Tag Archive for 'Telecoms'

3 Ireland’s Mobile broadband offering - slow and unstable?

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 14/8/2007
in Broadband, Telecoms and mobile
. 214 Comments

Getting broadband from your mobile operator is a very tempting proposition as I have mentioned previously. It allows you to finally get rid of that landline you so rarely use (and pay a fortune in monthly charges for) and mobile broadband means you can take it with you when you travel - no more looking for wifi hotspots.

However, reading FrankP’s experience with 3 Ireland’s mobile broadband offering I think I’ll hold off on going the 3 Ireland route for mobile broadband for now.

I spoke to Frank this morning after reading his post and I asked him about the speed of the connection - he said:

1288 kbps right now

yesterday it was 504 kbps when I checked

10th it was 612 kbps / 1141

9th 334 kbps

8th from 30 to 70kbps

This is quite a bit different from the promise on the 3 Ireland Broadband page:

speeds of up to 3.6Mbps – smooth surfing guaranteed

Is Frank’s experience with 3 Ireland unique or have others had similar issues?

Paul Giltenan of Choice Communications has promised me a review O2 broadband modem to trial so I’m looking forward to seeing how that works. I wonder are O2 customers having similar problems - they are, after all, using the same Huawei usb modem.

And if this is a more general problem than 3 Ireland Mobile, should Comreg be getting involved? Of course we all know the telcos find Comreg about as intimidating as Bambi.

You wait for ages then along come three!

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 13/8/2007
in Telecoms, apple and mobile
. 7 Comments

iPhone

I have read a lot about how great the iPhone is but I hadn’t seen any until last Friday; and then I saw three!

I was at a lunch in Cork with Britt Blaser and Sean O’Mahoney (amongst others). Both had iPhones.

I had a chance to try the phone out for myself and see just why people rave about it. It is spectacular.

Later that day I met Patrick Collison. Patrick also had an iPhone.

He was meeting Damien and myself. During the meeting he had to leave us briefly to collect someone. He left his iPhone for us to play with. It really is an incredible phone (although Patrick, after about 25 minutes the sound deteriorates on calls to the speaking clock in Hong Kong ;-) ).

There is no question but that Apple have re-defined the mobile phone.

Congrats Pat

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 7/8/2007
in Telecoms, Web 2.0, mobile, startups and voip
. 0 Comments

Pat Phelan’s Cubic Telecom company has been selected to be one of the finalists in TechCrunch 20 for their Roam4free product. What is TechCrunch 20? From the site:

Twenty of the hottest new startups from around the world will announce and demo their products over a two day period at TechCrunch20. And they don’t pay a cent to do this. They will be selected to participate based on merit alone. In fact, we’re even offering a $50,000 cash award and lining up other in-kind services and awards from a generous group of corporate sponsors.

There were over 700 submissions from 26 countries so making it to the last 100 finalists was a considerable achievement. In fact, as far as I know Pat’s is the only Irish company in the final 100. Well done Pat - go for it boy!

I have spoken to Pat at length about their new Roam4free product set due out in the coming weeks and if they deliver half of what Pat is promising, it will set the mobile world on its head.

More rumours of O2 iPhone deal

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 13/7/2007
in Telecoms
. 6 Comments

Forbes Madrid are reporting this morning that O2’s parent company, Telefonica have signed an exclusive deal with Apple for iPhone distribution rights in the UK.

This is the second time this rumour has emerged in the last two weeks. Both times from very credible sources.

It makes sense. Vodafone don’t need Apple (and the sales boost iPhone exclusivity would give them) as much as O2 does. This deal obviously doesn’t stop Apple signing deals with Vodafone in other European countries.

I’ll be interested to see who gets distributorship in Ireland!

Nokia N95 vs E65

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 10/7/2007
in Nokia and Telecoms
. 7 Comments

Well, I handed back my review model Nokia N95 yesterday and already I miss it. Paul Giltinan from Choice Communications was good enough to lend it to me to try out for a number of weeks. Now though I am back to my trusty E65. Sniff!

Here are a few quick thoughts on the N95 and how it compares to the E65

Likes

  • The screen
  • The 5mp camera
  • The built-in Wifi

Dislikes

  • The keypad
  • The battery
  • The GPS

Slightly more detail:

The screen on the N95 is fantastic. It is big and can display in either landscape or portrait. The E65’s screen has the same resolution but is much smaller so it doesn’t look nearly as impressive.

The camera in the E65 is appalling, as I have already noted and while the N95 camera is slow (press the button, count to 10, *click*), the quality of the photos and video from it are impressive.

The built-in wifi is great in both the E65 and the N95. The screen on the N95 is big enough that you can actually browse web pages on it. The E65’s screen is a bit too small for that. Both phones are great for VOIP client software and where I live in Cobh, the call quality over wifi is significantly better than the expensive GSM alternative!

The Keypad on the N95 has a tacky, plasticky cheap feel to it that took some getting used to and was unexpected in a phone of its cost. The E65’s keyboard is more crisp and reassuring.

The battery life on the N95 has been panned but I didn’t find it too bad. It will quite easily go a full day on a charge so I used to simply charge it overnight and I rarely had problems. The times I did have problems were when I installed and used Fring on the phone. It completley sucked the life out of the battery (esp on 3g). If you have an N95, don’t install Fring, unless you have spare batteries or plan to keep it plugged into a power source at all times.

I never got the GPS software on the phone to see a satellite (or satellites) so I can’t comment on how this would work. Having said that, the fact that I couldn’t get it to see a satellite at all should be comment enough!

As a quick aside, I also tried installing the Jaiku mobile client on the N95 but for some reason it wouldn’t connect over wifi and wanted to connect over 3G. At the data prices in this country, I don’t think so. Uninstalled.

So would I, given the choice, put my money down for an N95? If cost were no object yes, but given that I already have the E65 and there is little between them in turns of functionality, there is no way I could justify buying one now.

Interestingly, the part of the phone which appeals to me most is the big screen and this is the feature of the iPhone which people seem to love too.

O2 to sell the iPhone?

Published
by
Tom Raftery
on 5/7/2007
in Telecoms and apple
. 13 Comments

Several credible sources are today reporting that O2 have signed a contract with Apple to distribute the iPhone in Europe. I hope that includes O2 Ireland too!

Vodafone would have seemed a more likely distributor seeing as they have a network in more European countries than O2. O2 must have made it far more attractive for Apple to say that they were chosen over Vodafone. It will be interesting now to watch who Apple partners with in the countries where O2 have no presence.

The iPhone debuted in the US last week and in its first three days is reputed to have sold over 1m units - a runaway success by any measure!

This incredible success is a measure of Apple’s successful marketing machine, but it is also indicative of pent-up dissatisfaction with the current array of phones on offer. The iPhone’s user experience is so much better than anything else currently on the market, that the Symbian group and Microsoft will really have to get the thumb out to come up with a competitive offering.

I just hope that when it comes to Europe it will have 3G (the US model doesn’t have 3G, relying instead on EDGE and wifi) and a better camera.

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