Jul
15

Smartone-Vodafone & iPhone in Hong Kong

Smartone-Vodafone logoLast Friday I reported that I was stuck at a Starbucks that did not have a reliable WiFi connection, so I decided to give the iPhone tethering a try. That trial ended up lasting 4 hours of work on my Mac.

When I decided to use it, I was not 100% certain how Smartone-Vodafone was going to bill me. I have one of their IOM (Internet on Mobile) plan that has since been discontinued, but very similar to the current “IOM Value Pack” except without a contract.

This plan comes with a HKD15.00/15MB rate for any HSDPA traffic outside of their “Internet Browsing” traffic. So I concluded that Smartone-Vodafone cannot tell the difference between regular local data traffic and tethered traffic from my Mac. Therefore and tethered traffic will be charged based on the HKD15.00/15MB rate (with a price cap of HKD298.00).

I received my bill yesterday and I was correct. The only extra data charges I have was lump into the other HSDPA traffic that Smartone-Vodafone did not consider to be “Internet Browsing”. It came out to about 105MB of usage for the 4 hours of tethering.

Today I also received confirmation of how Smartone-Vodafone’s billing system is distinguishing regular HSDPA local data traffic and what they considered “Internet Browsing”. For the iPhone:

Any traffic through the Mobile Safari browser on the iPhone and any traffic from the use of the YouTube native application are all considered “Internet Browsing” according to the Smartone-Vodafone billing system.

All other HSDPA data traffic from any other applications on the iPhone will be considered extra data, and will be charged based on the HKD15.00/15MB rate with a price cap of HKD298.00.

Also, the HKD298.00 is a price cap only, that means HKD298.00 is the maximum amount Smartone-Vodafone will charge for extra data usage, but if you reach that amount the data usage is still usable past the 298MB.

I hope this helps clarify some of the questions people have with using the iPhone in Hong Kong on the Smartone-Vodafone network.

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Tags: Hong Kong, HSDPA, IOM Value Pack, iPhone tethering, Smartone-Vodafone, tethering

Posted by Vinko Advice, iPhone Subscribe to RSS feed
  • TY
    How do you get Tethering without jail breaking on the firmware 3.1? I'm on an official unlocked Apple-store HK iPhone.
  • That post of mine you commented on is when I was still using firmware 3.0. Although the revised hack for firmware 3.1 is suppose to be available very soon. Stay tuned here on my blog for more details when it becomes available.
  • Stephen
    Looks like smartone now has a reasonable unlimited data plan for $238 and it looks like it's real data, not just browsing data.

    For some reason I can't copy and paste the link here but look under hot offers on the price plans section of their website.
  • You are talking about is the one that Brian Leung subscribed to last week.

    The HKD238/month Unlimited Plan requires a 18 month contract.

    According to all the small print this plan does offer unlimited HSDPA local data usage, which includes "Internet Browsing" (as defined by Smartone-Vodafone), data traffic from native iPhone apps that is not considered "Internet Browsing".

    In the small print it explicitly indicates that this "unlimited data" does not include tethering, but as mentioned in other post. The way tethering is done on the iPhone, carrier should not able to tell the difference.
  • jeffl00
    i am considering getting a iphone 3gs soon, and i am looking for my best options for a service provider, I am curious about what kind of download and upload speeds you are getting while tethered to an iphone through vodaphone in hong kong. it would be great if you could go to a site like speednet.net and test the connection speed and post the results.
    thanks!
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