Free iPhone tethering on du, how sweet is that?
Magnus Nystedt | Nov 07, 2009 | Comments 13
We often complain a lot, don’t we, about how bad telecom is here in the UAE, how bad service is, how much we have to pay, etc. But we should also acknowledge that in some ways we’re pretty fortunate. Take the recent iPhone 3GS offering from du (I’m not including Etisalat in this since we still don’t know about their 3GS plans). You can get up to an “unlimited” 10GB data package (when will they stop calling something limited unlimited?) and everything works right out of the box, like MMS and tethering on all plans. Oh, and yes, handsets are factory unlocked.
In comparison, in the US you can pay much less for the iPhone up front (from $199) but you sign a 2 year contract. The data plan is $30/m and then you can get a talk package from $40/m. That’s (from) $70 per month but apparently the data is truly unlimited. But there’s no tethering option and apparently AT&T hasn’t even said when that will be an option and it’s only recently they enabled MMS. Also in the US, to get the Motorola Droid with Verizon you pay $199 up front and sign a 2 year contract. Then you pay $30 per month for an “unlimited” 5GB data package. If you want tethering on top of that you pay an additional $30/m and get 5 more GB. That’s not including talk and SMS.
I guess the point is as much as we complain and groan, and I’m not saying we don’t have every right to do so in many situations, we should also recognize that not everything is that bad.
mobily lists tethering as a feature but too lazy to know how to enable it
Funny
To be fair, if you're a legitimate user, i.e. using tethering for a better web browsing / email, etc experience on your PC, then 10 GB is more than enough. If you're planning to abuse the system and use tethering for file sharing, bittorrent, etc, understand this:
every network has a finite capacity and throughput, not unlike a buffet or brunch. If people start packing the free-flow of drinks and food into containers and bringing it home for a week's supply of food and drink, then other patrons who are there to enjoy the brunch will find that most of the good stuff is gone.
Since most people are pretty reasonable and fair, that means that a minority of people who abuse the system will end up compromising a good deal for the majority of people who plan to use the service in a fair manner, hence a Fair Use policy.
Even a fixed line network served by fiber to a residential community falls victim to such abuse. Have you ever noticed how some areas have particularly slow internet connections? This is usually the result of a high concentration of people who are aggressively using file sharing and bittorrent services, and everyone else who is trying to surf the web for news, watch a bit of YouTube, downloading emails, internet banking, etc suffer as a result.
Is this fair to the majority? Mobile networks have even less throughput compared to fixed line networks. Each cell has a capacity and if 10% of people abuse the system, it creates network congestion, resulting in a very poor experience for everyone else who use the internet normally.
So tell me, how is this fair to people? I'm a heavy user of mobile data, using it for Youtube while waiting, push email from Gmail and my office email system, internet banking, reading news on the go through Google Reader, geotagging locations on Google Maps, and chatting with friends and family on GoogleTalk, and yet even I struggle to exceed 1 GB per month, much less 10 GB.
So please, be fair.
I totally agree ghoonk. I think 10GB is more than enough for 99.99% of customers, or more. What I am a bit annoyed at is the insistence on calling something that is really limited “unlimited”. Du does that, Etisalat too and many other telcos around the world. Makes no difference in practice but it annoys me because it's not true.
Yeah, but you could just as well walk into the Fairmont Friday brunch and bring home extra bottles of champagne, salmon, and all kinds of food on the same basis! Fact is, you're not allowed to, and no one complains that buffer brunches aren't really free flow!
You're right, on the same principle I should object to that too, and I do. The difference is I never go for brunch so that's not on my daily radar in the same way
You object too much
On a more serious note, would you be happier if I called it a 100 GB bundle knowing that there's no way you're going to be able to consume that much data (yes, even over a 3G network, keeping in mind congestion, contention, etc)? 100GB sounds less than Unlimited, yet there's no way to hit either
We call it 'adspeak' or marketing speak…it's been pretty common in the industry for the last, oh, 100 zillion years.
True that what's being called 'Unlimited' data is not literally 'Unlimited' data but, as mentioned above, 10GB is, for all intents and purposes, effectively 'Unlimited' as far as 99% of users will ever care (or be able) to find out.
True, literally unlimited data doesn't really exist, even on a server farm, since at some point you run into hardware or bandwidth constraints that will prevent you form downloading the entire internet again and again an infinite number of times.
For heavy data users, you might run into issues with the cap when, say, trying to download 20 seasons' worth of the Simpsons in 1080p HD video but realistically, I hope there's not that many people out there stupid enough to try such a thing (hint: DSLADSL for the uber heavy lifting will save you many months of waiting).
Also, since the iPhone doesn't do multitasking it'd be pretty tough to use up all your bandwidth if you actually have any friends (whose SMSes, MMSses, Tweets and FB status updates will tear you away from your downloading session each and every time).
Nah, on principle I'd have to object to that too
As far as I understand it, there's no limit, fair use or not, on AT&T's iPhone plans. Is that correct, as far as you guys know?
AT&T:
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/...
Nope, no unlimited plans.
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/...
5GB bundle for tethering
StarHub in Singapore does have a fair use policy of 2.2GB per day, see http://www.starhub.com/support/broadband/termsa...
This article also implies that Vodaphone has a fair use policy on mobile broadband:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,100000...
And so does T-Mobile:
http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/uk/fairuse/
BT has a fair use policy too: http://bt.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bt.cfg/php/endus...
AT&T:
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/...
Nope, no unlimited plans.
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/...
5GB bundle for tethering
StarHub in Singapore does have a fair use policy of 2.2GB per day, see http://www.starhub.com/support/broadband/termsa...
This article also implies that Vodaphone has a fair use policy on mobile broadband:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,100000...
And so does T-Mobile:
http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/uk/fairuse/
BT has a fair use policy too: http://bt.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bt.cfg/php/endus...
AT&T:
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/...
Nope, no unlimited plans.
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/...
5GB bundle for tethering
StarHub in Singapore does have a fair use policy of 2.2GB per day, see http://www.starhub.com/support/broadband/termsa...
This article also implies that Vodaphone has a fair use policy on mobile broadband:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,100000...
And so does T-Mobile:
http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/services/uk/fairuse/
BT has a fair use policy too: http://bt.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bt.cfg/php/endus...