Mobile Fraudband

I downloaded Google Maps for my Palm the other day. Great! Maps on the go.

I fired up my trusty Palm and fired up the mobile broadband, and began interactively using Google Maps on my Palm with ease. It will be really interesting to see Project X’s mobile implementation of ZoomIn.

Anyway, after about (literally) 2 minutes I noticed that I’d gobbled up almost 500k of bandwidth. And here’s my issue.

I currently pay Telecom $22.22 per month, for 20MB of mobile broadband traffic. Yes, TWENTY MB. So that basically means if I am out and about I can spend no more than 40 minutes using Google Maps. Pardon me if my maths is wrong but it is any wonder why mobile broadband has not yet taken off yet?

Normal Broadband = Approx $49pm for 10GB

Mobile Broadband = Approx $22 for 20MB

Sigh. I long so much for the days when I can stream audio and video podcasts to my phone. Or even just hold a Skype call to get around the extorsionate international mobile calling fees.

Vodafone are no better.

New Zealand Telco’s are monopolistic and backwards thinking. Rod Drury tells the same story on a post with regard to the need for ubiquitous broadband.

Shame on the Telcos.