my mobile telephone bill....

[GetAGrip]

With my dolfin plan from orinj, i get 100MB data free - this is internet use, right? How do I know how much data I have used if I connect to the internet? Supposing I went to BBC's homepage - then went to Sports section. How much data is that used up? I've never used the internet on my phone!

I'm the same. Had a text over the weekend saying 100MB is now 500MB

 

[Andrew_P]

My eldest has Tesco mobile 5000 texts 250 mins and 1gb a month for a tenner best of all it is capped so no surprises. Only limitation would be mms messaging disabled

 

[Nearly there]

I consider my contract rubbish when I see what else is out there, I get 300 mins unlimited texts and NO data for £25 a month my contract ends in oct so im already looking around for a better deal or maybe my current provider can tempt me to stay

 

[postman]

I 'm with virgin,enough said.Trying another company in November the Blackberry curve is crap in my opinion.Oh it can sing and dance sir,yes it can but just like a short arsed you know your worth it girl.

 

[MisterStan]

I'm lucky as my phone is a company one. I'm also unlucky as my phone is a company one.

 

[simon.r]

600 mins, unlimited texts but no internet for £11 / month (SIM only), which I reckon is just about OK reading this thread. No O2 or 3 signal where I am so that limits my options.

 

[Maz]

I did a quick search and it appears that only the Blackberry Curve 9220 has an actual radio built in. Other models get radio programmes via the internet. If you are accessing the internet via Wifi then that wouldn't be an issue, but via a phone signal it could well be. Data usage is a combination of bitrate and how long you listen for.

A 32 kb/s stream would use roughly 14 MB/hour or 1GB in 72 hours of listening.
A 64 kb/s stream would use roughly 28 MB/hour or 1GB in 36 hours.
A 128 kb/s stream would use roughly 56 MB/hour or 1GB in 18 hours.
A 256 kb/s stream would use roughly 112 MB/hour or 1GB in 9 hours!

Thanks for this, Colin.
By way of an easy experiment, I took the sim out of my phone and started the radio and it worked, so it must be free on mine!!

 

[ColinJ]

Thanks for this, Colin.
By way of an easy experiment, I took the sim out of my phone and started the radio and it worked, so it must be free on mine!!

You might be picking up a Wifi signal though ...?

 

[Davidc]

I was with Virgin on a sim only monthly renewal for around £12 and got a call from Virgin saying they could increase the mins and texts AND reduce the bill to a tenner. I said I would think about it and said
''email me the details''
He said it was just a telephone offer and I said oh well I'll think about it then.

Final offer............£5.50 per month 300 mins of calls and 600 texts. (far more than I ever use)The only catch is that it is a ''contract'' for a year rather than renewed monthly.

Result !

Same here

Virgin was good when it used just the T Mobile physical network, now it has Orange as well it's brilliant. But then - I don't use it for internet access.

 

[Maz]

You might be picking up a Wifi signal though ...?

There are a few knocking around here, but they are all locked.
Also, when I manually tune the radio, I can hear the background hiss/static noise of a good old-fashioned radio. Surely the software bods didnt digitally-synthesise that sound, right?

 

[ColinJ]

There are a few knocking around here, but they are all locked.
Also, when I manually tune the radio, I can hear the background hiss/static noise of a good old-fashioned radio. Surely the software bods didnt digitally-synthesise that sound, right?

They could, but they probably didn't!

You can buy very small, cheap fm radios so I wouldn't have thought that having one built into a phone is that important, but I can see that it is one less gadget to carry.

 

[StuAff]

I've always been PAYG- before I got a Android phone it was just infrequent and short voice calls and the occasional SMS. When I bought that (Orange San Francisco) the Orange SIM never went in it- went straight from the Orange shop to the O2 one & got a Text & Web package SIM. Unlocked it straight out of the box. £10 a month gets me all the voice calls I'd ever need in that time, 500MB of data use (I think the most I've used is 320MB or so), and 300 texts (max about five or six a month). As I have O2 broadband as well, the £5 discount on that means the mobile costs me £5 a month

 

[Mark Grant]

Android phone?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.rgruet.android.g3watchdog&hl=en

Thanks for that link. Just installed.

 

[Smurfy]

I'm thinking of ditching my pay monthly Orange for GiffGaff. Would it be a huge mistake? I've heard GiffGaff uses the O2 network, which I've never used before.

 

[alecstilleyedye]

Ha ha - that's funny! I wonder if it was a case of trying to differentiate different models by not enabling the radio circuitry in them and then the word got out, embarrassing them into enabling it later OR ... had they just not got round to it when the other models were first released?

they're not the only ones at it. apple deliberately limits the bluetooth capabilities of the ipod touch so that you cannot connect to non-approved devices, such as a gps module. once you 'crack' the ipod, it can connect to the gps module via bluetooth, and be used as a sat nav system, just like an iphone.

i'm guessing that the capabilities of the ipod were suppressed to encourage iphone sales…