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MySpace Mobile on Cingular Wireless: $2.99/month... oh no it ain't!
note: I am a current Cingular Wireless customer
I have to say that this new program from MySpace and Cingular Wireless just smells like Jamster and those other services that you use once and they bill you $1, €1, etc for a daily love message or a horoscope.
MySpace has signed a deal with Cingular Wireless to provide MySpace information on your mobile device. The site shows the following list as the mobile features:
- Read and post blogs
- Upload photos
- Edit your profile
- Search friends
- Add friends
- Add comments
- Read and send mail
- create bulletins
- Add kudos
- View profiles
Alright so we know that people will be interested in this and I think it looks like a great feature set. I have one major concern with this service.
Pricing
The pricing on the web site states the following:You can get MySpace Mobile on your Cingular phone for $2.99 per month. Standard data rates will also apply based on your current feature subscription. Charges will be applied to your Cingular bill or deducted from your pre-paid balance.So how much exactly is the standard data rates? And more importantly, how much bandwidth in KB does using MySpace mobile take per session or per minute, etc. This information is not listed anywhere on MySpace nor on the Cingular web site.
Chart from the Cingular site regarding pricing for MediaNet option:
A far cry from $2.99. Of course, there are unlimited plans for Medianet starting at $19. So now we are at $23. And while I know you can make a case that some may already have Medianet unlimited, I doubt that number is really that high in terms of unlimited users.
And even more importantly, since I have no idea how much bandwidth MySpace Mobile uses, how am I to know if I go over the $9.99 plan? It offers 1mb of transfer. I would love some info about what the average 1 minute session of MySpace Mobile usage runs in terms of data tansfer.
So I would hope that Cingular comes clean with some more information about what MySpace mobile really costs per month and how much the data transfer is used per session. I can only imagine the customer service call load in 1-2 months when users begin to get their statements with the usage on them.
