GPRS and Digifone

zenith

'Lo,

I hear that Digifone will be making GPRS available to the general public within a month, but no prices yet. Bandwith allowance will be enough for reasonable email-type use and will be bundled with rental. They've gone with a Motorola handset, the t280? I think it's four channels down, one up.

Also, Digifone will be selling the Blackberry (pretty cool secure email PDA) with GPRS here, but no date on that yet as they're waiting for the hardware.

No word yet on when Eircell's GPRS is coming out.

If this is not news, apologies.

Fidelis

Eircell were conducting GPRS trials last summer.

MiCr0

ericsson :cool: installed the gprs canister in eircell last summer (2000) and there have been test running ever since.
latest i've heard is that it should roll out some time over christmas with handsets coming out around the same time.

ones from ericsson to look out for will be the r520 v.nice but a bit big and the t39 xlnt (same size as t28 but with wap, gprs and bluetooth built in)

yellum

Met a friend of mine that works in Digifone the other day. He was saying that the GPRS network is up and running and working fine but it won't be very cheap for the consumer.

The blackberry is a very handy sms/pager thing. They should grab even more of the market with this product. I know I'll buy one for my mum when they come out. Shes afraid of the mobile but this might be easier for her to use.

rymus

apparently eircells GPRS network has been running for ages, but as eircell are (or were until recently) affiliated with Eircom, I wouldnt expect any miracles as regards pricing.

MiCr0

eircell doesn't have gprs all over
i use gprs phones every day and there is no coverage.
clonskeagh is the best spot i reckon

seamus

Eircell's GPRS is truly up and running(and quite efficient according to trials), and all their customer service people have been trained in as two how to deal with GPRS, they're just waiting for the nod from management. It's an 'always on' connection as you probably know, so pricing is by data packets and afaik is around 10p per 50K, so it's pretty pricey. Pricing for normal call is the same, but I'll check all this out on their intranet later(I work for eircell as you might have guessed)

MiCr0

gprs isn't available yet is it seamus?

btw where did u work in eircell?
i was working in clonskeagh and sandyford in the NMC for a while

seamus

Nah only working in a simple call centre in donnybrook p/t (I'm only a lowly student), but the intranet and rumor provides me with all the info I need. In work again on Wed., so I'll post all details then

seamus

OK, after you've all waited, I've got the goods(I think). The intranet says that eircell GPRS will be (has been) available from June 20th to corporate customers.(It's been ages since this page was updated). Non-corporate GPRS will be available 'later this year', hmmmm.... Anyway, pricing is per Kilobyte!! , that is for every 1024 bytes, and is in the region of 1p per KB I think, but definitely don't quote me on that...and that's all, they're keepiin very quiet on the issue

MiCr0

best bet is to look @ the other vodafone companys and see what they charge
for vodafone.co.uk

GPRS
Monthly access
Free
Inclusive data volume (MB)
0 MB
Additional usage charges
2p/Kb

GPRS 1
Monthly access
£7.49
Inclusive data volume (MB)
1 MB
Additional usage charges
0.5/KB