May 2008

Alasdair from the Daily ACK has travelled to Italy and has taken his trial 3 dongle along for the ride and, after “sorting out some teething troubles” has been “using it fairly heavily”. Alasdair reports that he’s receiving good coverage in Triest, “better in fact than I’ve seen in the UK in the past”, and download speeds only slow down on sites such as Google Maps due to the fact that they’re “heavy with AJAX and dynamic content.”

Alasdair has come across one small issue while using the dongle; some of the dynamic IP addresses that 3 supplies for roaming dongles seem to be on a black list by certain spam filters, meaning some sent emails may be filtered to the recipient’s junk mail. Alasdair can circumvent this problem by connecting to his workplace’s Virtual Private Network (VPN), so it appears he is sending emails “as though I’m sitting back at my desk in Exeter”. Head on over for Alasdair’s full account at the Daily ACK.

Gadgetspeak have given the 3 Skypephone a nicely detailed rundown; in the first half of the article, author mfereday describes the ergonomics of the Skypephone, then follows with a guide to what happens when you switch the phone on. How to log in or sign up to Skype is then covered, and the way to navigate the application, after which mfereday declares “I was reasonably impressed with the Skype capabilities of this phone”, highlighting the ease of use and the free calls to other Skype users.

Mfereday moves on to describe the methods of surfing the web through Planet 3, using MSN, Facebook, Ebay etc and a list of the various applications the phone itself contains. When addressing the camera, mfereday is not too fussed, but writes “you do get reasonable images within the 2 megapixel limitation”. He also finds the insertion of the SIM card to be slightly awkward, but ends by saying “I found the Skypephone to be a well-featured and useful device. I shall miss it when the company recalls my review unit.” Read the full length review at Gadgetspeak.

Over on SMS Text News a guest blogger who only goes by the name Terry has written a piece discussing whether the Skypephone will be taken up by mainstream users, or ‘normobs’ (normal mobile users). ‘Terry’ works in the mobile industry and has an “influential marketing position” which prevents him from speaking about such things on record, but unofficially he has plenty of interesting thoughts to contribute.

In an entertaining narrative involving early morning tubes, Polish armpits and tinny hip-hop, Terry describes some teenagers he overhears discussing the 3 Skypephone as ‘early adopters’. After addressing the point where normal people start discussing new devices in marketing terms, Terry goes on to talk about the importance of Skype, declaring it “is a technology that people really need, free phone calls straight from a computer”, reporting how even his dad uses it despite not being the most technologically savvy of people.

Terry then analyses why the man in the street hasn’t yet gone crazy for Skype; firstly it’s because though Skype itself is free, phones are not and to get the free aspect, users must buy the handset and top up, or buy a contract. His second point is that he believes the Skype application will instill fear in to the hearts of normal men, those who are used to just using their phone book and text messages. However, we should point out that on the Skypephone the phone book and Skype contact list are integrated with one another you can simply access your contacts from the standard phone book.

Time is the answer, thinks Terry, plus “cheap data and the ease of use of a rock”. These things will enable the masses to embrace mobile Skype, Terry suggests that perhaps he’ll even receive a Skype mobile call from his dad one day.

Check out ITProPortal.com for an extensive eight-page investigation into the 3 Skypephone, written by Desire Athow. Desire certainly goes in to depth, beginning with a quick catch up on its history: “It was the first phone which allowed you to make VoIP calls out of the box without any hacks and with the explicit approval of the service provider.”

Making note of the smallness of the 3 Skypephone, she carries on “It feels fairly sturdy and much slimmer than your average mobile phone”, mentions that the firmware can be updated from version 18 and how it can accept MicroSD cards of up to 1GB. She likes the screen, stating “The colours are vibrant and good enough to watch a few short movies”, but is concerned over the ease with which the screen scatches.

Desire doesn’t think too much of the 2 MP camera “Don’t expect miracles though as the camera struggles to deliver quality photos under low light conditions with an excess of noise” and wonders why there is no front facing camera for video conferences but is impressed by the sound quality. After a shortlist of 10 issues she had with the 3 Skypephone, Desire concludes “The Skypephone is not the ideal phone but it is certainly the cheapest way to access Skype and MSN messenger on the move; and does it in style.” Check out the full review at ITProPortal.com.

More blogs have picked up on the story of Vodafone backing down over its claims of 7.2 Mbps mobile broadband after 3’s complaints to the Advertising Standards Agency. Broadband Expert report that “3 claimed that Vodafone was advertising far faster speeds than the majority of consumers would receive, and this made the claims and the advertisements misleading” and that 3 suggest leaving speed based figures out of their advertising completely.

