Today I spent most of the day travelling to Athlone in Ireland for EdTech 2010 where I am delivering the opening keynote. Travelling to a different country shows how reliant we are (well how reliant I am) on connectivity and communication.
Arriving at Dublin Airport, though my iPhone connected easily to the O2 phone network and I am on O2 in the UK, I got a nice little text message from O2 to tell me how expensive it is to use the phone and data whilst in Ireland.
At £3 per MB this is very expensive for “normal” usage of the iPhone for e-mail, web browsing and using services such as Twitter and Flickr. I did consider buying a data bundle in advanced from O2 but at £50 for 50MB I decided no way.
I also did consider buying a SIM for my unlocked Nexus One, but as I am only here for a few days I didn’t think it was worth it, and what I really wanted from a local SIM was data not calls and texts.
In the end I decided that I could live without connectivity for the time I am in Ireland. Where and when I needed to use the internet I would use WiFi.
What I did quite like in Dublin was the availability of free WiFi in cafes and restaurants. I could buy a coffee and use the WiFi, whereas in the UK it is more likely these days to find that the WiFi is a BT Openzone or other costly wireless hotspot.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 19th, 2010 at 5:53 pm and is filed under 3g, edtech10, travel.	You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Oh yeah… it’s sooooooooooo expensive!
I spent almost £100 on a phone bill when I got stranded in Europe.
Now I feel really guilty about missing Athlone. Listening to your keynote would have made my week. My prep work got skewered by #ashtag a few work days ago and I haven’t recovered to complete my presentation so I’m missing the event totally. I’ll replay some E-learning Stuff in my earbuds while you’re presenting and pretend I’m in your live audience.