Category: Mobile

Mobile posts inc connectivity, hardware and technology

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4g Business mobile connectivity ofcom

The 4G race to market in the UK – the heavy rollers are in town and the stakes are high

EE4GIt’s the middle of May. The 4G auctions were in February. We are all waiting with bated breath for announcements of service rollouts. Last time I looked was when I was preparing for my 4G talks at Convergence Summit North. The word on the web was “summer”. No specifics. In fact the O2 website said summer but I’m not sure that Vodafone even said that.

Now I’m writing a 4G update for Comms Business and thought I’d take another look. O2 has removed the reference to a summer availability but has not offered an alternative. I suspect that this means Christmas which is the big payout time for mobile networks. The Vodafone website just says “later this year”.

I guess this isn’t likely to come as a surprise. A 4G network rollout will be a lot of work and cost a lot of money so I guess there is a scenario that O2 and Voda will be pacing their investment.

There is a race on here though. I hear EE already have around 330,000 subscribers and say they are targeting 1 million by the end of the year. If O2 and Voda don’t get their act together that will mean EE will be ahead of them to the tune of 1 million customers, higher spending customers, by the year end.

Personally I don’t think 330,000 is a particularly good result for EE considering they have had the market to themselves for over six months even though their ARPUs might be good. Also the EE marketing appears to me to be less than optimal.  I recently spoke to an EE reseller who said that the product strategy wasn’t particularly joined up. The company apparently sells to consumers through EE, small businesses through Orange and larger businesses through TMobile1 with three different hardware portfolios and different sets of pricing.  If I were EE that is one thing I’d be looking to sort out.

In fairness EE will have the same coverage rollout issues as being faced by the other mobile operators so there will only have been a limited segment of the market available to them in that first six months. Word is that EE will have reached 80 towns by the end of June. By the end of April that number was 62 covering 50% of the population.

According to the Ofcom Communications Market Report 2012 in 2011 there were 82 million mobile connections. Assuming the number is still the same today that would suggest that around 0.8% of the available market (330k/41m) is on EE 4G after 6 months. I guess the next six months are going to be crucial in the race. EE will have had a year’s head start on the others, assuming my Christmas guess is right. If they can sort out the marketing then if I were EE I’d be disappointed with only a million subs by the end of the year.

If I were O2 and Vodafone I’d be stepping up the pace of their own 4G rollout. The two operators are jointly building out the network, ultimately to 18,500 cell sites and according to the Vodafone blog splitting the work 50/50. It would be interesting to see how their respective rollouts are doing. Who is going to get there first in the partnership? If they are doing half the work each presumably they will be announcing the service at the same time. The timing of these announcements is therefore likely to be quite critical. Get there first and presumably get the marketing advantage. Get there second and you can tailor your own pricing and packaging competitively knowing what the other guy is offering. Get there at the same time and risk accusations of a cartel.

Whatever happens it looks like I will have to wait until Christmas before I get a 4G connection – my phone is with O2 and my laptop with Vodafone. At least I’ll know what to put in my letter to Santa.

1It may be the other way round re TMob & Orange marketing.

28/9/13 update – comparison of O2, EE and Vodafone 4G networks in London

Categories
End User phones

A postcard from Newark

I quite like the title “A postcard from Timico”. It suggests destination, travel, communications even which is quite appropriate in our case. The reality is often different. It could be a reminder to book your dental appointment! Yuk.

On this occasion it is merely a  clever ruse to entice you to read this blog post which in actual fact is simply about the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the fact that it has a really cool feature that allows you to take photos using both cameras simultaneously (at the same time).

The simple things in life eh? Postcard below shows my face on a stamp – it’s the only way it’s going to happen:) The beautiful view is across the car park to the ball bearing factory (or some similar industrial manufacturing plant) and beyond to the rooftops of our fair town of Newark.

postcard from Timico

Categories
End User phones

Samsung Galaxy S4 compared with Galaxy S3 – #review #SGS4

Samsung Galaxy S4 taken by Galaxy S3

Galaxy S3 side on compared with an S4I have a new phone. It is a Samsung Galaxy S4. It is a good phone. My previous phone was a Samsung Galaxy S3. That was a good phone too. The Samsung Galaxy S4 is better than the Samsung Galaxy S3.

My initial diagnosis was that the two phones are not a million miles apart and in fact I preferred the feel of the S3 with its rounded rear edges. However as I play with the S4 a bit more and check out some of the new features that have been pitched I’m starting to think that there is a lot of good stuff in here that is new.

What’s better about the S4? The speed of response seems to be better. With the S3 I sometimes find myself waiting for images to load, icons to reappear on the screen.  Haven’t seen this so far. Also Tweetdeck quite often takes some time to load with the S3 but not with the S4. This could just be down to the fact that there is a lot more stuff on the S3, it being an older phone but I don’t think so – all the apps have moved over nicely.

The other pleasing thing is that all the wifi credentials have moved across and I had no trouble in getting online at home, office and out and about over the weekend using various public networks. I did have to reenter some password details for specific apps such as Facebook but once per phone doesn’t seem unreasonable.

