Mobile phone talk and text bundles have been around for a long time now and the competition within the marketplace has driven down prices. At the same time the cost of handsets has been increasing as more and more people abandon basic phones in favour of smartphones.
This leaves the mobile networks profits squeezed, and their answer is to get some of this profit back via their mobile data charges. With smartphones now being the order of the day, and with predictions that mobile phones will at some point in the none too distant future overtake computers in terms of internet volume, charges for mobile data need to be factored in when choosing your mobile phone contract.
This is particularly so as the variance in pricing between networks for mobile data is considerable. The networks even have different pricing structures for different devices - per MB charges for mobile data accessed from a laptop via a dongle are usually considerably cheaper than for access via a mobile phone. Why?
The difference is so great that it does make you wonder about the actual cost price to the networks of providing the service and the margins they are making on mobile phone data charges - they are considerable!
While unlimited data bundles are available for consumer mobile contracts (beware fair usage policies if you take the word "unlimited" too literally!) within the business mobile world limits are more likely to be 500MB, 750MB or 1GB per month. This would usually be sufficient for a business user looking to check their emails and browse the internet, without streaming media or downloading lots of online content.
How much mobile data do you need?
For 500MB of data you could send and receive each day:
- 250 emails
- 35 Word documents
- 25 PowerPoint, Excel or Acrobat attachments
These are approximate figures as individual file sizes can vary considerably, but you can see the average business user is unlikely to exceed this limit. However there are things you can do to reduce your download amount if you are a heavy user. For instance you can just download email headers, rather than the full content of the email, and then access any emails in full if they require your immediate attention whilst you are away from the office.
For help and advice on mobile data charges and the best business mobile contracts get in touch with us by phone or online.