Bad (formerly good) news from the big chaos of Wind...

[Effendi]

Other news from Wind, this time bad and totally different from the supposed-to-be good ones!

You should receive an SMS saying that from the 28th of April the MEGA options won't work outside of Italy anymore! So no 90cent/KB tariff anymore, but just the normal tariffs, i.e.:
- € 0.0125/KB in Zones 1 & 2 (= € 12.80/MB)
- € 0.0250/KB in Zones 3 & 4 (= € 25.60/MB)

Anyway it's incredible the chaos in Wind, every week they change their options, and that's not only with the Mega ones...

[Gargoyle]

hope they don't suddenly change the mega options within Italy.

I may switch to vodafone anyway; with my Moto v400 I get very slow connect speeds with wind, nominally 284k but in reality it acts like a very slow old dialup. vodafone will cost more, abut €20 a month IIRC, plus €50 for the little USB plug-in box, but that's for true high speed.

[ticex]

Oh dear...well dissapointing as this news is it is kind of refreshing to hear a vaguely logical announcement by Wind. I guess that this will also apply to the WAP-pass option that, as far as I recall from previous posts, was charging at the old rate. However, perhaps this one has slipped Winds notice so maybe somebody with this option active could mention if they receive this notification SMS? I'll put a post if/when I receive the MEGA notification SMS as well.

So, for me it will be back to the old days of a different data sim for every country. In case it's helpful for anybody in preparation for the final death of MEGA-15000 I've used and tested the following prepaid solutions in the countries I've visited over the past week:

UK - T-Mobile (£1 daily maximum charge for unlimited data pass, with UMTS)
Belgium - Dixitel (€1.50 per MB or perhaps also €10 per month for a 10mb bundle sold as a "messenger" service - only EDGE, no UMTS)
Poland - iPlus SimData (UMTS - can't remember the exact pricing but it was really cheap)

and finally...of course in Italy I'll keep the Wind for national Italian usage!

Next month I'm going to also setup Aldi mobile for Germany and Low Call for The Netherlands. The only country I visit often that I'm struggling to find an economic replacement to Wind for is France....typically the French "cartel" of operators seem to have really un-economic tariffs with short voucher expiry etc. so I think it's maybe cheaper to use a roaming UK Virgin sim! I am kind of hoping for just checking email in France the Wind Wap Pass will keep working though

Perhaps if anybody else can add in any other alternatives for us European travelling data users that have got lazy and used to the convenience of Wind

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by ticex

Poland - iPlus SimData (UMTS - can't remember the exact pricing but it was really cheap)

UMTS with HSDPA/GPRS with EDGE - about 0.08€/MB in 100 kB increments, CSD/HSCSD about 0.08€/min with 1/1 debiting, can be reduced even by 16.66% by using large top-ups. In Poland even the most expensive prepaid GPRS costs slightly over 1.5€/MB (6.10 PLN but the latter is really much for us ).

[DRNewcomb]

Originally Posted by Effendi

At the same time they are closing the CAMEL service on the following networks:
Orange, Dominican Rep.
Optus, Australia
T-Mobile, USA
That's quite ununderstandable... and it would be interesting to know if also data roaming is affected...

I wonder how this will impact roamers in the US. When I did my yearly top-up, this time I had no problems on T-Mobile. Cingular still did not work properly.

[Effendi]

Originally Posted by DRNewcomb

I wonder how this will impact roamers in the US. When I did my yearly top-up, this time I had no problems on T-Mobile. Cingular still did not work properly.

You should not have problems since you can use the USSD, but still it has no sense...

About the Wap Pass, it's still available also abroad for prepaid users, while it's not anymore for postpaid users, and with the old tariffs. Another nonsense, but at least this time it's good for us...

[flodis79]

>> Mega 15000 Promozione Notte

Offerta mobile Internet Mega 15000, 30 euro mensili per 15000 euro al mese di traffico dati gratuito. Inoltre, fino al 6 maggio 2007, con Promozione Notte le tue connessioni notturne, effettuate dalle 24 alle 8 del mattino, saranno assolutamente gratuite! L'offerta si rinnova automaticamente ogni 30 giorni ed è valida sia per le linee mobili prepagate che per quelle in abbonamento. L'offerta Mega 15000 è attivabile fino al 30 Giugno 2007 ed è valida fino al 31 Luglio 2007.


--
Got this in the email this morning. Effendi, does it mean that it is free browsing on mega 15000 midnight to 8am ? does it apply to data abroad?

[Landis]

Originally Posted by Effendi

You should not have problems since you can use the USSD, but still it has no sense...

About the Wap Pass, it's still available also abroad for prepaid users, while it's not anymore for postpaid users, and with the old tariffs. Another nonsense, but at least this time it's good for us...

I really don't trust WIND with correctly charging the Wap Pass abroad though. I'll try it on a Card with slightly over 3€ when I get a chance

[Landis]

Yep, free nights until May 6th. It doesn't say but I doubt this effects data abroad.

[ticex]

I noticed that free night promo thing on Wind's website a few weeks ago but unfortunately it didn't have any effect on data abroad, at least when I tested it.