Forget the iPhone! Forget Android! – Get an iPod Touch and a 3G card for your Laptop.
I really love the iPhone. I love the user interface. I love the way Qype Radar works on it. – However: Whether you use iPhone or the new Android G1 (Qype Radar also available) – it is just ridiculous to actually buy them.
I have several friends who managed to get to a phone bill of close to 1000 Euro – for one month!
Both iPhone and Android G1 make you download a lot of data. And even more. And yet more. That is why the telecom operators love them. You need a flatrate. In Germany, the cheapest flat rate costs you just 49 Euro / month, that is a whopping 1.200 Euro for the two year contract. That is: if you stay within the boundaries of Germany. Should you opt to use your iPhone abroad, t-mobile will charge you a whopping 1.900 Euro per Gigabyte. (19 cent per 100 KILObyte that means 1,90 Euro per Megabyte).
And a weekend of surving abroad can get you easily a phone bill of 200 or 400 Euro.
What is the market price for end user 3G traffic?
Just one example. Should yo, as I do regularly, travel to the UK, you can now buy from “3″ a starter kit for 99 GBP (roughly 110 Euro, depending how far Sterling has dropped any given day). For this, you can use 12 Gigabyte with a USB stick on a 3G network. With roaming from T-Mobile Germany, you would pay the price of a car for 12 Gigabyte: roughly 24.000 Euro – today in 2009, within Europe!
The solution for me:
For phone and mail:I still use my Blackberry. Never uses much data anyway. Unmatched user experience for email.
For fun, I use the magnificent iPod touch -just compare
- iPod Touch: 32 M RAM, half the thickness of iPhone, including WIFI: roughly 300 Euro. It is also location aware – not advertised!. Qype Radar works fine.
- iPhone for 2 years, 16 M RAM: roughly 1200 Euro for 2 years.
For mobile Internet, I use a cheap data only plan plan, in Germany from O2, in the UK from three.co.uk.
As an entrepreneur, however, I do know that the current policy of the European Commission is not enough. We are effectively hindering a whole new web development. This is not only my opinion, just check out what Paul Jozefak, a Hamburg based VC thinks. I wait for the day when the European commission forces the telcos to cut down on data roaming.
[...] Warum Deutschland in Sachen “mobiles Internet” immer noch ein Entwicklungsland ist By pjebsen Stephan Uhrenbacher hat gerade einen sehr lesenswerten Artikel über die Datentarife in Deutschland und Rest-Europa gepostet (auf Englisch): “How we are being ripped off by the telecoms. And why an iPod Touch is the ultimate iPhone“ [...]
Ich halt’s immer mit “anbieten statt verbieten” – also mehr neue Möglichkeiten zu schaffen anstatt Möglichkeiten per Gesetz vorzuschreiben.
Wenn die Spannen in einem Bereich offenbar übermäßig groß sind, dann bedeutet das, dass ausreichend Platz ist für ein lukratives Alternativangebot – also eine optimale Nische für einen Unternehmer.
So weit zur Theorie. Was hindert aber einen Unternehmer, hier ein besseres Angebot zu schaffen? Bei genauer Betrachtung ist einmal mehr die EU nicht die Lösung, sondern das Problem: wie in allen staatlich geschützten Bereichen sind die Margen hoch und bzw. weil der Wettbewerb klein. Ein neuer Unternehmer braucht die gönnerhafte Gunst der Politik, vulgo “Lizenz”, die nicht leicht zu bekommen ist. (Wir erinnern uns: der Staat versteigert Luft um mehrere Milliarden Euro und nennt das “Mobilfunklizenz”)
Also packen wir die Sache doch gleich richtig an und wenden wir uns gegen die gesetzliche Monopol-Wegelagerei anstatt noch mehr politische Einflussnahme aus Brüssel zu fordern. Niemand wünscht sich Preisregulierung in seinem eigenen Business – warum also bei den anderen?
Liebe Grüße,
A.
For having fun with my iPod touch everywhere (in Germany) I use a cheap data plan & a S60-enabled Nokia mobile with the S60-Software JoikuSpot.
JoikuSpot turns the mobile phone into a WLAN-Access-Point the iPod touch connects to.
No need to carry a laptop around / buy an iPhone with a T-Mobile-Contract just to use Qype Radar (or AroundMe
@christoph – did not know that. Need to get an S60 phone now.
Living out of my home country, my problem is the cost of international dialing with a local SIM, which is normally over 1eu a minute. I regularly use services like Rebtel (www.rebtel.com) and Truphone (www.truphone.com) in order to make international calls from my mobile, both of which are extremely affordable (the latter of which has a blackberry/iphone plugin, too). Here’s a report about Truphone from DasErste: http://mediathek.daserste.de/daserste/servlet/content/857972?pageId=487890&moduleId=432744
As for mobile roaming: I just don’t do it. If I absolutely need to use data, I use a wi-fi phone at a hotspot. If I need to make calls, I’d get a prepaid local SIM and use Rebtel/Truphone.