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o2 data limit is 200MB per month!!

S

sananda

macrumors 68030
Original poster
May 24, 2007
2,894
1,128
here is an email i have just received from o2:

Thank you for your email below. I am responding on behalf of Matthew
Key.

You can browse the web on an iPhone in three different ways; on the O2
cellular network, over The Cloud WiFi hotspots and on any open
home/work/public wifi connection.

The figure Matthew referred to on the 18th September was the maximum
utilisation of the first two of these put together - clearly any use
through home/work wifi would be additional.

Just explaining the exact numbers, the iPhone tariff includes a fair
usage limit of 200MB on the O2 network and 60 hours on The Cloud per
month. In our calculations on typical page size and usage this combined
would equate to 1400 pages per day.

Last Thursday's announced flat rate data bolt-on does not include the
Wi-Fi element which is why these figures are different.

I hope that makes sense but please don't hesitate to contact me if you
have any further questions.

Best,
Nick
 
Well that is pretty terrible. So they are assuming you will be using The Cloud access for 60 hours a month (that is a lot of time in the pub). This is nowhere near enough and not large enough to call unlimited.

What are the penalties/charges for going over?
 
what a bummer!

I wonder how many MB the so called 2.0 web apps will take up.
 
I'm not really a fan of lawsuits but someone should sue them for false advertising.
 
This email was either written by an incompetent support drone, or O2 wants the iPhone to fail. I suspect very much it is the former. There is no way on earth that Apple would have accepted terms that limit you to 200 MB per month.

The quoted 1400 pages per day, at 100 KByte per page, add up to 4 GB per month. That is quite a reasonable number; visiting 1400 pages per day (that is about one page every 30 seconds, twelve hours a day) looks like hard work to me, especially on Edge.
 
I remember reading that EDGE on O2 is limited to 200MB per month on other phones, but for the iPhone it is 200MB per day.
 
heaven said:
Email him again.. I wonder what the fees would be, too.
Click to expand...

done.

gnasher729 said:
This email was either written by an incompetent support drone, or O2 wants the iPhone to fail. I suspect very much it is the former. There is no way on earth that Apple would have accepted terms that limit you to 200 MB per month.

The quoted 1400 pages per day, at 100 KByte per page, add up to 4 GB per month. That is quite a reasonable number; visiting 1400 pages per day (that is about one page every 30 seconds, twelve hours a day) looks like hard work to me, especially on Edge.
Click to expand...

well i wrote to the CEO, Matthew Key and he passed it on to Nick Wilkins (who wrote the reply) who is in press office. so he's not a support drone.
 
I just signed up today for the unlimed data bolt-on which was set at 200Mb per month but was told O2 had now said it would be 500Mb per monthlimit. The O2 bolt-on cost £7.50 per month.

Just trying to find the correct settings so it works on my iphone as customer services don't have a clue:mad:

Simon
 
That seems exceedingly poor on the part of O2. Does anybody know if "typical" usage is likely to exceed 200MB?
 
I've posted this several times in other threads - but no-one seems to have paid attention, despite me knowing exactly how this works.

It's a fair use policy.

They will only contact you if you go over 300mb over three consecutive months and it's simply a warning to not use as much.

It's referred to as 'unlimited' because you will not be charged for going over.

Relax people.
 
That's pretty sweet then. But if they contact you do they just ask nicely? Or will they start charging in the end if you keep going over?
 
TBi said:
I remember reading that EDGE on O2 is limited to 200MB per month on other phones, but for the iPhone it is 200MB per day.
Click to expand...

it was an assumption by certain posters that it would be 200 MB per day. the assumption came about like this: at the launch the o2 ceo said 1,400 web pages per day would break the fair use policy, when they introduced the bolt on for other tariffs they said 1,400 web pages per month would break the fair use policy and further quantified it as 200MB per month, therefore people assumed that for iphone 1,400 pages per day = 200MB per day. however, it seems that o2 were including cloud usage in their 1,400 pages per day.

i wrote to o2 to check on the fair usage because it seemed clear to me people were making assumptions and i wanted some facts.

we can now work out how much the cloud and data are worth. cloud have just introduced wi-fi for ipod touch for £3.99 and the o2 data bolt on £7.50. so that's £11.49 for data. and £23.51 for the 200 mins and texts.
 
sunfast said:
That's pretty sweet then. But if they contact you do they just ask nicely? Or will they start charging in the end if you keep going over?
Click to expand...

