Bad (formerly good) news from the big chaos of Wind...
 

Starting today, 22 March 2007, the billing with the MEGA options outside of Italy will change once again! From the crazy actual 0.90€/KB to the still crazy, but a bit less, 0.30 €/KB. For some strange reason they won't send an SMS about this change, but it's official, believe me (even if, as usual, they have to update the website).

It's total chaos in Wind since the beginning of March and the new rules in Italian telecoms, one day they increase tariffs, the other day they decrease other tariffs, no one is able to understand what do they have in mind.

Anyway, from today, the MEGA options outside of Italy are as follows:
Mega 300: 0.97MB for 8.00€ (i.e. 8€/MB, rather than 12,50€/MB with normal tariff)
Mega NoLimit: 9.76 MB (i.e. 2€/MB, rather than 12,50€/MB with normal tariff)
Mega 15000: 48.82 MB (i.e. 0.60€/MB, rather than 12,50€/MB with normal tariff)

Still valid the Wind Pass:
Wind Pass: 2.34MB for 3.00€ (i.e. 1.28€/MB, rather than 12,50€/MB with normal tariff)

At the same time they are closing the CAMEL service on the following networks:
Orange, Dominican Rep.
Optus, Australia
T-Mobile, USA
That's quite ununderstandable... and it would be interesting to know if also data roaming is affected...

Hmm, but this means that exceeding the limits of the packets will cost crazy 300€/MB anyway - better than 900 after all :-P.

What does this really mean - no more outgoing calls in prepaid roaming? Or, there's a USSD substitute?

I'm not sure I'd describe this as "good news" as the prices are still not all that great. I'm not sure I'd want to do business with a company like this anyway - the only reason for € 300/MB (never mind 900!) is to rob their customers. If the've done it once, they'll do something similar again.

Of course they are not reliable, but it's a prepaid offer, you can use it if you find it good and stop whenever you want. And of course it's not such a good news, paying 300 euros per MB is still nonsense, but still better than 900 :D

Of course there is USSD (*124*number#) for the countries where CAMEL has been dismissed.

It's still a lot cheaper than what you'll get by using your regular postpaid abroad. The Mega Options were never intended to be used outside of Italy. I'm sure WIND lost serious money when people started using them in their homecountries because it was actually cheaper than anything the locals offered.

In my opinion ~50mb for €30 is still a good deal if you travel a lot. You don't have to pay attention to what network you're using and don't have to fear a 4 or 5 digit bill coming home.

Any news on extending the Mega Options after July?

it's still soon, and in this period it's a total chaos, so it's better not to think about it! :D

This sounds like good news BUT I've checked just now and my usage on Mega-15000 yesterday & today in Belgium, Germany and UK is (as far as I can calculate) being charged at EUR 0.90/kb. Here's a copy of the entries in 155.it:

25/03/2007 13:02:26 SC*** Regno unito Traffico Internet -- Connessione dati GPRS -- 22342 Byt. 19,636524 dettaglio
25/03/2007 13:02:00 SC*** Regno unito Traffico Internet -- Connessione dati GPRS -- 144 Byt. 0,126563 dettaglio
25/03/2007 12:31:49 SC*** Regno unito Traffico Internet -- Connessione dati GPRS -- 54052 Byt. 47,506641 dettaglio
25/03/2007 12:31:41 SC*** Regno unito Traffico Internet -- Connessione dati GPRS -- 1198 Byt. 1,052930 dettaglio
25/03/2007 10:15:07 SC*** Germania Traffico Internet -- Connessione dati GPRS -- 297271 Byt. 261,273346 dettaglio
25/03/2007 10:14:38 SC*** Germania Traffico Internet -- Connessione dati GPRS -- 275 Byt. 0,241699 dettaglio
25/03/2007 10:10:41 SC*** Germania Traffico Internet -- Connessione dati GPRS -- 2543 Byt. 2,235059 dettaglio
25/03/2007 10:07:06 SC*** Germania Traffico Internet -- Connessione dati GPRS -- 48679 Byt. 42,784275 dettaglio
25/03/2007 10:01:10 SC*** Germania Traffico Internet -- Connessione dati GPRS -- 23790 Byt. 20,909180 dettaglio
25/03/2007 09:53:11 SC*** Germania Traffico Internet -- Connessione dati GPRS -- 8624 Byt. 7,579688 dettaglio
25/03/2007 09:52:19 SC*** Germania Traffico Internet -- Connessione dati GPRS -- 1372 Byt. 1,205859 dettaglio
25/03/2007 09:50:13 SC*** Germania Traffico Internet -- Connessione dati GPRS -- 19674 Byt. 17,291603 dettaglio
24/03/2007 05:01:38 SC*** Belgio Traffico Internet -- Connessione dati GPRS -- 181448 Byt. 159,475784

Yeah, they had problems in converting to the new tariff... yeah, it's absurd, and I ask your pardon for having not written it sooner (but I knew it just few mins ago). They'll try again to change the tariff soon, but I have no idea when... they are in total chaos...

It's official: they are totally CRAZY!
 

Other news from Wind, this time bad and totally different from the supposed-to-be good ones!

