Tariffs

Seemingly determined to cram the most amount of free Skype to Skype calls into our daily lives as possible, 3 announced a change in their business service plans yesterday, further proving their love for the cost-saving VOIP service.

Full details of the “compelling”, new Business Mix and Match tariffs can be found over at SMS Text News and TechRadar UK.

Ewan from SMS Text News is particularly pleased by the new announcement, especially the 300 free inclusive minutes to other 3 customers; free Skype to Skype calls, free voicemail and free instant messenger, which altogether leads Adam Hartley of TechRadar UK to conclude that this is a package that will appeal most to freelancers, the self-employed and small business users.

Bringing this back to the net, I’m prepared to go a step further and mention the appeal to web start-ups. Those guys who invent ingenious services with names like Pwoft and Zqueet generally, spend most of their time digging down the back of sofas for loose change and most already use IM and Skype to get their business done.

If you’re one of those stubborn, miserly types who would rather horde your fortune in a vast safe to swim in Scrooge McDuck-style than spend it (and who can blame you), Neil Bird from iGadget Life assures us that, even for you, “there really is no excuse now that you can’t afford to get Mobile Broadband!”

He is of course referring to the great contract-free dongle price drop that saw 3 slash the price of the PAYG green and black ZTE and Huawei E220 dongle models with all the precision of Obi-Wan slashing the arm off of Pondo Baba in the Mos Eisley Cantina. As mentioned in a previous article, this further strengthens 3’s position as leader in the field of mobile broadband.

To clarify, from the 1st May, you can purchase a pay-as-you-go mobile broadband dongle for £49.99 – which has been reduced from £99.99. You can then top-up monthly (just like you would with a phone) to ensure that you can still access the internet even when you’ve been kicked out of the office for crowbarring unnecessary Star Wars references into otherwise reasonable articles.

Ewan from SMS Text News received word recently about 3’s recent price drop for the contact-free dongles, which are now £49.99 – a whopping fifty squid off the original cost. I’m no mathematician, but that sure sounds like a reduction of 50%, otherwise known as half-price. In fact, if you’re the type of person who has lots of money to throw around in a grotesque “call this a recession!?” manner, you can now buy two for the original price point – keeping one and giving one to your Nan, simply for the resulting technophobic thrills.

I can’t really emphasise enough how highly Ewan perceives this price drop, referring to it as “brilliant, brilliant pricing” and predicting that the shiny, white PAYG USB modems will be flying off the shelves. He also offers a brief appraisal of 3’s competitors in the space, who he believes have been caught napping. And, if his anecdotal evidence is anything to go by, this is particularly true for lucky owners of this year’s thinnest, must-have item the Macbook Air.

It seems as though Vodafone’s USB modem does not come preloaded with Mac drivers, meaning Ewan had to use the 3 Mobile Connect software that came with his trial 3 dongle (loaded with both Mac and PC drivers) to configure the Vodafone stick and get it working. Nightmare.

Until very recently, this is one of those situations which I could happily ignore. After having switched to a Mac in the past few weeks however, I can feel my indignation rise – which is, coincidentally, negatively correlating with the PAYG dongle’s price.

Nice.

From tomorrow, that’s May 1st for those of a numerical persuasion, the PAYG green and black ZTE dongle and the Huawei E220 dongles will drop their price points from the original £99.99 to £49.99.

That means a saving on PAYG mobile broadband dongles of £50 for anyone taking up the service from tomorrow onward. Should you be interested the crucial figures stack up thusly: the data allowance packages come in at £10, £15 and £25 for 1GB, 3GB and 7GB respectively, each lasting for 30 days.

We have it on good authority that the most popular package is the 3GB, which allows a breakdown of usage something along the lines of 2000 plain text emails, a 100 hours surfing the web, while also squeezing in downloads of around 200 minutes of video and 200 music tracks.

Obviously, this saving of £50 will all be going crazy live on the 3 Store website tomorrow, where you’ll be able to get all the details you need. For now however, consider this a heads up from your friendly neighbourhood 3mobilebuzz ;)

VoIP Watch blogging bigwig Andy Abramson has posted a nice little love note to his 3 Sykephone. After speculating about why iSkoot will not be acting as mobile client for 30 new Skypephone handsets, Andy is momentarily overwhelmed with the glory of our favourite travel-friendly phone and 3’s tarrifs: ‘The H3G SkypePhone is one of the most amazing platforms around. And, personally I can’t beat the cost savings for calling back to the USA when I’m in the UK.’

Read more about just why he digs the device here.

