It’s all here – services tailored for mobile delivery, the soon-to-arrive iPhone 3g and now a sensible mobile data offering. With a hat tip to Rod who saw it first it seems that Vodafone is introducing a $1 per day, 10Mb cap plan for mobile data. There is now no excuse to not use mobile data – if uptake doesn’t increase significantly, the issue is outside of price and service availability.
Bring on an interesting anthropological experiment! Press release follows;
Vodafone launches $1 a day mobile broadband
Vodafone has blown apart the mobile data market with the launch of its new casual rate of $1 a day.
From July 28, customers will be able to surf the net, download music and games and play on their favourite sites without committing to a fixed monthly data contract.
The $1 a day casual rate gives customers up to 10MB of data – more than enough for most casual users on their mobile devices. Customers who go over that limit will be charged at $1 per megabyte and users who regularly need more can take advantage of our suite of data plans.
Vodafone’s GM of Products and Services, Kursten Shalfoon, says the new casual rate will change the way customers use the Internet on their mobile devices.
“Over the past year we’ve increased network capacity, the handsets are evolving rapidly and now we’re able to bring mobile Internet alive with sharper prices.”
To make sure customers can take advantage of the new rate, Vodafone’s network is optimising websites for viewing on customers’ mobiles – a first for New Zealand.
“There’s nothing to install at the customer’s end, and it works with all our WAP-enabled mobiles. It means customers don’t spend ages downloading a page they can’t read on their mobile device. Instead they’ll get a page that’s optimised for their own personal device making the experience that much better for all concerned.”
The new pricing is simple and affordable, and now applies to almost all internet data, including the Vodafone Live! portal. Sky Mobile TV and Vodafone Compass will continue to be free of data usage costs.
“We have great content deals, and Vodafone Live will still bring the best of the internet to Vodafone customers, but it means the customers can decide what they’ll want to look at and what they want to get involved with.”
In Britain, I can buy 3GB over 30 days for UKP15 on a PAYG basis plus 10p per extra MB, which more than meets my needs (there’s a 7GB over 30 days option FOR ukp25). That is roughly 13 cents per 10 MB. (Account plans are half that, with free modem). VfNZ still has a way to go.