You should receive an SMS saying that from the 28th of April the MEGA options won't work outside of Italy anymore! So no 90cent/KB tariff anymore, but just the normal tariffs, i.e.:
- € 0.0125/KB in Zones 1 & 2 (= € 12.80/MB)
- € 0.0250/KB in Zones 3 & 4 (= € 25.60/MB)

Anyway it's incredible the chaos in Wind, every week they change their options, and that's not only with the Mega ones...:???:

hope they don't suddenly change the mega options within Italy.

I may switch to vodafone anyway; with my Moto v400 I get very slow connect speeds with wind, nominally 284k but in reality it acts like a very slow old dialup. vodafone will cost more, abut €20 a month IIRC, plus €50 for the little USB plug-in box, but that's for true high speed.

Oh dear...well dissapointing as this news is it is kind of refreshing to hear a vaguely logical announcement by Wind. I guess that this will also apply to the WAP-pass option that, as far as I recall from previous posts, was charging at the old rate. However, perhaps this one has slipped Winds notice so maybe somebody with this option active could mention if they receive this notification SMS? I'll put a post if/when I receive the MEGA notification SMS as well.

So, for me it will be back to the old days of a different data sim for every country. In case it's helpful for anybody in preparation for the final death of MEGA-15000 I've used and tested the following prepaid solutions in the countries I've visited over the past week:

UK - T-Mobile (£1 daily maximum charge for unlimited data pass, with UMTS)
Belgium - Dixitel (€1.50 per MB or perhaps also €10 per month for a 10mb bundle sold as a "messenger" service - only EDGE, no UMTS)
Poland - iPlus SimData (UMTS - can't remember the exact pricing but it was really cheap)

and finally...of course in Italy I'll keep the Wind for national Italian usage!

Next month I'm going to also setup Aldi mobile for Germany and Low Call for The Netherlands. The only country I visit often that I'm struggling to find an economic replacement to Wind for is France....typically the French "cartel" of operators seem to have really un-economic tariffs with short voucher expiry etc. so I think it's maybe cheaper to use a roaming UK Virgin sim! I am kind of hoping for just checking email in France the Wind Wap Pass will keep working though :-) :-)

Perhaps if anybody else can add in any other alternatives for us European travelling data users that have got lazy and used to the convenience of Wind :-)

UMTS with HSDPA/GPRS with EDGE - about 0.08€/MB in 100 kB increments, CSD/HSCSD about 0.08€/min with 1/1 debiting, can be reduced even by 16.66% by using large top-ups. In Poland even the most expensive prepaid GPRS costs slightly over 1.5€/MB (6.10 PLN but the latter is really much for us :-P).

I wonder how this will impact roamers in the US. When I did my yearly top-up, this time I had no problems on T-Mobile. Cingular still did not work properly.

You should not have problems since you can use the USSD, but still it has no sense...

About the Wap Pass, it's still available also abroad for prepaid users, while it's not anymore for postpaid users, and with the old tariffs. Another nonsense, but at least this time it's good for us...

>> Mega 15000 Promozione Notte

Offerta mobile Internet Mega 15000, 30 euro mensili per 15000 euro al mese di traffico dati gratuito. Inoltre, fino al 6 maggio 2007, con Promozione Notte le tue connessioni notturne, effettuate dalle 24 alle 8 del mattino, saranno assolutamente gratuite! L'offerta si rinnova automaticamente ogni 30 giorni ed è valida sia per le linee mobili prepagate che per quelle in abbonamento. L'offerta Mega 15000 è attivabile fino al 30 Giugno 2007 ed è valida fino al 31 Luglio 2007.


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Got this in the email this morning. Effendi, does it mean that it is free browsing on mega 15000 midnight to 8am ? :) does it apply to data abroad?

I really don't trust WIND with correctly charging the Wap Pass abroad though. I'll try it on a Card with slightly over 3€ when I get a chance :rolleyes:

Yep, free nights until May 6th. It doesn't say but I doubt this effects data abroad.

I noticed that free night promo thing on Wind's website a few weeks ago but unfortunately it didn't have any effect on data abroad, at least when I tested it. :-(

Of course that applies to Italy only.
Talking about Wind Pass, I never had any problem, I'm using it every month in Italy and abroad and I was always charged correctly. That's my favourite option, cheap and useful...

http://estero.wind.it/it/privati/cos...ero_costi5.php
Dal 28/04/2007 le offerte Mega 300, Mega No Limit e Mega 15000 , Wap Pass, i-modeTM PASS e i-modeTM PASS 50 non saranno più valide per il traffico generato all'estero.

So also Wind Pass will cease to be useful at the end of April (while I am in Belarus... :ranting: )

Sucks bigtime :-(

free nights?
 

Do you only get free nights if you already subscribe to Mega 15000?

The free nights (0-8am) are valid for all Mega15000 users only, from 5th feb to 6th may 2007.

Whats going on now?

That's the new wap billing:
- 30 cents per connection inside Wind's portal
- 30 cents setup-fee plus 0.03€/KB outside Wind's portal

Anyway it doesn't change the internet.wind billing, just the wap.wind APN

Well, I just noticed that I'll arrive in Geneva the next 27... so I have the last 6 hours to use abroad a data option by Wind :cry:

Same for me in Warszawa and Minsk starting from saturday... at least I can use it a bit more than you! :D