I FILL A LOT of dead time while waiting on kerbs with occasional data-driven moments. On my Nokia phone, Gravity is one click away from a lively Twitterstream. A special email address, one unmolested by spam, responds to one click and delivers new mail headers to my phone. I can snap and send an image to Flickr with Shozu by using one click of my cameraphone. Two clicks into Google Latitude and I know where I am, complete with pinpoints of places I've told my phone to remember. All these activites work without undue hassle in Ireland and they don't cost more than the flat fee of EUR 30 that I pay to O2 for a gig of data a month. But when I clicked my phone while standing at JFK Airport, the delivery of three new email headers, the sending of two emails and 10 seconds of checking Google Latitude cost me EUR 5.46. In my normal workday, I would run a casual kerbside check four or five times a day. From personal experience while roaming in New York a few months ago, that kind of a data consumption over-the-air runs up a daily bill more expensive than the cost of overnight accommodation in Manhattan. I know iPhone owners whose constant use of Twitter would run up more data roaming charges than me. For them, I offer one word of advice: Maxroam.
Sent mail2blog using Nokia E90 T-mobile Typepad service under Penn Station, New York.
