What can you do with 1GB
Fancy 50 hours of videoconferencing each month? How about sending or receiving 2,500 photos, 100,000 emails or 1,000 PowerPoint presentations? Vikki Bland discovers what’s possible when you have a gigabyte of mobile data to play with...
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It might not surprise you to know that traditionally, the biggest users of mobile data in New Zealand have been businesses - typically small businesses with sales or service reps on the road. While laptop owners with data cards have traditionally been the main people buying gigabyte mobile data plans, that’s changing as handheld users with converged PDA and smart phone devices running the Windows Mobile, Palm and Symbian operating systems are beginning to need more mobile data for web surfing, email and downloading music and other live content. For these kinds of handheld data users, a gigabyte is beginning to look less overwhelming by the month. Kristin Dunne, general manager business marketing for Vodafone New Zealand says Vodafone was impressed with the response to its $49 per gigabyte promotion, which she says increased sales of Vodafone mobile data plans by 200 per cent. While average data use across all Vodafone’s data customers is only around 150 megabytes per month, Dunne says there is increasing demand for 1GB, 2GB and even 5GB plans. “People like the $49 for a gigabyte offer, because they know they probably won’t go over that and so they know how much they’re going to be charged [for data],” says Dunne. She says as a result of its success, the $49 per gig deal will now remain in place until Vodafone launches its faster 3G mobile broadband service around September. Telecom also has the $49 plan available until the end of September and customers can lock in that price for 24 months and pay just $199 for datacard, or pay $354.67 for the datacard on the open term plan. Hopefully, mobile data users on both networks will end up paying $49 per gigabyte for the foreseeable future. But what will they do with it? Get ready to gig “How about downloading 32 movie trailers at 30 megabytes each, sending 20,000 word documents of 50 kilobytes each or engaging in 50 hours of online gaming assuming 20 megabytes per hour?” says Stockman. (See the box below What can you do with a GB? for more ideas from both telcos). Stockman says it’s easy to see why some people think a gigabyte is more mobile data than they need, but data use depends on the type of person and what they want to do. “Some business professions like architects and engineers use a lot of data for sending big graphic and photo files, while others use mobile data just to send and receive email, but because they’re used to broadband data speeds in the home or office environment, they want their mobile email to work fast,” says Stockman. Keep that gig moving along Outside of 3G coverage areas, Telecom’s 2G mobile data network has average speeds of between 40 and 80Kbps both ways; with peak download speeds around 153Kbps. On the Vodafone 2G network, data speed is somewhere between 30 and 40Kbps; or around dial-up speed. Within the next six to twelve months, both telcos will up the ante in terms of 3G network performance. Vodafone says peak download speeds on the next two stages of its 3G network rollout will be 1.8Mbps and 3.6Mbps respectively. Telecom will also move to new data performance levels of between 1 and 3Mbps; whether or not the $49 per gigabyte deal will stay in place for data use across these new networks remains to be seen. “This is where [using a mobile network] becomes a true alternative to using a fixed line,” says Dunne. Set yourself up If you buy a new laptop, it may soon include an on-board 3G chipset which means it will be able to connect to a 3G mobile network without the need for a separate data card. At the moment, this fairly new feature is available mainly only for laptop connection to Vodafone’s network (Dell and Lenovo have announced they will build new laptops with GSM 3G chipsets) but Telecom New Zealand says it is also in talks with laptop makers. “We are working with a range of notebook manufacturers and there will be CDMA chipset notebooks on the market very soon that will work on the Telecom New Zealand network,” says Stockman. While it would be nice to save $400 on a data card, it should hardly be the key thing driving your network and device decisions. If you are buying a new laptop you’re better off choosing the mobile data service you want and the laptop you like. If the laptop and the mobile data network are then able to talk to each other without a data card, that’s just a bonus. 3G mobile data cards retail for around $400 from both Vodafone and Telecom and you can buy them from the telco’s retail stores. They come with software on a CD which is loaded onto the laptop and on-screen instructions for connecting. Data cards are also included for free with some on-account data plans. Beyond laptops, you can buy a 3G data capable smart phone or PDA device able to access either the Telecom or Vodafone 3G networks for web surfing and email. While there is a range of these devices for users of the Vodafone mobile data network, if you want to access Telecom’s 3G (EVDO) mobile data network to web surf or email with a phone, there is presently only the Apache smart phone. Ongoing costs If you travel overseas with your mobile data device, be prepared to pay a lot more than $49 a month for whatever amount of data you use, because your New Zealand voice and data plan doesn’t apply for any voice, texts or data used when you are out of the country. Depending on where you go and what network you are on, expect to pay between $8 and $70 per megabyte on overseas cellular mobile networks (not WiFi networks – these are much cheaper, although way less convenient). So the gigabyte that costs you $49 a month ($588 a year) in New Zealand will cost a staggering $8,000 to $70,000 if you are wealthy enough to go through that much while global roaming. (If you know of someone that has clocked up a global roaming bill of more than $5,000, let us know; we’d love to hear from them). Of course, when you sign up for a gigabyte at home, you’re not likely to be thinking about using that much overseas - but it does give you some appreciation of just how much mobile data there is in a gigabyte. Stay home, and have some fun with your mobile data device. For more information visit the Mobile Business Research Pavilion |
October 2006 By Vikki Bland
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What can you do with a GB? | ||||
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