Why O2's new data tariff makes me happy and sad

When I heard that O2 were putting a £1 per day cap on their over limit data charges I got as close to jumping for joy as you're ever likely to see me get. I'm a social media junkie so running over limit is pretty easy for me and pretty regular too. I'd often find myself spending literally hundreds of pounds a month on my gratuitous data consumption. Not good and for me, not sustainable.

Now that I only get charged £1 per day for my excess data, it's unlikely that my total monthly bill will ever run to much more than about £40 which is great news.

So you're probably wondering why it makes me sad. As I said before, it was not uncommon for me to spend hundreds of pounds per month. Now, I doubt the cost of data to O2 has decreased by such orders of magnitude so it leaves me with one simple conclusion. For all that time I was being ripped off by O2. Not just ripped off but financially raped and I feel violated.

I hope the shareholders have been enjoying my money as much as I'm now going to enjoy not spending it. How about a free iPhone 4 for my troubles?

Didn't think so.

Dec 09, 2010

cafers said...

isn't this just the evolution of the 'service' ? Sickening, sure, but also very good news for the future.

I guess it's bitter/sweet...oh wait, you already said that :D

Lee Stacey said...

It's great news for the future actually. O2 certainly seem to be moving in the right direction with thieir pricing plans. This ties in nicely with their plan to drop the unlimited data plans. A move that seemed to upset quite a few but to me made perfect sense... You actually get what you pay for! Other networks will have to catch up on this. The overall result is that everyone will be getting a fairer deal in the end!

Feb 12, 2011

DanielJUK said...

o2 had a real problem. Their data is completely to capacity, especially in London and some people with smart phones were using it insanely! Someone on my twitter admitted their o2 iphone tariff uses 52gb a month! how on earth!

Every new customer and upgrade customer on o2 (and also vodafone) now has to have a limited tariff deal. you get an allowance. In many countries there is now not a single mobile network which offers unlimited data! I think that could happen here!

o2 has lost customers recently though! with the data allowance and also they are now the exclusive windows phone htc provider and will not be providing htc android phones in future (I had to get mine through o2 through carphone warehouse grrr). The original idea was if you go over your allowance you get charged £1 a day. if you don't have any "data bolt ons" you also get charged max £1 a day. However they seem to have backed away from this plan. I went over my 500mb last month and they just text you and say your data speed is now limited! To be honest I noticed no difference!

They still have 3G data problems. Instead of upgrading their cell towers instead they are gonna bring o2 wifi to the whole of the country for free (they claim). I want unlimited data! I think for any tariff £30 a month or more it should be included unlimited!

I would feel happier if they gave 1GB to all tariffs a month. But still I see it as a way backwards to the metered internet days! I don't want to worry and data count all the time! when this 2 year contract is up I may leave for orange/ t-mobile who don't do this!

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