Gunnar Wolf

Madduck complains about the lack of attractive data plans for mobile phone providers in Switzerland. Madduck: As always, you will have to remember there are many people confronted with a much worse situation than yours.
Up to a month ago, I never envisioned using my phone for anything besides... Well, talking. But yes, since I got my new gadget, I keep playing with GPS or using it for simple things that require Web access and do not require much interactivity (the suckiness of a 12-key keyboard is überhuge!) - Provided, of course, that I am near a WiFi hotspot, of course. My mobile service provider, Telcel, just publicly launched its 3G network - this means, of course, prices are well over the roof:
The cheapest plan starts at MX$59 (around US$5.5) a month, and gives you a whooping 1MB of allowed transfer - Anything you do over 1MB will cost you MX$0.06 per kilobyte. Yes, Telcel offers a 1.5Mbps connection, so it'd theoretically take only 6 seconds to exceed the monthly plan. After the joyful first seconds of network access, each second of full-fledged data transfer will cost you 9 pesos - Around US$0.85. How nice!
Now, there are plans for 1, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 50, 100 and 1000MB. Their price increases at a slow pace up to MX$459, which is still somewhat expensive if you even thought on using your cell phone as a gateway (say, over Bluetooth) for your regular computer's connectivity. Of course, if I buy 1GB of data transfer, I'd expect a much lower price for each additional Kb. Well, no, it only goes down to MX$0.03. Per Kilobyte, yes, you read right. Those little things your Vic20 was full of.
There is even an unlimited plan. Well, yes, unlimited but limited - For MX$579 (~US$55) you get a nice deal, right? After all, I pay MX$350 for my 1024/128 DSL connection - it is on the right range. Well, no - If you get over 3GB in one month, your data rate will drop to 128Kbps for the rest of the month. Nice. No good as a gateway either.
So, I'm not hiring a 3G plan at all. But that's also a danger - If I open a net-using program at the wrong moment, I'll be billed at MX$0.14 per Kilobyte.
Bah.
[update] There is another similar service in Mexico, IUSAcell's BAM. Pricing is equivalent, though.

Call me reiterative, but yes, it is this time of the month again: Last Sunday. Today we went cycling to my city's Ciclotón. Although Nadezhda already took part in the August 2007 ciclotón, I was flying in from Europe that day. When I did the Ciclotón in October, she was in Monterrey. Then in December, Rodrigo reminded us that we missed it. So, this is the first time I do the Ciclotón with Nadezhda! (To my defense: Yes, I sent a SMS to Rodrigo... But too late - He probably didn't plan it on time, so we just didn't meet once again).

And what, am I going to come and brag each time I take my bike out for a longer-than-usual ride? (40Km is no small feat. Well, not for me at least!) Probably not. But if you remember, I just got a new toy, and I can now prove it to you all:

A week ago, I got my fourth cell phone so far. This is the first time, however, that I pay for it - even though the first one I had was a very nice smartphone for its time (basically, a not-really-well-integrated Palm Vx and a bulky phone very worthy back in its time. Anyway - Some months ago, I decided I wanted a Wifi-able phone, in order not to need to carry around my laptop for simple tasks such as checking my mail. Shortly after I started looking for phones which fit my needs, I found Nokia's N95. The map-maniac in me found it had a GPS, and... Well, it just became matter of waiting until my phone company brought it to the Mexican market (as I paid about half its street-price... Y'know, points for customer loyalty, blah blah).
Anyway... I've been extensively playing with my new toy, and although I am still often frustrated by Symbian's so very-very-propietary-minded OS and general culture (it's amazing the number of for-a-fee very simple applications!), I'm very happy. So far, my favorite application (and, of course, the one that made me jump for it) is Nokia's Sports Tracker. While it does have some issues (particularly the web application - at least its interaction with firefIceWeasel is somewhat buggy; it abuses AJAX interaction and some pieces of information are just not linkable, they lack a proper URL), I'm delighted at using it - tracking my theoretically daily excercise sessions, be they excercising per se or my bike rides to work, linking photos taken during those sessions, tagging them to the point and moment they were taken (although, I must admit, it is awkward to take photos while running - And next to impossible while biking, of course).
Yes, to many this is not so impressive... But it is really the toy I was looking for.