Mobile Network Comparison

Roughly a year after Edward Snowden’s revelations about government spying shook the world, Vodafone have published a paper that details the extent to which government agencies are able to access their private internal networks.

Vodafone’s Law Enforcement Disclosure Report even admits that some country’s security services effectively have a direct back-door allowing them to bypass any efforts by the network operator to protect its clients’ information. They said: “agencies and authorities have permanent access to customer communications via their own direct link”.

The full report weighs in at a hefty 40,000 words and going into detail about the extent and type of government surveillance on global communications. The Guardian’s reaction claims that state snoopers can listen to and record live communications and even use their access to the telecoms giant’s systems to track the physical locations of Vodafone’s customers.

Before we even knew who Snowdon was, we had already written about the scary influence of state actors on communications with a particularly vivid example being the way government control of mobile phones aided was used during the Egyptian Revolution. The crackdown on media reports and internet access were vital to the suppression of anti-government citizen protesters.

Vodafone also reveal that in several countries including Egypt, Hungary, India, Qatar, Romania, South Africa and Turkey, it is unlawful to disclose any information whatsoever regarding interception of the content of mobile communications. You are not even permitted to say whether such capabilities exist.

The following diagram shows which regions allow disclosure and which have made it illegal.

In many countries, Vodafone have had to provide direct access pipes to government agencies. These backdoors do not require any due process such as legal warrants and Vodafone are not given any details about identity or the number of customers targeted. In this way, mass surveillance is possible and governments do not ever have to justify their intrusions.

Confirming the existence of these systems, Stephen Deadman said on behalf of Vodafone:

These pipes exist, the direct access model exists. We are making a call to end direct access as a means of government agencies obtaining people’s communication data. Without an official warrant, there is no external visibility. If we receive a demand we can push back against the agency. The fact that a government has to issue a piece of paper is an important constraint on how powers are used.

Vodafone also released statistics on government requests for their users’ data. The following table summarises the number of requests for interception of information through legal channels backed by warrants. It covers the most recent year where data are available. Metadata refers to information such as phone numbers, addresses, locations and dates and times of communications while content means the actual content of calls or messages. From government reports we know that over half a million requests for customer metadata were processed in the UK. Scary or what?

Meanwhile, the former Stasi officer Wolfgang Schmidt said:

You know, for us, this would have been a dream come true … So much information, on so many people. It is the height of naivete to think that once collected this information won’t be used,” he said. “This is the nature of secret government organizations. The only way to protect the people’s privacy is not to allow the government to collect their information in the first place.

What do you think about this revelation? GCHQ is supposed to spy on Britain’s enemies – is it right that they are spying on all of us? How can security agencies operate above the law? And can we do anything about this or is our best hope to use GPG to encrypt everything and retain some level of privacy? Let us know your thoughts in the comments…

From the beginning of this month, the latest price cap on EU roaming came into effect. European leaders have slashed the maximum phone companies can charge users roaming away from their home networks so that, as of 1 July, browsing the web and using data when travelling in Europe will only cost half as much as before. Not only smartphone users will benefit either – these changes also have heavily cut the price of making calls and texts whilst abroad.

As we first reported back in May 2012, European Parliament has enforced EU–wide roaming rules including price caps for all networks operating within the European Union.

The new price caps which kicked in at the start of this month mean that the price of making calls will drop by over 20%, from €0.24/minute to just €0.19/minute. Receiving calls whilst roaming has also benefited from a lower price cap. The maximum cost per minute is now only €0.05 compared to €0.07 before.

Historically, charges for SMS texts have been sky-high in domestic markets and just as bad for roaming customers. However, the price per SMS has also dropped again to a rate of €0.06/message. Do remember that all the prices we’ve quoted so far are excluding VAT so don’t forget to add on the relevant taxes.

Perhaps the most vital change for visitors to Europe is the fact that roaming data charges have fallen significantly once again. More and more often we find ourselves scouring for free wifi access points to keep in touch with friends and check for vital emails. And in the past, the temptation to switch on data roaming has resulted in phone bills even running into hundreds of pounds following a quick break to Europe.

Before the price caps first came in during the summer of 2012, there was no limit at all on the cost of data roaming within the EU. It wasn’t uncommon for operators to charge several pounds for a single megabyte of transferred data which meant even just emailing a few photos home could cost £100.

Originally, the regulations started with a price cap of at €0.70 per megabyte. While this is still incredibly expensive and many orders of magnitude more than you would pay the same amount of data in the UK, at least caps the amounts that you would have to pay if you do need to use the Internet whilst travelling in Europe.

The latest price decrease sees this amount fall significantly to just €0.20 per megabyte of data used. This is a drop of almost 75% from then and even is less than half the price being charged before July this year.

Another aspect of the EU regulations is the ability for consumers to choose which network they want to roam on when they enter a foreign country. We really welcome this move as it will only serve to encourage competition between the various mobile operators and hence drive down prices for users. The regulations also safeguard reasonable prices until at least the middle of 2017.

It’s also worth noting that these are absolute maximum price caps. There’s nothing to stop networks charging less than these amounts and, overall, the European commission’s work which has been in progress for five years now has seen consumers benefit from massive retail price reductions over the last few years.

For full details of the coming price caps that have just come into force, see below:

Retail pricing (ex. VAT)

Wholesale pricing

What do you think of the latest price cuts? Are you pleasantly surprised or do you think they could have gone further? And what’s biggest phone bill you’ve ever been hit with after using your mobile abroad?

Want to give a little back whilst at the same time saving money on your phone contract? The People’s Operator is the phone network that gives back, with 10% of your spend going to a charity or cause of your choice at no extra cost to you. For this week only they are offering customers Four Months Half Price on The UK’s Best Deal. This means unlimited calls and texts as well as 3GB of data for only £7.50 a month on a rolling 30-day contract.

We’ve previously interviewed CEO Alex Franks to get a better feel of the ideas behind The People’s Operator. We also looked at some of the deals TPO have offered including a game-changing unlimited everything offer last year. This is not quite as interesting but it’s also a lot more affordable so will appeal to different budgets. And as well as being fantastic value, they are the only provider that enables you to give 10% back to causes.

This SIM-only deal is available until midnight on Sunday 15th June when you use the promotional code TPODEAL before check out. The way it works is you pay the usual price of £14.99 for your first month and they’ll give you months two, three, four and five at just £7.50 each.

If your existing network is letting you down, or you simply want a change, switching over to the network is very easy indeed and you can keep your existing phone number. TPO also runs on EE, the UK’s largest 3G network, so you get excellent coverage across the country.

If you’re interested making the leap over to The People’s Operator let us know your reasoning. And click the links above to start “turning your calls into kindness” while the deal is still available.