Monitoring data use on GPRS?

[Guest RMWD]

Having been persuaded by two orange shops that the £6/month "unlimited" trial was really unlimited, and having that checked out by Orange 150 to be correct, I discovered yesterday that it is limited to 10 megabytes data per month by wireless services on 156. They also told me that there was no way I could know when I had exceeded that amoutn and they would let me know when I wsas close. Today I spoke to 156 again and they denied the latter statement and confirmed that there was no way of knowing until you get the bill. They mentioned how to use the call meters but these DON'T measures data use but time use :D .

Handango have a gprs monitor a trial of which I downloaded and ran but it is uncertified so I can't use it.

What do others do monitor usage?

How un business like of Orange to only provide this information to accountants in the billing office. Surely we would all use gprs more if we were sure how much we were paying? I don't know if I have exceeded the 10mg limit this month but I am not using the service any more until I get my bill.

What do you think?

RMWD

[Guest zenabi]

I had no problems installing the trial of GPRS Traffic Counter. Try restarting your SPV and install it again.

[Guest garf_d]

As I said in a post a couple of days ago you will not get charged if you go over the 10MB limit on the promotional GPRS service according to the people on 156. However Orange do reserve the right to cancel the promotional bundle and move you onto a regular one if you abuse the service. They will let you know if they do this.

Admittedly they are reluctant to admit this on 156 but they will if you push them. If you go over by a couple of MB it won't be the end of the world, there are people seriously abusing the service out there (like 50MB+) who will be Orange's priority to deal with if they do decide to start taking action.

Gareth

[Guest RMWD]

I had no problems installing the trial of GPRS Traffic Counter. Try restarting your SPV and install it again.

Thanks, the next day the certification error disappeared and I can use it now. Interestingly I loaded it into the SD card and this caused an error which the FAQ showed to be a bug in the program which mean't that you had to load it to the phone. On unstillaing and reinstalling I got the certification error again, but this was gone by the next day.

Now I've tried it it seems like a good utility.

[Guest RMWD]

As I said in a post a couple of days ago you will not get charged if you go over the 10MB limit on the promotional GPRS service according to the people on 156. However Orange do reserve the right to cancel the promotional bundle and move you onto a regular one if you abuse the service. They will let you know if they do this.

Admittedly they are reluctant to admit this on 156 but they will if you push them. If you go over by a couple of MB it won't be the end of the world, there are people seriously abusing the service out there (like 50MB+) who will be Orange's priority to deal with if they do decide to start taking action.

Gareth

Gareth thanks, I read your post originally and this set me off to check with Orange. You have been given a different story also. I spoke eventually to someone quite high up to complain about the lack of coherent information and even he under pressure wouldn't admit to your version even.

I just don't know why they can't have a coherent policy. If they mean 10mg then why not say so upfront AND give us the means to monitor usage. Even a Pay as U go phone allows usage monitoring.

Thanks

[Guest garf_d]

You have been given a different story also. I spoke eventually to someone quite high up to complain about the lack of coherent information and even he under pressure wouldn't admit to your version even.

This does not surprise me, It probably is not official policy to (effectively) tell the customers to ignore the fair use guidelines because nothing nasty is likely to happen without them being told first. FYI I was told this by someone on the GPRS second line support desk rather than the people who initially answer the calls to 156. I suspect they are holding back on an official annuncement to the customers to see how bad the abuse of the service is. My technician suggested a few people have managed 100MB in a month - clearly those people deserve to get thrown off, no argument. Personally I think 20-25MB is excessive, its GPRS not ADSL!

Whether or not 'inform and move' really the official policy remains to be seen, however it does make the most sense. Orange realisticly cannot impose a charge which is not published anywhere on their websites or in the literature accompanying the phones without giving us written notice first. Even if there is an additional charge for this 'unlimited' service we have not been given any way of finding out how close we are to the limit, therefore we have no way of telling if we are going to incur this charge we have not been informed about.

I'm not convinced it would stand up legally if they were to suddenly charge all of us on this basis.

Gareth

[Guest HelloDave]

Anyone know what the "IPSMGCounterFile.mmf" file is on the SPV? It sounds promising in a data counting kinda way, but I can't access it because the phone always tells me it's in use. Optimistic, but you never know what it could be...