Technology &the net 08 Dec 2005 10:24 am
GPR$ Rip Off
Am I cheap or am I simply not a fool?
Is it me or are blackberries just not selling in Greece? I’ve had one for about 6 months but never turned it on. My feelings towards the daylight robbery that is GPRS bandwidth are well known. A Vodafone rep recently came in to the office to try convince me convince my users to subscribe to Blackberry service. His pitch was really pathetic. No mention of the benefits of using such a service nor any mention of communication / productivity gains, full time availability etc.
No, his sell was basically this: “Get in on the deal now because we’re barely keeping up with demand. We’ve got thousands of requests a day and almost can’t manage. We’re surprised you haven’t subscribed yet”
I remember thinking then, “Gimme a break ! Who is this joker !” – My response -“GPRS costs too much – how can you expect me to justify such costly bandwidth rates when compared to ADSL or even dial up. Sure mobility is a factor but is it worth 1000%? Bring down the prices and we’ll subscribe. Until then we’ll stay wired.” –
Sales rep, duly sent packing.
When i pay 8 bucks to host a website and they give me a 250 Gb transfer rate/month and compare that to 30bucks a month for 10mb on Vodafone GPRS – can u help but feel ripped off ? No thanks – Den tha Paro !!
A few months on and just I don’t see those thousands of subscribers tapping away at their Blackberries on the streets of Athens. So much for the demand they couldn’t keep up with. Maybe it’s me wearing a blackberry user filter lens.