In fact thinking back about 15 years ago, if I was lucky, I got similar speeds on my 56k modem.

I’m using an 8mb ‘high speed’ British Telecom broadband connection.

If you get a brochure from BT any time soon talking about their 21CN network — the fabled brilliance that will connect us all with gigabyte speeds — please do send it to BT Centre, Newgate Street, with a note attached with words to the effect ’stick it up your arse jumper.’

Can we just do a test here? Across the comments today, there’s been a number of readers giving examples of their slow slow connections (that are meant to be super fast).

Could you please respond telling me what average upload /download speeds you’re getting and what connection you actually are meant to have?

Don’t do one of those broadband speed tests. I want to know real life, real examples. Take a 100mb file and upload it to Vimeo — during the upload it gives you a throughput stat. I’d like to see just how bad (or good) it is.

I know that Ben Smith has a lightning fast Be Unlimited connection in West London.

But in Billericay, Essex, we’ve got shit.

Witness, for example, this comment from Dominic Travers:

I Currently live in Bristol and can get O2/Be ADSL2+, which is exactly what BT aim to have rolled out nation wide by 2011 as the culmination of their 21CN project to make Britain world leaders in IP based communication technology. 15 months ago when I first signed up to the service it was pretty good, 16Mbps down and 1.3Mbps up. For at least the last 6 months the O2 box in my local exchange has been full to bursting and the thoughput can only be described as dismal. I can still get the maximum speeds once a connection is established, but the latency in ordinary browsing the internet is abysmal now I am on the max contention ratio.

If this is as good as UK domestic broadband is going to get we’re doomed.

Rubbish.

Absolute unmitigated rubbish.

We can’t do better than this?

And if we can’t get the sodding FIXED connections working, what hope have we got of making it work whilst mobile?

During some HSPA+ 64QAM technology trials, the Vodafone chaps in Spain managed to achieve 16mbps. But it gets better. They’re planning to trial 21mbsp this quarter using HSPA+ MIMO.

Vodafone experts estimate that the technology would be capable of delivering a typical video download experience of more than 13Mbps in good conditions and an average of more than 4 Mbps across a full range of typical cell locations including urban environments. If the trials prove a success, Vodafone plans to make this technology available in selected commercial networks.

Just in case you’re wondering about HSPA+ — it’s the next evolutionary step in the 3G HSPA roadmap. As indicated by the plus sign.

Of course, the new technology — particularly this 64QAM and MIMO gubbins will need a whole new set of broadband dongles and devices. Woo huu. Hopefully this should arrive by the time my 24 month data dongle contract has expired.

Bring it on.

Crossing both 2.5 and 3G networks its due out soon, with carries to be mentioned in due course.

Specifications/Compatible computer operating systems: -

• 3G: 850/2100MHz
• GSM:850/900/1800/1900 MHz

• Microsoft Windows XP
• Microsoft Windows Vista
• Mac OS 10.4
• Mac OS 10.5

Posted by email from MIR Live (posterous)

Hitting the stores this week is T-Mobile’s answer to 3’s wireless broadband mobile router, the mouth full that is the Mobile Broadband Share Dock

It works the same way as 3’s Huawei D100 Router, only with a less catchy name. The Share Dock plugs into their mobile broadband dongle, then enables surrounding devices to have ‘net access over its WIFI signal.

Seeing as the T-mobile HSDPA network is shared by 3, you’d have thought this product would have been out there first. The D100 has now had over a month or so advantage to gain its foothold in the marketplace.

How they both balance against each other in costs is of an interest. The T-Mobile offering arrives free on an 18 month contract, at £20 per month for connectivity.

On the 3 offering you have to buy the router at £69.99. On top of that still having to get the mobile broadband dongle plus whatever contract suits your needs. T-mobile bundles in with the Mobile Broadband Share Dock their dongle, creating a more rounded package.

The other consideration to take into mind is their fair usage policy. T-mobile has stipulated it will only be a 3GB data allowance, where 3 have a 5GB on a £15 18 month contract to match their D100.

All told over that 18 month period 3’s deal would come to £340, whereas T-mobiles package would be £360. With 3 of course there would have been an extra 36GB possible data allowance all totalled up.

Seeing as they are both using the same network, the clear winner has to come down to the numbers at the end of the day.

