Congratulations, respect, or whatever the right word is, to Virgin Media, for the launch of its mobile data Travel Passes, which offer its customers a way to use the mobile web when they are away from home but within the EU, knowing exactly what it will cost them.
The interesting thing about the packages is that Virgin is hardly giving them away. I’m not sure what other packages are around for using the mobile web abroad, so it’s hard to compare these, but looking at the mobile broadband packages, for using your dongle abroad, £10 for one day is pretty similar to what I pay on Vodafone, but whereas I get 50MB, the Virgin deal only offers 10MB. Even on the 50MB daily limit, I find I need to be careful, checking email via the web in case there are any large attachments on any of the emails, rather than simply downloading everything via Outlook.
But the point about this is that if a Virgin Media customer is out of the country and wants to be able to browse the mobile Internet for a few days, they know what it’s going to cost them, and it’s this transparency that I think consumers want. I’ve just spent the best part of a week in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress, and fired up my browser and Google Maps several times when I needed to, but while my network kindly informed me that this would cost me £1.50 per MB as soon as I arrived in Spain, I still have no idea how much I spent, and won’t do until the bill arrives.
The only question this raises around the Virgin passes is how the user knows when they are approaching their data limit. The Virgin PR believes there is some sort of SMS alert, and is checking as I write this. (Update: Virgin has now confirmed that user is notified when they have used 80% of their data allowance, and when they have used it all, the pass stops working.) But the message here for operators, if it needs me to spell it out, is that you can do the right thing by your customers, by giving them a crystal-clear offer that removes any worries or uncertainties about using their phone abroad, and at the same time, make a healthy margin on it.
A win-win situation if ever there was one.
David Murphy
Editor
The interesting thing about the packages is that Virgin is hardly giving them away. I’m not sure what other packages are around for using the mobile web abroad, so it’s hard to compare these, but looking at the mobile broadband packages, for using your dongle abroad, £10 for one day is pretty similar to what I pay on Vodafone, but whereas I get 50MB, the Virgin deal only offers 10MB. Even on the 50MB daily limit, I find I need to be careful, checking email via the web in case there are any large attachments on any of the emails, rather than simply downloading everything via Outlook.
But the point about this is that if a Virgin Media customer is out of the country and wants to be able to browse the mobile Internet for a few days, they know what it’s going to cost them, and it’s this transparency that I think consumers want. I’ve just spent the best part of a week in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress, and fired up my browser and Google Maps several times when I needed to, but while my network kindly informed me that this would cost me £1.50 per MB as soon as I arrived in Spain, I still have no idea how much I spent, and won’t do until the bill arrives.
The only question this raises around the Virgin passes is how the user knows when they are approaching their data limit. The Virgin PR believes there is some sort of SMS alert, and is checking as I write this. (Update: Virgin has now confirmed that user is notified when they have used 80% of their data allowance, and when they have used it all, the pass stops working.) But the message here for operators, if it needs me to spell it out, is that you can do the right thing by your customers, by giving them a crystal-clear offer that removes any worries or uncertainties about using their phone abroad, and at the same time, make a healthy margin on it.
A win-win situation if ever there was one.
David Murphy
Editor
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