It starts off as a text, then you'll get a phonecall about it if you carry on. They can limit the speeds of your data if they need to.

From what I've been told and from presentations I've seen they're being pretty liberal about the data but being very upfront about the fair use policy.

I dare say most users would struggle to go over the 200mb limit - especially as you're not downloading tons of files throughout the day.

They're not stupid, and they know that people are going to want to use the internet features without huge restraints - so I wouldn't worry.
 
sananda said:
it was an assumption by certain posters that it would be 200 MB per day. the assumption came about like this: at the launch the o2 ceo said 1,400 web pages per day would break the fair use policy, when they introduced the bolt on for other tariffs they said 1,400 web pages per month would break the fair use policy and further quantified it as 200MB per month, therefore people assumed that for iphone 1,400 pages per day = 200MB per day. however, it seems that o2 were including cloud usage in their 1,400 pages per day.

i wrote to o2 to check on the fair usage because it seemed clear to me people were making assumptions and i wanted some facts.

we can now work out how much the cloud and data are worth. cloud have just introduced wi-fi for ipod touch for £3.99 and the o2 data bolt on £7.50. so that's £11.49 for data. and £23.51 for the 200 mins and texts.
Click to expand...

Thanks,

you can get a 200min/400text contract for £15 from O2, this suggests that
there is arround a £10 GeekTAX (money going to apple (we assume))

this doesnt seem too bad, but realistically, in the small town i live near, there is 1 possibly 2 cloud hotspots, and they are not in the normal places i would like to sit: meaning if i were just to use EDGE... that would be 1400 / 30days = which is 46 pages, and concidering lots of the pages i look at are fairly media rich (lots of pics of shiny new toys) this could be reduced to about 20/day, which, is not terrible, but is certainly not great.... O2 i am disapointed

i would also like to point out; if apple were getting an extra £10/month from the iphone contract, then that times 18months... is £180.

now take £269 + 180, suddenly apple are getting £449 for a phone which costs £125ish to make.
 
here is a cost vs usage comparator: web'n'walk on t-mobile costs £7.50 per month and has a 1GB per month fair use policy.
 
i was asked earlier to find out what happens when you go over the 200MB, here is the reply from the o2 press office:

"regarding the fair use policy, since we don't expect the vast majority
of our customers to reach this limit, we will deal with customers that
go over it on a case-by-case basis. We will be flexible with the limit
and point out to customers where they have gone over, but we will not
cut off their service".

i also asked some other questions as follows:

1. is there a pay as you go option in any circumstances?

2. if an iPhone customer goes abroad on holiday, will s/he be
permitted by 02 and Apple to use a local SIM at his holiday destination?

3. will iPhone be unlocked (and available to use on other networks)
at the end of the 18 month contract period?

4. if the answer to 3 is no, will it be possible to use 02 pay as
you go after the expiry of the 18 month contract?

And the answers came back:

1. No, the iPhone will not be available on Pay&Go

2. No, the device and Sim are sold together and activated together as
one package. The device won't work if another SIM card is inserted.

3. After the end of the initial 18 month period, customers can give
notice if they wish to terminate their contracts with O2, or they can
continue with the contract on a month-by-month basis. However, as this
is an exclusive partnership between O2 and Apple, the iPhone will only
work as a mobile phone on O2's network in the UK. Several systems which
support the iPhone, including visual voicemail, are only available on O2
in the UK.

4.I do not believe you can use a pay as you go SIM card after the 18
months but will need to double check this.
 
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