[clug] Virgin Mobile Broadband with Linux Huawei E220

[Hal Ashburner]

Gary Woodman wrote:
> --- Grant Morphett <grant at gmorph.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> Yep your spot on with 3.  If you start using it when your roaming its
>> big bucks - $1.85/meg I think.
>>     
>
> Something like that. But the USB modem (don't know about the phones)
> defaults to no roaming; you must explicitly set it to roam. I wouldn't
> call that deceptive
If it explicitly tells you that your costs could go up by a factor of
over $200 and getting a second plan with the competing network and
paying for both will be very much cheaper and that you could easily get
a bill for $1000 in 15 minutes of usage then I would agree with what you
say. But I'm sure it doesn't, because if it did, almost nobody would use
roaming and so there would be no reason at all to have a pricing scheme
like this.
I believe it really is intended to deceive and that deception is the
sole reason for such a pricing scheme.

Anyway, virgin, vodaphone and optus for starters do not engage in this
practice so look there first if you're in the market. this week virgin
is cheaper than optus for the exact same network, voda is the same price
as virgin, but with slightly higher early exit fees. All can be made to
work with your linux laptop or your linux based wireless router.

There is no reason I can think of to go anywhere near 3.  This is a
useful thing to remember to mention when your non-techy friends and
family ask you about such things. Their should be reputational cost and
I'm sure they have already factored some of that into their revenue model.

FWIW I have no financial or other interest in any of the above companies
and indeed, don't even know anyone working for them, or those selling them.

I only mentioned this because someone asked about competing plans and
now I blather on, I'm sorry.