Mobile Networks

Several of you were right to be sceptical when O2's new 3G900 coverage maps got me all excited. Coverage maps, after all, rarely reflect real life experience, and Ofcom has proven sorely ineffective at remedying this farce.

But for me, the reality of 3G900 has been a lot closer to O2's projected coverage than you'd think. It's actually scarily accurate, and as I've explored Canterbury today I've been surprised by the breadth and depth of O2's 3G coverage, which is probably comparable ...

I've been with O2 before with the iPhone 3G/3GS. I remember well that "No Service" message where my signal bars should be, and the utter shock whenever anything faster than an E appeared on the display. Oh yes, O2 aren't exactly renowned for their 3G rollout success...

Since then I've been with Vodafone, and to start with it was just fine. I was getting the experience I was expecting, having used their data cards and dongles since the beginning. However, not long after the ...

The last big mobile technology change in recent history (2003, just 9 years ago almost to the day) was a relatively simple one. One primary band, 2100MHz, was auctioned off by the government. A whopping five mobile operators were awarded spectrum, and then had to deploy WCDMA technology in it. The same thing miraculously happened across much of the world, especially Europe, and '3G' handsets worked within this band pretty much without exception.

Since then the rapidly changing pace ...

The most infuriating thing about mobile networks is the lack of them.

Being stuck without coverage, or usable coverage, is infuriating. So why isn't coverage better?

Well, there are going to be many reasons, including MNOs needing to maximise the return on their investment and so running networks that cover based on population density and not geographic availability.

But the one I'm singling out is the complete lack of a competitive environment for improving ...

I've never travelled to a foreign city before purely to explore it. My schedule has never really allowed for such endeavours, the rare moments of holiday reserved for lying in the sun doing absolutely nothing.

Data was a concern. When you're primarily going to be in one place it's easy to ensure WiFi, but there would be no way out of using cellular roaming data on this excursion. Fully prepared to have to keep my usage of iPad and iPhone to an absolute minimum, and still pay a hefty ...