Has it ended?
not for me !
About a week ago I got an email from o2 Customer services telling me that they couldn't tell me how much data I was using because of a technical fault which means they currently are unable to bill for data use - though they can not say when they will be able to resume billing...
I've been using the GPRS fairly heavily since I got the Alpine, about August 2005. I was careful at first, but when I realised I wasn't being charged, I started using it a lot more. Never been charged a penny though.
Now I've said that I'll probably get a huge backdated bill or something :roll:
Related
OK you lot which is the best in the uk and why
Simple - O2
Because they don't charge !
is that still the case?
i hear thats changed now.
Free GPRS was stopped at the end of December.
Vodafone - 99% coverage for 3G and GPRS
christopherwoods said:
Free GPRS was stopped at the end of December.
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So how come it was not charged for on either of my two Dec-jan bills ? and also no usage showing as "unbilled" for Jan-feb despite heavy usage ?
yep still no charges for data usage on O2 here too.
and they have the best looking versions of the HTC's
zoidster said:
christopherwoods said:
Free GPRS was stopped at the end of December.
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So how come it was not charged for on either of my two Dec-jan bills ? and also no usage showing as "unbilled" for Jan-feb despite heavy usage ?
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I heard somewhere that they're gradually phasing out the free usage on the GPRS, as there's so many accounts this makes total sense. I know Virgin had the same problem when upgrading the central server holding every user's voice and SMS mailboxes - they had to gradually phase out the old system and phase users onto the new system. I know this much because I have a friend who until the end of last month worked at the Virgin Mobile HQ in Wiltshire, so if Virgin needed to do it like that - and they're one of the smallest of the UK telcos - it's only logical that O2 would need to follow the same route.
I've never had free GPRS on my account - I signed up late September last year, and I've always (due to their cockup) only had 100kb of GPRS - I was put on the standard O2 200 instead of the Online 200, but it's always been tallied against my tarriff whenever I've used it.
This said, is there another superduper secret way of getting free GPRS which I've totally missed? I did scour this forum when I first signed up after reading about the free O2 GPRS, but the only stuff I found seemed to be followed up by "this isn't working anymore".
jaceuk said:
OK you lot which is the best in the uk and why
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T-Mobile - because for just £13 per month I get 100minutes of calls and 40MB of data....you can't beat prices like that (except maybe Orange - get a PAYG sim and use the £1 unlimited GPRS all day option on days that you need it - in theory a maximum of £31 per month for unlimited GPRS)
Is the 40mb a shared quota which you can divvy up between MMS and GPRS, or is it solely GPRS traffic?
Is the free GPRS on o2 online or o2 offline?
christopherwoods said:
Is the 40mb a shared quota which you can divvy up between MMS and GPRS, or is it solely GPRS traffic?
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As far as I know, it's GPRS only - never yet sent or received an MMS so didn't even bother to look!
mrsnoopy said:
Is the free GPRS on o2 online or o2 offline?
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I had free GPRS all of 2005 on my O2 Online 50 contract - no idea if it's now being charged for though as that contract ended 14th Jan.
I've been with O2 for over a year and have never been charged for GPRS.
Having said that, I don't use it that much.
I read on this forum (over a year ago) that O2 doesn't usually charge for GPRS so you can use gigabytes over months and then get a humongous (big) bill one month for all your unbilled usage so far.
I don't know if this is true.
This is the only thing that stops me from listening to internet radio all day on my PDA (except the batery life, of course).
heliosfa said:
Vodafone - 99% coverage for 3G and GPRS
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I agree, in fact I've not dropped to 2.5G since getting my unversal! also C.S. is second to none and remember you get what you pay for in life
27 said:
I've been with O2 for over a year and have never been charged for GPRS.
Having said that, I don't use it that much.
I read on this forum (over a year ago) that O2 doesn't usually charge for GPRS so you can use gigabytes over months and then get a humongous (big) bill one month for all your unbilled usage so far.
I don't know if this is true.
This is the only thing that stops me from listening to internet radio all day on my PDA (except the batery life, of course).
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Cheeky gets love charging me for all they can - I sent a message to a mate in Cyprus and they charged me 16-odd pence. When I said, how come that's not coming out of my free SMS units, they said "oh... It costs extra". I said "TAKE INTERNATIONAL SMSES OFF MY SMS CREDITS!" and they said "no."
So, I can't text my friend in Cyprus any more. Which sucks, because I used to text him loads. That said, the tariff-inclusive 0870 numbers means I can use one of those international relays to ring him, but there's a big lag between me speaking and him hearing it (about half a second? It makes conversations interesting).
