orange announce ipad uk 3g rates

[Keith]

hmmm is it just me or is this mind numbingly complex and expensive

Orange has revealed its iPad data plan pricing, including a novel pay-for-what-you-use scheme.

The key plan bills data at a rate of five pence per megabyte up to a monthly maximum of £40. That's 800MB.

Orange will also offer daily and weekly one-off connectivity. A day's surfing costs £2 and gives you 200MB of data. A week's bundled access will set you back £7.50 and give you a 1GB allowance. Exceed those limits and you'll be billed at the 5p/MB rate.

To up the limit, you can go for a £15 or £25 monthly deal which come with, respectively, 3G and 10GB of data plus 'unlimited' - 750MB, in fact - Wi-Fi hotspot browsing though BT Openzone. Again, bust the limit and you'll pay 5p/MB for the excess.

Activate any of these plans and we'll give you £10 credit, Orange said.

Orange said it will take orders for the micro Sim cards the iPad uses on 10 May - the day Apple UK starts offering pre-orders.

[Britchick]

sooooooooooooo how much would 200mb get me? :unsure:

[Deafjeff]

mmmh I have iphone so the real question is, is there is any need for 3G model?

BTW, I have noticed that Iphone via orange is not a good deal anyway so would be interesting to see what 02 will come up with...

[josh.p.]

Confused? You will be!

[Keith]

sooooooooooooo how much would 200mb get me? :unsure:

one of those utterly completely totally impossible questions :lol:

Lots of email, not very that many large images, perhaps 40/50 mp3s, but its not a HUGE amount thats for sure

[Deafjeff]

Would you not agree if you have iphone then there is no real point in getting 3g model.

Is this a right track of thought???

[Britchick]

i do try not to ask silly questions :unsure: so not a days surfing the net on forums then?

does the 3G have GPS?

[Keith]

i do try not to ask silly questions :unsure:

I'm afraid that's one of those "how long is a piece of string please?" questions.

No one can accurately tell you how much it'll get you, only try and give you a very very very rough guide



so not a days surfing the net on forums then?

Well again :/ depends how many posts you read, how many images are in them in signatures, photos and so on. Yeah, I'd say 200MB would give you a day pretty comfortable forum access but COULD you go over it just doing that? yep. Could you go over it doing some email as well ? yep


does the 3G have GPS?

Yep, the 3G chipset seems to have A-GPS assisted GPS.. heres what one blog says:-

"After several hours with an iPad today, the app I was most mesmerized with was Maps. One word: Wow.

When showing off the iPad to others, the Maps app consistently made people’s jaws drop (even more so than the Marvel Comics app, which I also find pretty magical), and rightly so. Never have I seen such a fast, intuitive piece of technology for geographical navigation. That’s exactly how mapping software should be: immediately responsive and easy to use to keep up with you on the road.

For that reason alone, to me the lack of GPS in the Wi-Fi iPad is a dealbreaker.

When writing Wired.com’s iPad buyer’s guide, I highlighted the 32-GB iPad 3G as our top pick, listing the inclusion of GPS as one of the key points. But now that I’ve spent a good deal of time with an iPad, I’m confident to say that that distinction alone should be enough to get you sold on the 3-G iPad, especially if you’re the type who travels or commutes, even if only occasionally.

You might think, “Just how would an iPad fit in as a navigator? It’s way bigger than most GPS devices.” That’s why it’d work. You’ll no longer have to pan all over the place and squint at a map to get a clear visualization of your route: It’s all nicely laid out in the map on the 9.7-inch display.

The fact it’s so easy to use is another big factor. Imagine going on a road trip and handing the iPad to a person in the passenger seat and asking him or her to look up directions. I’m willing to bet that even without ever using an iPad, any passenger will be able to launch the Maps app and look up directions within a few seconds.

The Street View mode is even more impressive. Tap the marker of a location and it immediately zooms in and shows a panoramic view (as pictured above), which you can rotate 360 degrees, giving you a visual of your destination.

Speed, ease of use and comprehensiveness: These elements add up to the convenience we’ve always wanted from a GPS device that no one has delivered until now. Today I bought the Wi-Fi iPad for the Wired office — but for me personally, I can wait for the 3-G iPad, which comes out late April.
"

[Keith]

Would you not agree if you have iphone then there is no real point in getting 3g model.

Is this a right track of thought???

Well yes and no! To many folks I think the answer would be yep, no point since you have emergency internet access on the iphone but once you have the larger screen ipad, will you be happy with it on the phone?

The other question is, where will you use the ipad? if always at home with wifi then you dont need 3g and lets face it, it's too big to take *everywhere* like you can the phone?