From Mobile Today;

O2 is looking to accelerate sales of its mobile broadband by offering a money-back guarantee amid growing consumer uncertainty regarding speeds and coverage for dongles.The operator, which had been the last of the major networks to unveil a mobile broadband proposition, has been promoting a 50-day service promise.

O2 is offering to cancel the contract within the first 50 days and have the cost of the USB fully refunded if the customer paid for it.

The service has been featured in both its own stores as well as at Carphone Warehouse.

OK we know O2’s 3G coverage is not the best in the UK, however surely that with the 50 day guarantee it does make the proposition of mobile broadband a lot more appealing!?

Remembered the heady days of October the first when Virgin entered the mobile broadband market? Now they’ve only gone and launched the cheapest deal in UK at just a fiver a month.

There’s catch, as expected and there always is of course – you need to be on Virgin.

New and existing customers on their service, such as with the L or XL packages are only entitled to this deal.

Their 3G mobile connectivity rocks up in the form of a 1GB data allowance per month over a supplied USB modem, which can be plugged into a laptop, netbook or even a PC.

For £10 a month, users on the ‘M’ Virgin Media cable package can also have broadband internet on the move.

This all runs from the T-Mobile network, with a one off £25 fee offering up to 3.6Mbps speeds on a 12month contract. Going over the allotted gigabyte limit though will set you back a lofty 1.46p per megabyte, just for your info.
A good deal we believe for those already with the company and also great for enticing new customers along.

The ads typically showed a USB broadband stick looking like a rocket jetting into outerspace, with a strapline explaining that Vodafone’s mobile broadband service is ‘light years ahead’ of the competition. The ad also aimed to point out that Vodafone’s service was superior to the competition.

3 and T-Mobile, together with a member of the public, took issue with the ads. The ASA investigated and upheld the complaints.

Naughty Vodafone!

In fairness I tend to find their entire service the most reliable — still — but I note that in the ASA findings, the pointed out that the LCC test (that Voda used to support their claims) found that:

In six out of the 10 regions of the UK tested, one of the other networks had a faster average time to download a web page than Vodafone.

I’m willing to bet that was 3 who was faster…

They have NO business doing this.

No business at all.

THIS from a company that charges 0.5 pence per Kb for mobile data to handsets.

THIS from a company that still has ‘SEE ABOVE FOR WAP CHARGES‘ on it’s tariff page.

WAP charges?

Virgin Mobile is stuck in the dark ages. Clearly if you’re using Virgin Mobile, you don’t use the internet on-the-go. Or if you do, you’re a total numbskull.

You can get 3GB on a mobile dongle from Virgin for £15/month.

Pay As You Go will set you back FIVE FLOCKING POUNDS per megabyte. PER MEGABYTE!

Pay Monthly (or all the other bollocks price plans that they offer — Daily Bonus, Pay By Direct Debit, Liberty SIM) is TWO FLOCKING POUNDS per megabyte.

No business. NO BUSINESS whatsoever coming to market with a mobile broadband dongle.

Get your mobile data tariffs sorted first.

THEN come back and we’ll have a chat. Right?

Apparently, there are now 191 operators with commercial HSPA networks and 740 devices you could connect up to them, should you want to.

If you’re up for more of these stats, the average peak speed is between 3.6Mbps and 7.2Mbps, which the association says means an average end user speed of over 1Mbps. Operators usually say that the real end user speed for a connection is one third of the peak. It would be interesting to get a more real world perspective on the GSMA’s numbers: what’s the average speed you’ve experienced using your HSPA connection? And is it better than your home broadband?

3 UK’s Mobile Broadband offering has been named “Best Mobile Broadband” by the UK’s most popular dedicated broadband comparison site, www.top10-broadband.co.uk. The independent site, which claims over a million unique users each month, has given 3 UK the award based on analysis of data captured from mobile broadband speed tests, examination of feedback from consumers and hands-on research of products and services.

I’ve introduced more new customers to 3 than any other operator, specifically because of their mobile broadband data offering. Whether it’s via the handset or through a dongle, 3 really is knocking the competition for six.

I was in a Vodafone store the other day when I saw their ‘buy me now’ pay-as-you-go mobile dongle. It was on a shelf, ready to be picked up, purchased and used. There’s no way Vodafone or the other networks would have headed toward the tenner-a-month dongle reality we have today if it wasn’t for 3 kicking the industry out of bed. Vodafone were — and still are — making an absolute packet from the 45 or 70 pounds a month data card deals they were originally offering. I think I’ve got one of them, still.

