[Ben]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7200451.stm
Beeb techie is showing his age :p

Regular columnist Bill Thompson is enjoying the new freedom offered by his laptop and 3G connection working together.

Sometimes it is only when the niggling pain goes away that you realise just how irritating and distracting it had become.

A sore tooth can sit for weeks just beneath the threshold of consciousness before you finally decide to do something about it, and you leave the dentist full of optimism, hope and love for all humanity now that you can think clearly.

Well, like a man who bangs his head against a brick wall because it feels so good to stop, I've finally given up grubbing around for open wireless connectivity on the move and invested in a 3G modem for my laptop.

No more will you find me wandering down dark alleyways in search of an elusive open network, or hoping that the train slows down long enough on the run into Stevenage station for me to pick up "Netgear", "default" or "belkin54g" long enough to download my e-mail.

I have to admit that this change of heart has not come about because such activity might be illegal, since I firmly believe that simply joining an open network should not be considered a crime.

The law has clearly not kept match with the capabilities of the technology especially since many people leave their networks open in order to offer a service to passers-by.

And an iPhone or iPod Touch will automatically connect to "known" networks, so if my home network is called "default" I'll join any other open "default" network as I walk the streets.

So I'm confident that a well-constructed defence would establish that the previous convictions under the Communications Act were not justified.

But now I won't even be tempted to latch on to other people's wireless, because I have a little white box, called a dongle, that plugs into a USB port on my laptop and can connect to the phone network.

It works on the train, it works in my favourite (wi-fi-less) cafes in Cambridge and it works in my car sitting by the side of a B-road trying to figure out where I am on Google Maps.

I've been able to get my e-mail and surf the web on my phone for ages, but it has always been a second-best solution, and I'm unwilling to shell out for an iPhone even if the user interface does solve many of the problems I've had with small screens.

But since I have my laptop with me nearly all the time I don't need to compromise on a small screen or inadequate keypad.

New generation

And life is good.

The toothache has been sorted. The ringing in my ears has stopped. I can breathe freely and that sharp pain whenever I bend over sideways has finally cleared up. I can be online whenever and wherever I want to be, and life is good.

The new generation of data modems are already being sold as an alternative to slow broadband for home PCs when ADSL over copper wires is either not feasible or just unreliable.

And it can't be long before someone realises that the external dongle isn't really needed, and offers a laptop with a built-in 3G modem and a slot for a SIM card.

It isn't a perfect service, as I found out last weekend when I tried to stream video from the re-opening of Wysing Arts Centre in the middle of the Cambridgeshire countryside.

You really need a 3G connection for anything at all substantial, and when the connection falls back onto the old GSM/GPRS network it can cope with e-mail but little else.

But it is a viable alternative to wi-fi in cities. As well as being a lot cheaper it lets you move around without dropping the connection because it uses the cellular network.

I can also see how these 3G services could be used in countries without an established telecommunications infrastructure.

Many cybercafes in African countries already use a cellular phone to provide access to the internet, but these dongles could improve the speed and quality of service without needing several phone handsets.

When I first got an always-on internet connection from home I couldn't believe how liberating it was.

This was in the days before home broadband and involved rather a lot of complex fiddling to get SSH tunnelling going over a pair of Centrex lines into a small Linux box on my desk, and if that means anything to you then you've been in this business too long.

Now I'm finding the same sense of freedom comes from having easy, fixed-price access on the move.

Instead of deciding whether to shell out £5 for an hour's access in the railway station or risk the quality of coffee in a well-known fast-food chain just to get free access I can plug in and go.

Once again, the technology has demonstrated its ability to surprise me, and yet again I realise that we are only at the beginning of the transformation which began with the early networks of the 1960s.
Build 3G into a laptop? What a great idea! Someone had better tell Dell... Sony... and Lenovo come to think of it ;)

Awesome that our Bill has bought himself a dongle, though. I'm almost proud of him for resisting for this long - he has missed a lot of crap :) Now things are just getting good, as demand for Vodafone's latest kit in PC World would appear to indicate.

[gorilla]

Mmmm, are we really that much ahead of the rest of the pack? We are early adopters of 3g and some of you have dongles already, but I mean come on, he could have paired his phone to his laptop etc.

Regardless, a memory from the other day springs to mind when I was telling people how to use the internet on their phones. It was like I'd flicked a switch. "When did this come out?, how much, where can I use it?" were all valid questions 5 years ago, but not in 2008. What are the networks doing to promote 3g? Are they really still pushing gsm handsets to customers? At a push I could survive at home without my landline (which I never use) and the broadband package. Why aren't the networks promoting this 'new' wireless technology? It seems to me that there must be a huge market waiting to be tapped.

This seems to be an endless round about that we debate on here. As fast as data rates are falling, evidently there is still a huge proportion of mobile phone users who are not about to embark on the mobile data trail.

