Tiered data pricing update

Updates
#1

Hello,

As we spoke about, we’re introducing tiered data and removing minimum top-ups:

You’re welcome to stay with our current pricing, and if you’d like to switch send us a message in-app. As we reset tiers at the end of the month, you’re better off waiting until then if you’d like to change.

We haven’t updated our pricing API yet (it still shows £2/GB); we’ll do that next week.

Design & Housekeeping

Some things we haven’t made 100% clear, e.g. on a data usage screen:

IMG_7183

We’re going to take care of this (and other things!) in the coming weeks; some end-of-year housekeeping if you will. If there’s anything in particular that’s bugging you, we’d love to know. :slight_smile:

Gigabyte definition change

Until now, we’ve used 1024 MB as 1 GB (technically a ‘gibibyte’). With this new pricing, we’re switching to 1000 MB per GB. On the surface this looks like a 24 megabyte difference (2.34% less), but it’s actually a 73,741,824 byte difference, or 6.87% less.*

I realise this isn’t great news, but we’re doing it to simplify pricing internally across different models (IoT, for example), fitting with our wholesale structure and it’s also technically more accurate.

This doesn’t apply to existing customers on the previous pricing; it only applies to the new tiered pricing.

Any questions let us know, and enjoy your weekend. :blush:

*24 / 1024 ≈ 2.34%. 1 gibibyte = 1024³ = 1,073,741,824 bytes and 73,741,824 / 1,073,741,824 ≈ 6.87%.

5 Likes
#2

Do they reset on the billing or calendar month? Something to clarify on the blog post. May be worth making clear the difference of three two, and the ability to change the billing date to align them if required, eg so that the stats line up.

If you are likely to use more around 7 or 10 GB with half the month left you may be cheaper moving across to the new billing before the next billing cycle.

1 Like
#3

It’s the calendar month, thank you for pointing it out! Updated the blog as well.

1 Like
#4

I think this is pretty confusing with the reset at a calendar month and not aligned with your billing - maybe you could force billing dates to beginning of the month to be less confusing?

1 Like
#5

You can request that change via a message on app like I have done.

There is the monthly fee which is taken at some point in the month, I’m coming to the thinking that it doesn’t matter so much when in the month that happens. This is separate to when the tiering of the data is done.

I now think it’s not that important with it being aligned to the calendar month, so the stats line up. When exactly the top-up happens doesn’t matter so much as I plan to always have a little buffer through a combination of monthly top-up and auto top-up when the balance is low.

2 Likes
#6

Hey @nick. I was just making some screenshots for my sister-in-law for ordering a new SIM for my niece who’s getting her first phone for Christmas. I notice that new SIMs are under the new scheme even if you’re an existing customer which is all OK.

If I add another SIM now it’ll pro-rata the plan depending on my bill date, is this possible if I upgrade my existing SIMs now?

My other half’s number ports tomorrow and would be great to be able to pro-rata the plan she’s going to be on going forward ready for the switchover.

#7

Regarding the gigabyte change, how does this compare to the other carriers and the data usage meters in Android and iOS? I can imagine there would be huge problems, chargebacks, 1-star reviews and “let me speak to a manager” if these don’t match, even if you are technically correct.

2 Likes
#8

In CS when we’re talking about a gigabyte we normally mean 1024 so I can see some complaints happening off the back of the change to 1000 anyways tbh

It’s an ambiguous term where it’s normally referred to as 1024 per GB rather than 1000 (hard drives for example will call it GB and will be 1024 based)

1 Like
#9

For as long as I can remember, Hard Drives have always been using 1000MB per GB, not 1024.

image
image820×617 98.7 KB

1 Like
#10

We’ll look into this :slight_smile:

Have sent you a message!

It seems to vary. I think iOS uses 1000 MB but I couldn’t find anything reliable, and is for some Android distributions as well (LineageOS source here). With some wholesale rates I’ve seen 1024 used for MB, then 1000 used for kilobytes and bytes…

1 Like
#11

Personally, I’ve seen binary prefixes like GiB and MiB finally come into common usage (outside of product marketing at least).

3 Likes