[LINK] Facebook trialling autoplay video adverts

[Karl Schaffarczyk]

On 14 September 2013 16:11, Scott Howard <scott at doc.net.au> wrote:

> On Sat, Sep 14, 2013 at 6:29 AM, Karl Schaffarczyk <
> karl.schaffarczyk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> A quick look at Verizon USA had plans which included 2,4,6,8,10Gb of data.
>>
>
> Note that these are shared plans. Although it's possible to use all of
> this data allocation on a single device, the expectation (especially for
> the higher data levels) is that it would be shared across multiple devices.
>

yup

>
>
>> The starting point of 2Gb/month tells a whole story by itself.
>>
>
> It does tell a story, but it's probably not the one that you're thinking.
>  Over the past few years the US mobile providers have become increasingly
> arrogant regarding their plans.  Verizon do indeed have a minimum
> smartphone plan of 2Gb plus unlimited calls/SMS - which is all well and
> good if you're willing to pay the ~$110/month it'll cost you (including
> taxes/etc).  If you'd rather pay less for a smaller plan, you're out of
> luck.  (FWIW, the nearest equivalent Vodafone Australia plan costs A$80
> incl GST, with 2.5GB data).
>
> AT&T removed their 1GB and 2GB options, instead only offering 300MB (at
> the same price as the old 2GB plan) and 3GB and higher. They also removed
> all of their SMS plans except their "unlimited" one.  You can read into
> that anything regarding usage.
>
>   Scott
>

The prices which came up just now were closer to $60 rather $110 - but I
don't know how big the taxes are.

The Australian telecomms market is pushing prices upward, with most of the
pressure coming from Telstra. Where they used to regularly offer plans from
$10/month, and even had $5 'under the counter' plan for a while, it seems
nigh on impossible to get a plan under $30/month, and most start around
$50/month.
Other carriers and providers might be OK in city areas, but once you go
bush it is frequently Telstra or nothing, so the fact that cheaper options
exist is cold comfort for non-city dwellers.

I have an issue that much of the Telstra 3G 'NextG' network was built with
public money (the 850Mhz CDMA network was built with networking the nation
grants, and there was significant recycling of resources when the
changeover to NextG occurred), yet we have to pay all over again to access
the network.

As for the pricing all going up in the USA and Australia, it is part of a
push to increase revenue per subscriber, and as Kogan mobile and ISPOne so
spectacularly demonstrated, $30/month just isn't enough these days.

In short, the telcos have us by the short and curlies, and they're now
leveraging that to extract every cent they can.

Karl


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