Have you considered getting ITS to call him?
Would only be 17p a min...
http://www.o2.co.uk/personal/abroad/prices/callingfromuk/0,,132,00.html
ITS came free as a bolt-on on my account. I used it when I was in Germany last October, very handy.
However, I'm not willing - or prepared - to pay extra ON TOP of my tariff, where I'm already paying for calls and text messages. Frankly I think it's a huge con, I understand why the mobile companies do it because the international gateways have their own charges which the phone companies have to absorb somehow, but I don't think they're clear about it in the slightest. 200 free minutes and x free text messages kinda implies that wherever you send them to, they'll apply right?
I seem to be able to get internet and go to any site I want to when I connect T-Zones. But I do not pay for any data plans at all, just my Get More 600 plan. Is this normal? Am I going to get billed if I use it? It is using minutes instead?
Be carefull. T-Mobile will let you access what you like without a data plan but charge you a fortune for it!!!!
First time I did it, I downloaded a few emails and before I knew it my data cost was over 90 pounds!
Ring them and check your current bill/plan.
same happened here on cingular. It adds up fast. (im currently looking into how to prevent the un-intentional ussage of such a feature. ITs on by default. Scarry.
Be very careful! Many providers do that, if you did not purchase data plan then you will most likely pay much more than expected.
If you disconnect very often then it will make it worse because they count data transfer in big blocks for example 50KB instead of real usage.
Some even round up data blocks every hour, so if you use 10KB and stay connected then in an hour they will round up for you, as if you used 50KB - which you did not.
I don't know about T-Mo USA, but T-Mo Hungary has a default data plan pretty much for everyone. It has no monthly fees but the data is very expensive and has a daily activation fee.
I too appear to be getting free internet/wap/gprs. I sent in a message to T-mobile USA and they said that I was NOT getting charged for my usage and that they were probably doing work in my area.
I expected them to say "Oh, you are getting free service! Well lets fix that right away. Please forgive us for this heinous inconvenience, sir." but the gut just shrugged it off.
Despite this, I don't use it incessantly. I figure they'll surprise me with charges sooner or later.
prepaid
I been getting free internet by using a prepaid sim(no charge to credit in account) for the past week or two but i havent had a chance to test this on another wizard and a different sim. I think its a problem with tmobile like when you could send free sms through gprs on some nokia phones and tmobile could not notice how many you were sending. if you tried this pim me with the results
Afternoon xda
I've just received the "We've stopped you using the internet on your mobile because you've gone over your data allowance. You can start using it again after your next bill date" SMS from o2.
I'm on a 12 month SIM only contract (Simplicity) that includes 800mins, 1600texts and the 'unlimited' web bolt on.
This is a new contract and I was on a similar one last year. Last year my usage varied a lot, particularly when I had no home broadband for a while when moving addresses and used up several gigs before getting a warning (via sms and snailmail).
This time, however, this is the first time I've received a message on this contract and I wasn't even warned before hand. I've just been looking through my used bytes in my o2 account and it looks like it adds up to just over 1GB. Yesterday I used tethering to stream BBC iPlayer on a laptop which used up a couple of hundred megs which pushed it over the edge, it would seem.
I'm using a HTC HD2 which is obviously very data orientated with constant updates, messengers running, etc.
So a warning to everyone on o2 in the UK - it looks like things have changed and we now get 1GB and then our data connections CUT OFF until our bill month rolls over, with no prior warning. I'm now without mobile broadband for almost a week.
UPDATE
I called o2 not holding up much hope.
The call went something like this:
Me: "Good afternoon, I'm calling because I received a text from o2 in regards to going over my data allowance. I use my sim in an HTC HD2 and I don't think I've used any more data than I have in previous months.
Her: "Ok Sir, I see you have unlimited internet on your account so I'll lift the bar for you"
Me: "For reals?"
Her: "Yes Sir, it may take up to 24 hours to be removed."
So no messing about there! Though I'm impressed with o2's customer services I'm still amazed this was dealt with so quickly. People with unlimited net who think they've had their data unfairly cut off - call up o2 and talk to them, fantastic service!
Never having a problem with O2's customer services is one of the main reasons why I stick with them.
I had problems with my bank screwing up direct debits, so I'd miss the payment date for my bill and have a bar put in place.
A quick phone call and paying by debit card would get it sorted, but once they had a problem where the unbar didn't go through.
So I called up the next day and joked with the woman, got the bar removed and £15 credit as an appology.
Their broadband customer/tech service is excellent too.
