Taxi Driver Online

I work for a fair sized Scottish ph firm and were in the process of switching from pmr to GPRS

Now as such owners are saying we need to pay an extra £22 a month each to cover data costs
Now far from me to say that our company owner and management are ripping the pee but that does seem a tad high when you cinsider I can walk into any phone shop and pay half that for a gig of data a month on a data only sim obviously less than that if I'm asking for 500 + sims


So ballpark figure guys how much would it cost per unit per month/year for data

That’s not really excessive and is about what most companies would add on for a move from pen and paper to full GPRS dispatch. They certainly won’t be making a loss on the deal but on the plus side, at least they don’t seem to be demanding any large up front deposits as many other companies do.

The cost of the airtime is academic as the PDAs only use a fraction of the data allowance and the bulk of the cost is going to paying for the actual device over a period of time (typically about two years). Then you need to factor in the costs of the software and support, which unfortunately doesn’t come free.

Bottom line is for just over a fiver a week for all the benefits that this kind of technology brings, it’s a no brainer.

Bill

Thing is bill we have our current units on pmr were keeping the same units and switching to GPRS can you advise a ballpark figure on how much data your average unit will get through all our units are bought and paid for we were told a 600k bill all in so the £22 a month we e been told is just to cover data costs nothing else which seems steep.

The amount of data does vary but a company car for example that’s working 24/7 would typically use about 20 meg per month, so by my reckoning, a gig of data would actually you last about four years. But as I say, the data usage isn’t normally the issue, it’s the cost of the equipment and it’s support.

If you’re using terminals with both PMR and GPRS capabilities then switching the GPRS from backup to primary mode to shouldn’t incur any significant costs given the amount of data involved. What your company’s paying for I haven’t a clue, but I suspect their data charges might be linked into a long-term contract with the terminals. If that’s the case, the data charges would have been agreed possibly as long ago as five years when prices were shy high in which case you’re pretty much stuffed.

I can tell you that my customers who own their own equipment pay £5 a month for a Vodafone contract or a tad over £3 for T-Mobile.

Bill

Thanks for the info Bill


shows we're being lied to somewhere


all new units have been fitted to the fleet in the last month (changing from a previously pmr only datahead to a dual pmr/gprs datahead-still running on pmr) owners claims to have spent £600k on new equipment(probably to justify his 75k a week in radio dues but we're paying for the data.

always good to know what your talking about before you start moaning cheers for the info

Well I think you’ve just answered your own question there. If the company has just had to pay out 600K to replace your old equipment then it’s not surprising that they in turn expect you to contribute to it, after all, they like you are in business to make money.

Bill