Vodafone claim that 3’s complaint has nothing to do with their change in advertising tact as “Figures such as 7.2Mbps don’t mean enough to enough people. We need to talk in a mass-market language”, but the timing is uncanny.

UK Gadgeteer also have a short piece on the subject which goes over the basics of the situation, reporting on how 3 have said that the maximum possible download speed is 6.69 Mbps and “even that figure is not always obtainable”, with 2.8 Mbps a far more likely figure.

If you’re considering jumping on the 3 Mobile Broadband wagon, head on over to Andy’s blog VoIP Watch. He has an enthusiastic little article on the recent price changes in which he reports “The price of the dongle has been halved and the plan prices are very tasty.”

Andy has linked to Into Mobile’s feature on the half price PAYG Dongles, where author Ben believes “The dongle war appears to be hotting up”. He also includes information on the different price plans available to 3 customers, declaring the 3GB for £15 “the most popular”.

Our new chum MonkeyBum has posted an update on how he’s getting on with his new 3 Mobile Broadband dongle, and the verdict is ‘life-saving’! Regular readers may remember he had been left high and dry with no internet connection after moving house, so he bought a dongle to keep himself online. “The 3 Mobile broadband has saved my life,” says MonkeyBum, “being able to access the shop, process orders and answer emails is a godsend!”

He talks a little about the download speeds he has been getting, saying they are “similar to my first broadband experience circa 2001” and has noticed that the performance seems to be better in the morning. MonkeyBum’s ISP is reconnecting him soon, but let’s hope that not the last we hear of MonkeyBum’s mobile broadband experiences.

While on a trip to Blackpool, gaming blogger Emo185 purchased a 3 Mobile Broadband adaptor and has posted the low-down on it. He bought it for £49.99 from Currys, topping it up with £15 for the 3GB usage which he thinks is “rather reasonable compared to what they used to be”.

Emo185 goes on to say that although the coverage isn’t so great in his hometown, “while on holiday in Blackpool I’ve had great 3G / HDSPA coverage - I could download files, chat on msn and even play Gears Of War online against other people with very little lag”. He recommends the dongle for those who are always traveling around the UK “as they are cheap and extremely easy to use”, which is surely the most important aspects for any mobile broadband user. Emo185 agrees with 3’s claim regarding great coverage in the UK as “I’ve been using the mobile broadband device on the motorway and I have not disconnected once.” As well as informing his readers what Pay As You Go top ups are available, Emo185 also mentions that “Monthly contract options are also available from 3”. Head over to his blog for the full story.

Mobile Today have reported that Vodafone have dropped their claimed 7.2 Mbps download speeds on all advertising following 3’s complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority. 3 had registered the complaint in late April due to the fact that, although Vodafone advertised customers could obtain download speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps, in reality the maximum is 6.69 Mbps and even that figure is unlikely due to signal interference, distance from the nearest mast and non 3G traffic taking up bandwidth.

Speaking at last week’s mobile broadband summit, 3’s head of mobile broadband, Jonathan Lutz, said: “Some of our competitors over promise and under deliver, using technical standards which just aren’t deliverable. We don’t want to see Vodafone taking advantage of something that’s misleading.”

For the full article, head over to Mobile Today.

…according to the personal blog of Edward J.R, and he certainly makes a good case. He’s referring to the Pay As You Go incarnation and his main reason is “because after using the limit (1GB = 10 pounds, 3GB = 15 pounds, 7 GB = 25 pounds) you can top-up again and use cheap Internet and you don’t have to use it in 1 day as some offerings from others.” Edward also thinks other operators charge you more to top up after reaching the download limit, or even throttle the connection.

Though he does take slight issue with 3 using HSDPA 3.6 rather than 7.2, Edward can accept it due to the ease of topping up and not worrying that “you will have to pay one pound per MB or that your connection will be throttled”. He excitedly concludes “Fantastic! I am so happy for [the] UK about it. It changes everything”, which when all is said and done, is a very big recommendation indeed.

There’s a few interesting tidbits floating around from the weekend, so we thought we’d round up the best for your perusal:

Tall Stories.co.uk, a blog about bargains and deals, have reported that 3 mobile broadband is the “Cheapest I’ve seen!” and have some cut ‘n’ pasted info on the 3 USB modem.

