t that seem like the more sensible thing to do from a company point of view? They make a little more money rather than loosing a customer.

Honestly I think Orange are making big mistakes and ripping us off. Bethere do unlimited 8MB broadband for £13.50 per month on a shorter contract (12 months, compared to Orange’s 18 months) and there’s no set limit on how much you can use per month!

Come on Orange, this is rubbish!

Warning: Tiscali changes broadband usage allowance

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This has gone through very quietly, but I noticed today that Tiscali has changed its usage allowance for broadband.

It was originally 100GB per month, and I think it must have changed very recently as when I did my broadband investigation last month they were still quoting that.

But if you look on their website now, it says:

screenie

It probably has something to do with the new ownership of Tiscali by TalkTalk.

Just a little warning for any existing customers or people thinking of joining Tiscali. I’m glad I noticed that one. 🙂