Fair Trading?

If you're a Vodafone customer, and you've gone onto one of their broadband plans where you get 20 gbs for a month, and you manage to use slightly more than the 20 gbs (in the latest case because of iPhone upgrades) you are penalised by Vodafone if you want to keep on at broadband speed.  The alternative is dial-up speed, which these days is useless if you work on the Internet to any great degree, as I do.

In order to keep your broadband speed, you have to double your normal usage, and pay a premium for it.  We're on a plan that gives us 20 gbs a month, so that means we have to pay another $20 and get another 20 gbs.  The only problem is, our 'anniversary' date (the date the normal gbs run out each month) is only two days away.   Can we keep the extra gbs we've paid for?   Nope.  They all vanish and we start from scratch again, as though we hadn't paid for anything extra.  

Last time this happened, we had some blow-out because my son and his fiancée were staying with us, and used a lot of our broadband with uploading videos to the Net.   We bought the extra gbs and I watched some movies online.   However, while this was pleasurable, after a fashion, it was just an attempt to use up something I didn't really want in the first place.

This time, because we have only two days to go in our 'month', there's no way we'll use up the additional broadband.  So Vodafone gets $20 in its pocket and doesn't have to pay for much in the way of broadband to its supplier.   I talked to the customer service woman at Vodafone and she says they get complaints about this all the time, and they pass on the feedback about it all the time.  So far it hasn't made any difference.

I wouldn't object to paying for two or three gbs at a dollar a gb.   That would seem reasonable at this time of the month.  But no, Vodafone has decided that if you go over, you get penalised heavily, or go back to the dark ages of dial-up.   Here's the official line from Vodafone when you pay for this additional broadband:

• You can only buy one double your data block a month.
• Double your data blocks are charged on a full-month basis.
• Double your data blocks expire on your data allowance anniversary date, so make sure you use up all of your data before your allowance gets reset.
• If you change plans or close your account before you've used all of the extra data you'll still be charged.

 Make sure we use up our data allowance before the reset?   Yeah, right.

Video power - or not

About a year ago at work I was looking into the way webinars function. We were thinking in terms of using a webinar conference to host some people from the world of missional thinking rather than bringing them all the way to New Zealand. That was one of our thoughts. Like some other bright ideas, it only went so far as getting the background on webinars and how to use the systems and so on. Still it gave me the chance to actually 'attend' a webinar on a couple of occasions - one very early in the morning our time - and learn how frustrating the process can be for someone who's never done it before.

I also discovered that some webinars can be very boring to watch - because nothing happens on screen. It's rather like listening to the radio while watching the same picture for an hour. Other webinars are more interesting - a PowerPoint is presented, so at least you get some visual interest. However, since PowerPoints are becoming old hat in some quarters - see the amusing PowerPoint presentation Matt Blaze sent to the RSA Conference in 2011, for example. (It was originally laid out in only three pages...)

My PowerPoint slides for the RSA Conference 2011
Matt Blaze
University of Pennsylvania

I’m not using PowerPoint in my presentation.
• I hate PowerPoint
– I avoid using it whenever possible
– It is usually a terrible way to convey information.
• … and they presumably invited me to speak because they think I’m good at conveying information
• But the conference organizers just sent me email “reminding” me that sending a PowerPoint presentation “… is a contractual requirement for speakers this year.”
– what contract is that?
– they’re not even paying me.

End of PowerPoint Presentation for RSA-2011
Matt Blaze
University of Pennsylvania

See also Seth Godin's comments on PowerPoint.

However, webinars also come in more interesting formats, with live speakers visible on screen (a bit like Skype, but usually more effective in its speed). And you can access video conferencing software to sort out your own webinar process, if you're of a mind.

I'm not sure that broadband in New Zealand is up to watching streaming video: at least not in my neck of the woods. At the office - where I'll only be for one more day! - the broadband speed is pretty good. It's rare to see a video in bits, as sometimes happens at home. And when the various TV stations advertise that I can go to my computer and catch up with programmes I've missed, I raise my eyes - it would take me about three times the normal length of the programme to 'catch up'. Watching TV in this way just isn't on as yet.

When the Government finally gets around to contracting Telecom or one of its subsidiaries to provide high-speed broadband everywhere in the country, things may be different. In the meantime, I might have to stick with the sort of webinars that provide one flickering image and do something else while I'm listening.