[Ben]

I hate to be mean to the handset manufacturers, but as far as web browsing is concerned only Apple have it right, IMHO. Yeah, ok, it's pretty good on most phones now, but even on my N95 8GB I don't pick it up and think "Oo, I think I'll check Talk3G" because, in all honesty, browsing the web on a screen that size and with the Nokia browser is a chore. I can use it if I need to, but I don't want to.

Now Apple have raised the bar, of course, I'm hopeful that within 12 months or so this sheer ignorance of the masses towards the 'mobile Internet' will start to evaporate. I bet there isn't a single iPhone owner out there who doesn't browse the web regularly on it!

[solo12002]

" So I'm confident that a well-constructed defence would establish that the previous convictions under the Communications Act were not justified"

How many of these CONVICTIONS do you have Ben (lol)

I take it you went for Vodafone and not three or T-Mobile 3 G then?

[Ben]

Yes, Vodafone all the way here. While I'd love to try the data-only services of other networks there's a cost involved in doing so and I have, so far, seen no evidence that any of them will out-perform Vodafone. I suppose that's how Vodafone justify charging more than Three and T-Mobile do.

[Hands0n]

A couple of thoughts come to mind..

Of speedboats and ocean liners
I do think that Vodafone (the ocean liner) and the likes of 3 and even T-Mobile are very different creatures. The speedboats are able to outpace and outmanouver the ocean liner, being smaller and very much more agile. Thus they are able, and willing, to test new markets, taking small risks and able to back out if trouble flares. Vodafone are carrying too much inertia to be able to manouvre like this, and instead lumbers along as all good and well-behaved ocean liners do.

How not to upset your customers
Perhaps Vodafone's biggest problem with creating commoditising mobile data is its incumbent business customers. For as long as any will be able to remember, mobile data has been horrendously expensive - but a business necessity. Yes, the network quality is superb, but lets not forget that Vodafone were not only the first to sell mobile data, but positively marketed it to business. These people will not be best pleased to be stuck on a high-cost business tariff while the private individual is obtaining gigabytes of data per month for £15.

Vodafone's other problem is how to commoditise their mobile data offering without killing the golden goose that is their business mobile data user. Jumping in too quick will see a huge hit to their bottom line. The markets will not be forgiving. Instead Vodafone have to move slowly and cautiously so as not to alienate the markets and their business customers yet still get into the market that has been set up exclusively by T-Mobile and 3.

But for how long can Vodfone trade on their legendary top-notch network? With alliances like T-Mobile and 3 will they be able to claim to have the best coverage of any single network?

It is a gamble for sure. Business lost to T-Mobile and 3 will be hard to win back. They could well find that [data] churn becomes one-way only. There is little to draw the private individual to Vodafone data tariffs. Quite the reverse, they are very off-putting.

You see, in my opinion, the actual data performance of 3.2Mbps vs 7.2Mbps is irrelevant to the mobile data user. Generally they will not percieve the difference. But what they will see is how much that particular data tariff is costing them on a monthly basis. And it is there that the battle has to be won. 3GB at 3Mbps for £12.50 or £15 as a potential replacement or option against regular ADSL? A positive bargain for a lot of people if they but knew about it.

In 2008, then, the market for mobile data will be led by the company that not only tariffs the product right, but that also markets it well. This not only means alliances with computer manufacturers and making dinky little mobile data dongles. It also means getting kit out that replaces the domestic ADSL router - and I see scant evidence of that so far.

It is very telling that a technical author like Bill Thompson has only just discovered that which we knew about on Talk3G many years ago! But now he does know about it, and lets hope others follow, there may be some more widespread interest gained.

[Ben]

I think there's room for Vodafone to operate Business and Consumer tariffs for Mobile Broadband, in much the same way as ADSL ISP's do.

There are several things that they can do to differentiate the services. One would be to give priority to Business customers. Another could be different usage caps.

Is it not true that Three still requires you to accept some sort of warning before they'll let you online with your modem? Crazy...

What *would* be a good idea is to truly cap Mobile Broadband tariffs at usage limits, i.e. 3GB, and then only charge for additional data if the user accepts a warning that they are shown when they try and access a page on port 80 (HTTP) in their browser. That would remove the final element of uncertainty that still has folk scared to make full use of what they have purchased. Perhaps that could be a way forward for consumers, where as Business customers could retain a FUP but without charges for going over it.

As always with Vodafone, the issues boil right back down to their tariffs. I know bandwidth isn't always a key issue provided there's a reasonable amount of it, but latency can be easily perceivable to the end user.

It's not just about tariffs, though. I don't believe any network has a modem quite as compact as the Stick just yet, and I know for certain it's the only modem I'd want to use in something like a Macbook Air where you don't want something the size of the laptop itself hanging out the side. So, there's going to be competition in devices, too, with lots of exclusives and variations on what is, essentially, the same kit.