Lowest GPRS yearly cost found
Truphone have a card for 16 euro. 400 mb, the card is valid 5 years. Works perfect. Sold to anyone by eurodk.com
I saw 1nce.com as well, sent them an email about how they round up traffic - every provider seems to do it on some level - to 1KB blocks, sadly never heard back since.
So moved on with trialing some other suppliers - one's that would give me access to the raw data consumption and the billed consumption.
Truphone - they're pricey. You can get the same data (almost) for half the price. I think I might give up on running a Traccar instance and just start selling sims. LOL
Dibbs, do the maths.
1nce: 10 euros for 500mb = 0.02 euro / mb
Truphone: 16 euros for 400mb = 0.04 euro / mb
@Anthony - I just read my last paragraph and realised why you wrote what you wrote. ;) What I should have written was "Truphone - they're pricey. You can get the same data (almost) for half the price elsewhere." Sorry for the confusion.
On a personal note: I've never really liked business models where they rely on payment up front for what is in essence a subscription model. But I can also see the issues with trying to charge folk for really small amounts on a monthly basis as well. LOL
Well not in Europe for sure. Or point me to an european provider who come close to this prices. In developing countries perhaps but not in europe and a card that works in many countries
@Anders - for individuals it might be a little difficult as many providers want to deal with commercial outfits\companies.
As an example - I have 2 providers: one is prepay who charge slightly less than 1nce.com but provide 300MB and the card is valid for 5 years. And my main provider who charge the same as Truphone but that's a cost on a yearly basis but provide 1.2GB in total with coverage in almost 200 countries.
And both are European. Unfortunately the prices are volume based.
Friends.
Don't be confused with N years expiration. Top-up need will become earlier.
Most important is network reliability and cost per megabyte.
1nce is fully transparent, everything is clear on their pages and is the cheapest.
I am using on my two trackers since January 2020.
Truphone send me a questionnaire to reply on cost. So secret?
Unfortunately all IOT providers want to do business with companies.
That's all.
@Anthony
I agree with you about N years expiration. Top-up need will become earlier. It may well be the case & at least with 1nce.com the top up is at least the same price. I've across some where it's noticeably higher.
Truphone - I wonder if the questionnaire was more to see what volume pricing (i.e. less than the std rate) they could do. Or if you really were a business. Hard to say but it's annoying tho.
Not wanting to get into an argument - it isn't only about the cost per MB, how they round traffic (usually to the 1KB) also affects how you get billed. Some round up per session, some round up per transmission and some don't round up.
In recent weeks, I've come across all 3 patterns with European providers. The rounding up pattern is very important - if it is a per transmission pattern (which is the worst), it could make what looks like a cheap rate per MB actually work out very expensive.
To give you an idea - I have Calamp devices. These send a UDP packet to the server of around 50bytes and receive one of 10bytes. Add the transmission overhead of 28Bytes each way & you get 88Bytes up and 38Bytes down in one "transaction".
If the provider (like 1 I've seen) rounds up per transmission to 1KB units (they confirmed it in writing) - then that total "transaction" has suddenly gone from 126Bytes (raw) to 2KB. If position updates whilst moving are every 30s or 60s - any data allowance will be eaten up a lot quicker than expected.
HIH (someone)
Dibbs
@Dibbs
I see that your study is in depth.
I am very satisfied where my "Daily data consumption with device on the move, is about 1.2mb. 2-3 kb at the days without moving.", as I wrote when I opened this post. My devices when idle they send position every 10min instead of 10sec on the move.
Additionally instead of paying 4,40 euros for 500mb every 25 days to Cosmote in Greece (cheapest data package), which is 64,24 per year, now my yearly cost is less than 10 euros. I don't care about rounds up per transmission, the difference is significant plus I don't have my mind to top-up every 25 days.
In 1nce portal they have a usage monitor where I check the remaining mb.
Honestly, I am not trying to sell 1nce, just sharing my experience as tracking is a hobby and I have spend time and money on this.
Check their coverage for your country.
Check out Deutsche Telekom's Business Smart Connect M2M Plan, 3 year lifetime, 3000MB, for 29,95 €. You get a management user interface similar to 1nce.
@Anthony
It's good to hear that you aren't being stung by high prices locally. :)
Ultimately it's about the usage profile\case for a particular device\person. My devices are in use (moving) upto 10 hrs a day and hence the usage can get out of hand if the "rounding up" is per transmission. My raw usage worked out at 2.7Mb per month.
I did create a spreadsheet for about 5 different providers and factored in rounding where the supplier had stated what it was and my current suppler came out on top - but volume pricing\requirements played a factor here.
I did get in touch with 1nce.com but no reply - hence had to discount them, for my use case\s.
Don't worry about selling 1nce - LOL. It's good that folk are giving their own experiences with equipment and providers. It all adds to the body of knowledge and hopefully helps people make informed choices that benefit them.
@Han - I did see them and they looked good. Sadly their T&C's state The offer is aimed exclusively at business customers with registered office and shipping address in Germany. - I meet the 1st part but not the 2nd part, so couldn't use them.
Thanks
Dibbs
I want to share with all members my great experience with 1nce.com German company.
With 10 euros per 500mb and no monthly need to top-up, I successfully monitor my device.
Daily data consumption with device on the move, is about 1.2mb. 2-3 kb at the days without moving.
500mb will be enough for a year+. Miracle...
Excellent client service and platform.
Have in mind that you can not send SMS and get replies from your devices, is a GPRS communication path only.
Before install 1nce SIM, send 2 SMS to device and change: 1st for APN and 2nd for tracker server IP and port. Then install 1nce SIM.
To buy must have European corporate TAX ID, declared to VIES system - They don't sell to individuals.
Hope to be helped...