We’ve all had one: the flatmate that hogs the phone talking to their girlfriend in Wales, spends hours trawling through online porn in their room, yet bickers about every last penny of your landline/broadband bill.

Well, Lolly of Blog Til You Drop thinks that 3’s dongle could be the perfect solution for anyone who shares a pad but is reluctant to tie themselves down to a 12 month phone contract which may well outlast the friendship. Having found installation very simple, Lolly has had plenty of use out of her mobile modem as she travels across the UK for work. She finds the signal strength pretty reliable, and is impressed with 3’s tariffs -although she does think that the dongles have been released in a few too many formats too soon.

In her entertaining post, Lolly also speculates that 3’s dongles will also really appeal to itinerant London-based Aussies, whose Skypephone contracts would secure them a discount - especially if they came in a few more colours. Pink dongles? I’m not going to rise to the bait.

Both Tech Watch and ITProPortal have pieces up about 3’s half-price mobile broadband offer, detailing the savings available to the brand’s existing customers.

Each points out that the lowest price available for mobile broadband a month is £5, which allows a data limit of 1GB. This is then compared to the 7GB limit which comes in at £12.50. In the case of ITProPortal, they compare this pricing in the market and discuss the network coverage available. Interestingly they talk about hooking up their dongle to a PS3 and getting online that way.

That note is an aside however, as they seem more interested in discussing the benefits for 3 in making their broadband for existing customers one of the most competitive offers currently available.

There are a few cunning tricks to help you avoid paying long-distance fees when calling home while travelling abroad. As Ant UK points out on Fresh Plastic, the ol’ ‘three-rings-and-hang-up’ routine is by far the preferred choice amongst monetarily diminished jet-setters – but relies heavily on the subject of your calls wanting to talk to you badly enough to call you back. The other method mentioned by Ant UK is (of course) using the 3 Skypephone!

Ant UK’s sister is working on business in Hong Kong, which is one of the seven countries that supports the 3 Like Home service. This means that (if Ant had remembered to offer her his Skypephone), not only could she Skype call home for free, phoning any Skype-less friends she may have the misfortune of having can still be contacted for the same cost as a UK call.

Thanks to Ant UK for kindly reminding everyone about the benefits of the Skypephone and 3 Like Home…

3mobilebuzz is back, and this time we’re expanding our horizons. We’ve had a slight redesign as you can see (and there’s more to come), the funky new header reflecting our expanded remit to write about more products and services from 3. For the time being we’ll be focusing on 3’s mobile broadband services, the possibility for existing customers of getting mobile broadband half price and 3’s new Unlimited Texter Tariff.

We’ve already sent out a few USB modems for trial and some our trialists have written about getting started with their shiny new Mobile Broadband. Neil at iGadget life has written a post on the pricing structure of 3’s Mobile Broadband and Texter Tariffs, remarking “It really is such a great offer.. you’d be silly to miss out!”. Neil also reports he’ll be reviewing the 3 USB modem shortly.

Simon from Mobile Phone Development has also received his USB modem, and despite conflicting software causing some initial hiccups, got the software installed and the modem running smoothly. Though Simon is not in an area with the strongest of signals, he writes “I was surprised the speed was as advertised.”

There’ll be more content arriving on 3mobilebuzz in the way of outgoing links to sites reviewing and covering relevant subjects to us, so stay tuned.

Our pals at 3 have launched a new unlimited text tariff that will give you unlimited SMS sending action and only locks you into a 12 month contract. Appropriately the deals are going by the name ‘short and sweet’, making them sound somewhat like the mobile equivalent of a Minogue sister. Also thrown into the mix, any new or existing 3 contract customer will have the opportunity of signing up to 3’s mobile broadband service at half the normal tariffs on 18 and 24 month contracts, details of this half price offer are on the 3 website.

So what are the finer details? Well the two texter offers come at £25 with 500 mins and unlimited texts, and £35 with 750 mins and unlimited texts. The 12 month £25 plan offers you a choice of free handsets including the Nokia 6500 slider, Nokia 6120 or a Sony Ericsson K660i. The Sony Ericsson W910i is available on the £35 12 month deal, or you can get all but one of 3’s handsets for free if you sign up for the £35 18 month deal. As with all 3 contracts you’ll be getting the instant messenger services of Windows Live and Yahoo!, and then you can add on the option of half price mobile broadband should you so desire.

An example of both the offers in action would mean getting 500 mins and unlimited texts (the new £25 Texter short and sweet offer) and mobile broadband with 3GB a month data allowance on an 18 month contract for a grand total of only £32.50 month, along with a free phone and a free ZTE USB modem, not bad at all.