1Mbps upstream for £5
I had the exact same problem, gave o2 a bell and they lifted the bar for me. Conversation went much the same as above
You must be luck, I ordered the sim card from the advert on TV £15pm and unlimited internet.
I checked my ballance and it was 500Mb, I used 1Mb and checked the next day (thinking it may be 500Mb/day) and it was 499Mb
I called O2 and complained and the lady said "well we cant give you unlimited can we..." and after a lot of complaining I got my money back.
I was getting 750Mb per month on Virgin for less
You guys are lucky with O2. Look at what Vodafone UK is running away with.
Sneakily changing our contracts from "unlimited with a soft cap of 500MB" to hard capped at 500MB. According to the new (much disputed) tariff, anything over 500MB will be charged an extra £5 for next 500MB.
This is being discussed in a lot of detail on Vodafone UK eforums and MoneySavingExpert forums (link).
If you are not using Vodafone yourself, please let everyone know about this, so these mobile providers stop getting away with murder now!
I have started a new thread on XDA-Dev here for discussing it.
Hoping that these take their tarrifs back and see some sense!
I have been using tmobile (usa) prepiad connection over 2 years. Once in a while i used web day pass ($1.49) to access data/internet for 24hrs (which has 30GB 4G cap and rest is EDGE i guess)
Now, about a month ago, i signed up for day pass again (spent $1.49), after that i see that it was not disconnected after 24hrs. Im getting free data/internet about a month and still working. No 4G cap either. im getting 4G all day long and im using voip, video chat and stuff without any issue. When i check my account, i was not charged for data at all. Still i have the balance i had a month ago. Im charged for regular gsm calls ($0.10) as usual.
I change the sim with different phones and still it works. My question is, if Tmobile came to know this, can they take any legal action against me?. Is there anyway to keep a prove that i havent done anything wrong?.
xda_rosh said:
I have been using tmobile (usa) prepiad connection over 2 years. Once in a while i used web day pass ($1.49) to access data/internet for 24hrs (which has 30GB 4G cap and rest is EDGE i guess)
Now, about a month ago, i signed up for day pass again (spent $1.49), after that i see that it was not disconnected after 24hrs. Im getting free data/internet about a month and still working. No 4G cap either. im getting 4G all day long and im using voip, video chat and stuff without any issue. When i check my account, i was not charged for data at all. Still i have the balance i had a month ago. Im charged for regular gsm calls ($0.10) as usual.
I change the sim with different phones and still it works. My question is, if Tmobile came to know this, can they take any legal action against me?. Is there anyway to keep a prove that i havent done anything wrong?.
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Depends. It was their error for not shutting,off the data when they were supposed to, however you just admitted that you knew you were receiving a paid service that was not paid for. That may make you liable but i am not sure.
Sent from my SGH-T959V using XDA Premium App
I guess if anything, you'll just have to say you didn't know. It was their fault for not shutting it off. You could just say that you didn't bother to check or talk to T-Mobile about it.
Dude lol,you are a PREPAID customer,dont sweat it, I promise you any legal action they would try to threaten you with would cost more than the little extra data you have used. Disregard anything anyone else tells you otherwise.
you'll be ok. they made a mistake and gave me internet for 6 months before catching it and no one ever did anything.
Dont sweet it!
they'll just turn off the data.... they eat crap like that all the time. No action will come against you... and when you want data again.. and pay the 1.49 or whatever.. youll have it for the day like your suppose to... unless they mess up again... good for you
Ok, so from what I can tell Orange UK have now started using whatever means they have for determining that 3G Data usage is being used for tethering rather than just consuming data on the phone itself...
Have just switched tarrifs to a 600Mb a month data allowance.. however as a test, I tried using my new Razr to provide 3G to my Asus Transformer (only loaded up a couple of light webpages) but I found after a few days (after the orange website had updated my account details in the "unbilled costs" section), that I'd been charged about £1.50 for the privilage.. Called orange to query this, and although the CSA said he couldn't tell what exactly the charge was for, the times/dates he gave me coincided with when i tried the tethering (he actually fobbed me off saying that their system had marked the charges in the same way as if I'd bought a ringtone or sent an MMS - but I knew I hadn't and I knew I'd tried the tethering then)
I know there have been a few posts in the past about changing the Orange APN settings (and using the "consumer broadband" settings etc), but AFAIK from my own bill, they're now definitely tracking any tethering usage on peoples' mobile data tarrifs, so be warned..
I'll know more at the start of December when I get my proper bill, but yeah.. guess it had to happen some time..
Guess they're not going to go after people for breaking Ts&Cs unless the usage is stupidly high, they're just going to bill us directly instead..