Finally, GPS in the 3G model (although I've heard people say it's in the wifi only model but perhaps thats just using wifi to somehow assess where it is :/ hard to know for sure without me having probably used one)

[Deafjeff]

Is the GPS part of data bundle or is it 'free'?

[Keith]

Is the GPS part of data bundle or is it 'free'?

My guess is it would be free unless yah know, you were using it as part of an application like maps which went online to grab its maps/directions and the like.

[Skywatcher]

Well that is me 100% wifi. What a dogs breakfast of a pricing schedule- looks like it was put together by a coalition :lol:

[Keith]

Well that is me 100% wifi. What a dogs breakfast of a pricing schedule- looks like it was put together by a coalition :lol:

truly rubbish pricing yep

[Britchick]

Orange are like that though, maybe o2 will have a more sensible offer

[Keith]

Orange are like that though, maybe o2 will have a more sensible offer

yeah also true :yes:

[josh.p.]

Orange has the worst coverage around here! :sigh: O2 is fairly good but not excellent.

[catrancher]

Keith, I've just had a play with the Maps on mine. Functionality wise, it's the same as you described earlier. Just no 3G so no use out in the car. But, like Jeff said, I've got my iPhone for that.

Tom (:macwave:... knows where he is!)

[Keith]

Keith, I've just had a play with the Maps on mine. Functionality wise, it's the same as you described earlier. Just no 3G so no use out in the car. But, like Jeff said, I've got my iPhone for that.


How is it doing the GPS though Tom? I thought the GPS was part of the 3G chipset. I know it uses cell towers for the "assisted" bit so I'm assuming the wifi only doesnt do THAT bit, but do you know if it has an actual gps satellite chipset??

[catrancher]

Oh yeah, Wifi does that! :thumbsup:

I hit the little button to show me where I am and it dropped the pin right exactly on my house. :yes:

How well it would work out and about I don't know. But at least here at home, it was dead on.

Tom (:macwave:... where am I?)

[Keith]

Oh yeah, Wifi does that! :thumbsup:

I hit the little button to show me where I am and it dropped the pin right exactly on my house. :yes:

How well it would work out and about I don't know. But at least here at home, it was dead on.


I'm actually gong to have to go look up how that works!

I can see how satellite gps works but does the iphone/ipad 3gs have it? or are they just doing A-GPS!?

The A-GPS I Can see how THAT works. Triangulation using cell tower signals. Fine and I can see that the 3g iphone/ipads have this.

WIFI though, ok could get IP Address location but that wouldn't normally be anywhere close so how is it figuring out a location from wifi I wonder.

[Keith]

There's this article but then it'd only work if it could see known wifi hot spots?

Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS) is a term pioneered by Skyhook Wireless to describe its Wi-Fi-based location system. Skyhook has built and maintains a large global database of Wi-Fi access points and their precise locations. This data may then be used by a mobile electronic device to triangulate a user's position.

WPS may be combined with cell phone tower triangulation and GPS to provide reliable and accurate position data under a wide range of conditions, including among tall buildings and indoors, when GPS signals may be weak or intermittent.
Limitations: WPS does not work when out of range of Wi-Fi signals, and the Wi-Fi hotspots database must be constantly updated to keep up with Wi-Fi hotspot changes.

[Keith]

ok so from what I'm reading so far....

WIFI only GPS - Ipad wifi
Skyhook and others are driving round the world noting the position of wifi SSIDs and the co-ordinates. These are then saved to a database to be used by wifi devices for postioning. Accurate if your location has been scanned in the db.

Ipad 3G
has satellite GPS + Assisted cell tower GPS + wifi GPS

[Keith]

A-GPS (Assisted GPS) on iPad 3G/iPhone 3GS goes a step further, finding the closest satellites to more quickly identify your position. If you’re not within a clear line of sight to a GPS satellite, iPhone finds you via Wi-Fi. If you’re not in range of a Wi-Fi hotspot, iPhone finds you using cellular towers. The size of a location circle tells you how accurately iPhone is able to calculate that location: The smaller the circle, the more accurate the location.

[catrancher]

Now that I've actually read your post a little closer, I didn't really answer your question.

No, I don't think the WiFi model has the GPS chip set. At least according to Apple it doesn't. Does this mean that it doesn't REALLY have it. Not sure. :unsure:

However, it does do a bang up job of finding out where you actually are! :thumbsup:

Tom (:macwave:... I should read before speaking!)

[Keith]

no it's fine Tom really :yes: I just wanted to know exactly which device was doing what and I think I have it sorted out now :yes:

[MarkE]

I dare say the 3GB per month would be best for most people - I used to use a virgin media usb dongle, and never exceeded 2gb per month just browing.

I guess this is a direct competition to the laptop+ usb dongle? If this works well, do you see them offering it to macbooks?