Category: 3g

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JoikuSpotting

I really do like the iPod touch, the interface, the browsing experience, the video playback, the different applications now available.

Of course to get full functionality you need to be in the vicinity of a wireless hotspot. You can’t (for obvious reasons) use a 3G dongle and without bluetooth or the ability to connect a cable you can’t use a tethered mobile phone.

Now I know what you’re saying, get a 3G iPhone, well yes, that is all well and good, but three things are stopping me, one I already have a Nokia N95 which does what I need (well the typing is nowhere as near as nice as on the iPod touch), secondly I am well into a long contract too with T-Mobile. Thirdly, I quite fancy upgrading to the Google G1 phone.

So I was quite interested in trying out JoikuSpot. What JoikuSpot does is basically turn your 3G wifi mobile phone into a wireless hotspot.

So the Nokia N95 connects to the internet via the 3G network and then allows wifi clients connect to it via the 802.11 wifi.

It works very well and is in my opinion very clever.

The free version is limited and doesn’t allow you to do e-mail which is a pity, so I will probably upgrade to the pro version.

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Podcasts on the Nokia N95

Generally if I want to listen to a podcast, I use iTunes and sync with the iPod.

The other day I realised that I had forgotten to sync the iPod and therefore the latest version of MacBreak Weekly was not on my iPod.

Problem was, I was in my car and away from the computer.

So I stopped the car, and using my phone, a Nokia N95 I browsed to twit.tv and clicked the relevant link for MacBreak Weekly.

The phone then started to download the podcast over the 3G data connection. So I drove off…

Unfortunately the first attempt failed for some reason, though I guess I may have lost the 3G signal.

So I tried again and this time it worked fine.

Now what I liked was that the operating system on the N95 knew it was a podcast and added it to the podcast area and started to play it.

I liked the way the phone downloaded the podcast really really fast and then knew what to do with it.

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Crashing Nokia N95

Over the last couple of days I have been having a few issues with my Nokia N95.

It keeps crashing! So much so that I have had to open it up remove the battery and reboot.

I was using Shozu to upload photographs to Flickr, so was using a third party application, my 3G connection and the camera.

Not sure of the reason behind the freezes and crashes.

Photo source.

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Well, not having much success…

I have been using a Vodafone USB 3G stick with my Sony VAIO UX1XN with some success now. However downside is that it sticks out the side and I do worry it might break off (which would be annoying).

I do have a T-Mobile phone and a 3G data plan with them, which allows me to use my phone as a modem. This has worked fine on my Mac, but I decided it would be good to use it with my UX1XN.

However I not having much sucess.

I first tried the Nokia N series software, which required about 100MB of stuff to be downloaded…

This eventually installed, and after I had paired with my Nokia N95, I expected things to go smoothly.

However it failed to make a connection as it said that the modem was being used by another application.

This unhelpful error was because the modem drivers needed resinstalling and the help unhelpfully said that, but didn’t say how to do it!

So after a few attempts, I gave up and used System Restore to rid myself of the Nokia software.

I then tried the standard Nokia software (which also works with N series phones) and alas everytime I tried to to get a connection, the Bluetooth software would case a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD).

Using Windows Me I would get BSOD all the time, with Windows XP it was quite a rare occurence. On Windows Vista on the UX1XN I get them all the time, I keep having Windows Me flashbacks.

After a couple of attempts, I decided to use the VAIO Update feature to see what new drivers  were available.

So have spent the best part of a day, downloading updates and installing them. The automatic updates took their time, but there were a bundle of non-automatic updates, most of which consisted of:

Download update

Uninstall software

Restart

Install new software

Restart

It wouldn’t be so bad, but Windows Vista on the UX1XN takes an age to start up.

Getting there, final update being installed, will try Nokia software again!

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Fast, really fast

Most of the time I am using my Vodafone 3G USB stick is with my Mac. I have though recently been using it with a Sony VAIO UX1XN. One of the key differences is that the Vodafone connection software in Windows gives you a lot more information on the connection than it does on a Mac.

Using it recently I was pleasantly surprised by a couple of things.

Firstly speed. Now Vodafone advertises that you can get 7.2Mbps on the stick, which to be honest I believe only happens in London or outside Vodafone HQ! Having used 3G for many years now I was impressed with the 384Kbps I got back then. Using the stick here in deepest Somerset I was pleased to find I was getting a steady 1Mbps.

Secondly warnings. I was using the 3G connection to download some Nokia installation files, there was a fair bit of data coming down, when I hit 50MB a pop-up popped up and said warning 50Mb data had gone through the stick. I thought that this was pretty neat especially if you are on a pay as you go connection or near your fair use limit.

Overall I am still impressed with 3G and if you are in the right spot you wouldn’t realise that you were on basically a mobile phone connection.

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“Why Kyte will kill Qik!”

Robert Scoble on TechCrunch has written a well detailed and informative article on why he reckons that Kyte.tv will win over other services such as Qik in the mobile phone streaming live video arena.