Gordon Kelly of Trusted Reviews has a small report on last week’s round table session and thinks “if there is a more progressive network [than 3] out there right now I’ve not see it”. This is due to the manifesto 3 want to see introduced and followed by all mobile networks, focusing not on potential top speeds that are never achievable, but the density and increased coverage of the 3G signal. Gordon finishes by declaring that 3’s desire to see other networks play by the rules they’ve announced is “most honourable” and “it isn’t half refreshing to see a network fighting for its customers for a change”.

If the recent Microsoft Vista security upgrade has affected your mobile internet USB dongle, Shane from SOS has a temporary fix until a patch is released. The problem seems to be when the security update decides that an external device is idle, it switches off power to the device, including the dongle despite the fact that it is online. Check out the tip here, but remember it’s unofficial so use it at your own risk!

With Gordon grumping about in No.10 and Boris clowning around on the streets of London, it’s time the online community took charge and helped to bring a bit of order into our messed-up world. And the biggest danger to society isn’t MRSI or STDs, but the rampant spread of ITMS (Inappropriate Text Messaging Syndrome). The thing is, we can’t get enough of texts; we use them for everything, everywhere, from pub quiz cheating to microblog Tweeting – and so we should. They’re ingenious wordbundles of convenience and pleasure. But all too often we underestimate the power of a humble SMS, get bold and busy with our fingers, and wreak merry havoc before we’ve realised what we’ve done.

Ladies and gentleman of the social media, I will highlight just a couple of areas where unrestrained ITMS is ruining our lives:

·        Business. There are serious hazards here, something the Manchester-based Accident Group learned to their peril when they sacked some 3,000 loyal staff via SMS and were subsequently held liable for compensation by the irate employees. Are kisses on the end of work-related texts always inappropriate? Should you always keep a separate work phone to prevent drunken SMS career suicide? We need to decide!

·        Relationships. Ah, David, your sneaky text sex with the bacon-loving Loos almost caused the downfall of Beckingham Palace – and most of us are becoming increasingly prone to ‘accidentally’ checking our lover’s Outboxes. Is it ever justified? Is it too easy to ‘harmlessly flirt’ on SMS? Are ‘love’, ‘xxxx’ and xoxoxox’ used so indiscriminately in texts nowadays that the value of affection is being debased?

Usually an advocate of all that is free speech, free love and free text, I’ve decided that enough is enough. We need to pool our experiences and work out some rules. So, bloggers, forum members, online opinion-leaders of every kind, I call you to build your own Text Manifesto: your top 20 dos and donts of Modern Text Etiquette. We’re saving lives here, people. Get to work.

Ant at Fresh Plastic and Alasdair of The Daily ACK have both been discussing the news of 3’s proposal to introduce a wireless router to their customers , and they both find the concept an interesting one.

Ant “like[s] this idea, I like this idea a lot” as the laptop he uses is the only one that can use the 3 mobile broadband connection, and despite trying to set up ad-hoc networks, he can’t get other devices to use the connection via the laptop, so you can see why he would welcome the idea of one connection being shared by a multitude of devices.

Alasdair discusses the concept, comparing and contrasting it with a femtocell, which wikipedia defines as “a small cellular base station, typically designed for use in residential or small business environments” and, as Alasdair describes, “uses your existing landline broadband to provide a cell base station, and allows networks to extend their coverage indoors”. The 3 router has its own SIM card, and shares the 3G connection over a local wired and wireless network, although it may not be suitable for Alasdair due to the lack of coverage he receives in his village.

For the full opinions, head over to Fresh Plastic and The Daily ACK.

UK Gadgeteer has brought us the welcome news that the 3 Skypephone has, since its launch last October, climbed in to the fifth position of the best selling mobile internet devices in the UK, “based on the number of adverts served to mobile devices”! The news was initially mentioned on the AdMob metrics site, which informs those with a liking for figures that the 3 Skypephone has 2.7% of the market. Also present is the ZTE dongle at number 8, another 3 related product. For the full top ten, head over to UK Gadgeteer.

Over at Sonflower’s Log, Eeyore (though we presume it’s not THE Eeyore, alas) has announced the introduction of mobile broadband to the titular ship, a narrowboat where Eeyore and family live. Eeyore describes them as an “‘ordinary’ family…As near as we can get to 2.4 children.”

Checking the 3G network map, Eeyore has found “that the coverage has improved no end since my last sortie into the north Midlands and the Shropshire Union”, though there is none in Froghall quite yet. The main worry Eeyore has is “getting a signal inside the steel tube that is a narrowboat” as the non-waterproof dongle may not appreciate being stuck outside a window, dangling over the river! Small, clear, plastic bags are always handy in these situations Eeyore, or you could try to experiment with Ant’s ‘Blu-Hack’.