Top 10 Broadband was particularly impressed by the strength and flexibility of 3 UK’s mobile broadband packages. The judges specifically cited the fact that 3 UK allows customers a very generous data allowance, as well as the quality and ease of use of the 3 UK data modems, as important factors in the award.

3’s Head of Mobile Broadband Jonathan Lutz said, “To be independently verified as being the best mobile broadband provider is a great validation of all the work we have done over the past year. Our aim has always been to bring easy-to-use, high-quality mobile broadband at the best possible price to as many people as possible. This award is recognition that we are achieving this goal. “

Congratulations to Jonathan and the team at 3. Nice work. Keep it up!

Operators, it seems, have been dragging their feet and causing delays, saying they need to do technical testing to make sure the new service won’t cause any interference with the mobile services already out there.

From the New York TImes:

Representatives Anna Eshoo and Edward Markey suggested the operators might have other motives. “We are concerned that incumbent wireless carriers are seeking unnecessary and unprecedented testing delays to prevent new innovative competitors from entering the market,” they wrote in a letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin

How many times have we seen this sort of scenario? Operators see something coming that’s inexorable yet they reckon it will hurt their bottom line, so they drag their feet for as long as they can rather than thinking up new ways to make sure they stay ahead of the competition. Fingers crossed we see this free wireless service as soon as possible.

They led the way, in the UK at least, with the tenner-a-month USB mobile broadband revolution.

This shows demand is strong for mobile broadband in all 3’s territories, including the UK, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Denmark and Austria…

… says the press release I got in this morning.

Christian Salbaing, MD of European Telecoms at Hutchison isn’t impressed with the roaming data rates demanded by other networks. He has a good old dig at them (aimed, I reckon, at the EC regulation chappies):

“Typical retail roaming prices are literally hundreds of times what customers expect to pay domestically. A European consumer might pay around one Euro cent per megabyte at home, yet pay a premium of 360-times that simply to cross a border.”

Ridiculous. Aye.

Christian obviously goes on to point out that 3’s “3 Like Home” tariffs enable data roaming on 3’s sister networks without additional cost. (Elsewhere 3 charges around £3 (€3.79) per megabyte to its customers, based primarily on the wholesale rate charged.)

If you’re arriving into the UK and find yourself data roaming on 3, you can work out just how much your incumbent operator is creaming you with this statement from Christian:

3 has demonstrated its commitment to bringing down the price of roaming across the EU by offering Europe’s mobile networks a reciprocal wholesale rate of just 25c per megabyte, [compared to the current average of nearly €4]. This offers even greater scope for compelling retail rates than the European Commission’s suggested wholesale level of 35c. Just five networks have agreed to take up the offer – suggesting a clear need for intervention.

It really is very smart.

I think I’m still expecting things to screw up. I remember when my GPRS internet connection was good for about 10 minutes or so, then you had to reconnect. Those were the days. Of pain.

Today I carry both a 3 and Vodafone one and they’re both equally excellent.

It’s just astonishing that they work. I need to get over my connection-anxiety.

Vodafone whacked me over a USB modem stick to use on the way to and from the Desert Island. (I’m given to understand that GRPS doesn’t quite work in the Maldives – so I’ll be using this one on the way to and from the airport in the UK.)

The problem with this, as far as I can see, is that this sort of thing screams enterprise, rather than consumer. For companies with large campuses and a lot of mobile workers, this could easily be a good fit. For consumers, however, I’m not so sure: after all, broadband tends to be bought by a household, and mobile phone contracts by the individual. There doesn’t seem to be any interesting new services being offered, so presumably the inclusion of VoIP capability is just being pitched as a cost-saving service: but with very generous mobile packages – up to 600 inclusive minutes – you could go without using the VoIP part of the service altogether.

To start off with, the maximum downlink available for ‘mobile broadband’ will be 1.8Mbps, going up to 3.6Mbps in June this year.

While every operator needs one of these offers in their portfolio and O2’s pricing is pitched spot on, it doesn’t look like O2 is just copying its rivals and not doing an altogether great job of it: for mobile broadband speed, Vodafone is faster and 3 is cheaper, so how does O2 intend to make its own offering stand out?