Anyway, back to the fight between Kyte, Qik, and Flixwagon over your cell phone video experience. Last year I was Kyte’s top user too. Why did I switch to Qik? Because I saw that cell phone video would let me extend my brand into places no other video network was letting me get to. I was the only one doing cell phone videos from the World Economic Forum, for instance, something that got me a lot of attention and followers. I told Kyte’s CEO, Daniel Graf, tons of times over the past seven months to get video streaming into his product. At first he resisted, thinking it wasn’t that big a deal, but on Friday I finally tested it out on my cell phone and was impressed enough to give Kyte a second look.

Robert Scoble is one of the top (if not the top) streaming mobile phone video users and has done some really interesting stuff at events all over the world.

“Why Kyte will kill Qik!”

Article is certainly interesting and well worth reading.

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Vodafone told off on “unlimited” ad

The ASA have upheld a complaint about a Vodafone advert which according to the ASA implied unlimited mobile internet.

The advert said “Any website, any time. £7.50 a month. Make the most of now.” It was only in the small print at the bottom of the advert which said that there was in fact a 120MB limit!

The ASA said

However, we considered that consumers would also infer from the headline claim that they could access the internet as often as they liked for £7.50 a month.

We noted there was a disclaimer stating “120MB UK data allowance per month” at the bottom of the ad, but considered that this was not prominent enough to avoid being overlooked and also that it contradicted the impression created by the headline claim. We considered that the download allowance was a significant condition attached to the service and was likely to influence consumers’ decisions about whether to purchase the product. Because that information was not stated in, or immediately next to, the headline claim, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead about the nature of the service being offered.

I have to agree with the ASA, the implication of the advert was any time, any where, when ever you wanted. However a 120MB download limit in this era of photographs, YouTube’esque video, audio podcasts and other media-rich internet means that 120Mb (even on a phone) would not really be sufficient for a month, and I suspect a lot of users would go over this limit and then be hit with high charges.

Full adjudication.

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iPhone 3G available 11th July

Apple announced iPhone 3G on Monday in a keynote by Steve Jobs at the WWDC in San Francisco. It will be available in the UK on the 11th July via O2.

New features include:

  • 3G-capable. 2.8 times faster than EDGE.
  • GPS built-in
  • Thinner
  • Better battery life – 300 hours of standby, 2G talk-time 10 hours (as opposed to 5), 5 hours of 3G talk-time (competition is 3 hour 3G talk time), 5 to 6 hours of high-speed browsing, 7 hours of video, 24 hours of audio.
  • Flush headphone jack

Other new features are:

  • contact searching
  • complete iWork document support
  • complete Office document support (now includes PowerPoint)
  • bulk delete and move for Mail
  • save images you receive
  • scientific calculator in landscape mode
  • parental controls
  • language

I wonder if the Keynote (iWork) and PowerPoint support also allows you to show the presentation via an AV cable in the same way you can do at the moment with video and images.

It will be interesting to see also if iWork (or even Office) support includes editing and creating support, or is it just going to be reading, I suspect the latter.

Of course there are also all the features announced when the iPhone SDK was released earlier this year which include:

  • Exchange and ActivSync support
  • Applications
  • VPN

Downside is that you now need to activate the phone in store, so now unlocking just became a lot more expensive as you will have to buy into a phone plan as well as the phone.

Though O2 do say they will be offering it on a Pay As You Go contract in addition to the Pay Monthly contract they had with the old iPhone.

Overall I am tempted by the new iPhone, it’s certainly a much

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When is 3G not 3G, when it’s O2’s 3G!

There is quite a buzz around the blogosphere today and on online news sites, as it was revealed that O2 restrict their 3G speeds to just 128 Kb/s as they as in O2 “think” that no one would want their 3g speeds to be any faster.

Hello!

Hello!

Do you have any idea of what and how people use 3G for O2?

Actually I suspect most people do in fact rarely use their 3G connection to the fullest. I know I certainly do, but I am a techie type person and I do use my 3G connection for various things which I need high speeds for – eg e-mail, web browsing, and stuff which I need really fast high speeds such as maps and video.

However despite what O2 say about not needing the full speed, that is not the issue.

If you advertise that you supply a 3G service people expect to get a 3G service, if it is a restricted cut down 3G service then you should call it something else.

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Oh will there be a 3G iphone?

Macrumors reports:

Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney claims to have heard “from sources in Asia” that Apple has placed a 10 million unit order for 3G iPhones, according to an interview by the iPod Observer. This order for 10 million 3G iPhones would reportedly be above and beyond the original 10 million Apple had planned to sell of the initial version of the iPhone in 2008.

Read more.

For me one of the downsides for the iPhone was the lack of 3G, it had EDGE, but for most purposes that can be really too slow. I decided not to get an iPhone as it did not have 3G. So will I get one now when they release the 3G version? Probably not, in the main as though it will have 3G it probably still won’t be able to be used as a 3G modem with a laptop which is another reason why I didn’t go for the iPhone.

Oh and the price as well…