giffgaff gives the goss (on pricing)

giffgaff, the people-powered network to whom we gave (what we thought was) a fair preview of, has released a teensy bit of news about their pricing. Well, that’s not strictly true, but we’ll come back to that part shortly….

giffgaff love you
giffgaff loves you

The ‘news’, coming in the form of a blog post from marketing chief, Kylie (no – not that one), explains that based on the feedback they’ve received so far, they’re now not really sure what kind of tariffs to launch with. While this may seem odd and somewhat indecisive on the part of the not-yet-launched MVNO, giffgaff have opened the question out to the blog readers:

“…we need your help. How do you think we should charge? Per minute / per text? Or bundles? Or something else?”

This is pretty much unheard of in the carrier space and we can only applaud giffgaff for sticking to their ‘people-powered’ principles.

While this isn’t actually news about the pricing (it’s more along the lines of ‘um.. we don’t know yet’) what the post does go on to say is that data on giffgaff will be totally and utterly free*.

Yes, that’s right… FREE*.

But not the kind of free* that you’re used to, not the kind of free* that comes along with a ‘fair use policy’, no, no. This is free* until we build the billing system!

“When we launch, data will be free. Honestly, that’s because we won’t have had time to build the bit of our backend system to charge for it, and yet we don’t want to launch without data – so we thought we’d just let you have it.

All we ask is that you don’t take the mickey, and that you do give something back by topping up, making calls, answering some questions, doing some marketing etc.”

That’s not too bad is it? Free data for the period of time it takes us to build the billing system. That’s certainly honest guys. Good work.

So the news from giffgaff:

We (still) don’t know our tariffs and data will be free until we know how to charge for it.

Honesty is the best policy but – with respect – this is still looking vague guys. Admittedly we haven’t come to visit yet, (we really are hideously busy day job wise), but it is on our to do list.

PS. Give us something a little more convincing and we might be convinced 😉

Hat tip to contributor Ricky Chotai for spotting this one.

You’re charging how much?!

As you may know, recently I trialled the Vodafone HTC Magic. This I found to be a thorughly enjoyable experience and I’ve had no problems since recommending this handset to those to whom it would fit.

One thing I didn’t touch upon during the review however was the rather awesome pleasure of being able to charge my handset via USB.

As you may know, recently I trialled the Vodafone HTC Magic. This I found to be a thorughly enjoyable experience and I’ve had no problems since recommending this handset to those to whom it would fit.

One thing I didn’t touch upon during the review however was the rather awesome pleasure of being able to charge my handset via USB.

Over-charging?
The Nokia CA-100: Guilty of over-charging?

This is not a new feature.

Many handsets have had this functionality built-in for years. Nokia however have only recently started to roll this out across their device range.

First dabbling with the 6500 and then later the E75, the two latest flagship devices – the N86 and the N97 – both come with USB charging out of the box.

So far so what?

Well, what about the other 30 or so million of us out there that don’t have a one of these devces?

What about us?

How do we charge our respective not-quite top-of-the-range-but-still-pretty-kick-ass-thank-you-very-much Nokias?

“Just use the blimmin’ charger you get in the box!” – I hear you cry.

Yes. Quite.

That’s all well and good but I don’t want to carry a standard Nokia charger around with me everywhere I go. No, I want to charge via USB.
The good news is that help is at hand in the rather slim shape of the Nokia CA-100 USB charger (pictured above) – Huzzah!

This is not a new accessory.

The pricing however, that’s a different story.
Allow me to explain.

I’ve owned several of these funky little things. Often just throwing them in my bag for later use and/or living with one constantly about my person wherever I go.
When I first bought one of these, it was back in August ’08 and at just £10, it was perfect; small, branded and guaranteed to get the job done.

Thing is, because they’re so damn small I got into the habit of losing them.
So I bought more. I bought them two at a time. I bought them for other people.
Ten English Pounds is Ten English Pounds and for someone like me, who doesn’t ever want to worry about where his next charge is coming from, the CA-100 is an essential piece of kit.

Recently I ran out (again) and so, off I trotted to my nearest Nokia store to stock up my latest bag of gadgets with USB charger loveliness to discover the price had been whacked up by a staggering 110%!

How much?!
How much?!

I’m sorry, what?

Why has something that was only £10 just under a year ago suddenly shot up in price like this?

I accosted one of the Sales Assistants in store and asked them what on Earth was going on.

“Er… Shipping and delivery costs have gone up.”

“What? And have ramped up the price by over 100%?”

“Er… Yeah. Sorry.”

I stormed out. Fuming.

You would think in this day and age the price of chargers would be decreasing not going up!

What to do next? Well, like any good mobile citizen I immediately jumped on the internet and got myself to the Nokia online store.

Obviously, what with there being very small overheads with any online marketplace, the price is bound to be fixed there… Surely?!

No.

£14.00 + Delivery

With delivery options as follows: Standard (3-5 Days) – £3.99. Express (1-2 Days) – £9.99.

So that’ll be £17.99 or £23.99 please, thank you very much.

I give up!

I’m going travelling very, very soon and I need something to keep me charged on the go. I simply cannot justfy paying DOUBLE for this accessory. I can’t.

Ridiculous.

Yes I know I can get a dodgy, knock-off version from eBay – but they’re dodgy and unreliable.

Why oh why are these things a) so damn expensive and b) so damn expensive TODAY when they were so damn cheap LAST YEAR.

Answers on a postcard please…