Mobile Broadband - Well worth a read

crawler

http://www.totaltele.com/res/ArticleDocuments/Mobile%20Broadband%20Watch/Mobile%20Broadband%20Watch%20Issue1.pdf

excerpt -

MOBILE BROADBAND has become an industry buzz phrase, but it just wouldn’t be telecoms if the latest trend hadn’t been over-hyped and over-sold to users. Yet as with any technology, if expectations are kept at a realistic level mobile broadband can also be a wonderful thing.
Since the term mobile broadband came to the public consciousness as an alternative way of accessing the Internet, it has been accompanied by hyped-up sales tactics by operators and analyst concerns about the business model. Initial impressive sales of USB dongles, for example, have almost immediately been followed by some significant product return rates, according to O2 UK.
In late October, O2 said research carried out via One Poll indicated that one in 10 mobile broadband users in the UK felt they had been “mis-sold” a mobile broadband
service. In other words, they had been led to believe that mobile broadband would be almost as good, if not as good, as a fixed broadband service, and would provide them with super-fast Internet access whenever they wanted, at a price of around £15 a month. The survey indicated that users were unhappy both with coverage
and with the ongoing costs, which were higher than they had expected

dub45

crawler wrote: »

http://www.totaltele.com/res/ArticleDocuments/Mobile%20Broadband%20Watch/Mobile%20Broadband%20Watch%20Issue1.pdf

excerpt -

MOBILE BROADBAND has become an industry buzz phrase, but it just wouldn’t be telecoms if the latest trend hadn’t been over-hyped and over-sold to users. Yet as with any technology, if expectations are kept at a realistic level mobile broadband can also be a wonderful thing.
Since the term mobile broadband came to the public consciousness as an alternative way of accessing the Internet, it has been accompanied by hyped-up sales tactics by operators and analyst concerns about the business model. Initial impressive sales of USB dongles, for example, have almost immediately been followed by some significant product return rates, according to O2 UK.
In late October, O2 said research carried out via One Poll indicated that one in 10 mobile broadband users in the UK felt they had been “mis-sold” a mobile broadband
service. In other words, they had been led to believe that mobile broadband would be almost as good, if not as good, as a fixed broadband service, and would provide them with super-fast Internet access whenever they wanted, at a price of around £15 a month. The survey indicated that users were unhappy both with coverage
and with the ongoing costs, which were higher than they had expected

Surely O2 did not need to hear that from One Poll. Are they and the other mobile providers not fully aware of the limitations of the products they pay handsome amounts of money to advertising agencies to hype?

What an idiotic waste of money on O2s part!! Incidentally did I not read somewhere here recently that the Irish branch of O2 oversold the service during the summer with a special offer to students?

Moriarty

O2 do have an offer arranged via HEANet for students to get cheaper mobile broadband from them. No idear on takeup, but I'd imagine they got more than 6 extra customers out of it alright.