The screen on the S4 is bigger & uses up more of the available space. If you can why not? However I wouldn’t say that the screen needed to be any bigger than the one on the S3 so this is a hmm ok nice to have but not a huge deal. I will say though that the camera is better with more pixels 13M vs 8M. Although this does result in larger jpg sizes – up to 4.5MB so far who cares.

One highly published feature of the S4 is the fact that when you look away when watching a video the video pauses. This works really well for video stored on the phone itself. It did also work when watching YouTube using the YouTube Android App though it wasn’t quite as responsive with having to manage video online. All in all I found this “video pausing” feature to be pretty cool and think it might be useful.

The gesture recognising capability also works and is cool. I can answer the phone with just a wave of the hand. I think with will be useful – if you are tapping away at your laptop and the phone rings you just wave your hand over it and it automatically answers with the speakerphone on. This also works if I just say “answer” though I’ve had to repeat it several times when I’ve tried it.

The phone also makes calls when you hold it up to your ear though I’m not sure that’s specific to the S4.

Scrolling up and down web pages also works well with a gesture (picture the ad “simply wave your hand up and down the screen and hey presto, it scrolls”) in the demo/test in “settings” but I don’t seem to have much success with that “in anger”.

I’ve seen some comments re build quality of the case and the fact that the plastic feels “plasticky” if I can put it like that. It feels ok to me though the S3, which I’ve said I prefer the feel of is starting to show quality issues with the back cover that no longer sits totally flush on the rest of the phone. I also had a number of problems early on with the S3 not charging and needing to be replaced. Hopefully it won’t be the same with the S4. So far so good anyway.

On balance if I was looking for a new phone I’d buy the Galaxy S4. I’m not sure I’d be rushing to upgrade from an S3 before the end of my contract.

Pics for perusal below. I trust you like the arty nature of the phones taking pictures of phones taking pictures of phones…

Samsung Galaxy s3 and s4 side by side

Samsung Galaxy S4 taken by Galaxy S3Samsung Galaxy S3 taken by Galaxy S4

Galaxy S4 on top of a Galaxy S3

Categories
End User phones

This iPhone is dead

dead iPhone 4S
This iPhone is deceased, dead, non-functional, lifeless, no longer functional, not of this world, sent its last packet, kaput, a gonner, calls no more, textless, will not switch on, pushing up Apple seedlings.

Wife dropped her iPhone last night. It no longer works. I have mobile phone insurance with my Lloyds Bank account but it is a time consuming process. I entered all the data online but they wanted me to print a local copy, sign it and send it in the post. They do promise a quick turnaround for a decision – 1 working day – but I will then have to wait for them to send me the wherewithal to send the phone off for them to decide whether it can be repaired. The turnaround for this is said to be 5 working days from receipt of the phone.

All in all I can’t see her getting a new phone inside 2 weeks. She is a Timico customer and Timico could deliver her a new handset within 24 hours, or I could even pick it up from stores and take it home. However that is not how my personal insurance works.

When I made the claim I went through the online banking’s two stage authentication to access the portal. Everything bar the proof of purchase was entered online & I could easily have uploaded a PDF of the contract when filling out their forms. It’s hard to see what additional value my signing the form offers when one considers the delay that the process introduces into the system. The credentials for logging into the portal are known only to me and are just as good a contractual validation of my claim as my signature, which could easily be faked anyway if someone really wanted to do it.

So now we wait…

PS in the meantime she has been forced to borrow my Nokia Lumia 920 which I suggested with trepidation. It isn’t going to be particularly easy for someone who is used to the iPhone to adjust to the less good UI of the Nokia but she was desperate – texts are her communications lifeblood and that is the only other phone I have. Ah well!

Categories
Apps End User mobile connectivity peering phones

Google Now wow

googlenowGoodness gracious me it’s the 12th of April already. We are nearly a third of the way through the year #wosthatallabout? Fortunately the worst bit is over, weatherwise, supposedly. Those that have survived the winter are clearing out their nests in anticipation of a new season of renewal and growth etc etc etc.

Today I have a bunch of conference calls and am working from my home office. Looking out onto my back garden the birds are gathering new nesting materials. Nice.

I just popped down to the station to pick up a bunch of train tickets bought in advance to get the best deal (coz I’m tight) and noticed something eerie on my phone. Google Now not only told me the weather at Lincoln train station but also at Schipol Airport and in Hamburg.

googlenowI can already hear the “so what”s and the “get to the point”s. The fact is I am traveling to Hamburg tomorrow via Amsterdam Schipol for the 22nd Euro IX Forum. It’s in my calendar. Google Now saw this and told me what it thought I wanted to know.

Well it is absolutely right. I did want to know the weather at my destination because I have been wondering what to wear. Those who know me will realise that this is somewhat unusual for me but we have been suffering from “brass monkeys” weather and how am I to know that it isn’t just the retribution of a merciless god on a heathen population. The same powerful being might have had a different attitude towards the Germans who have been very generously propping up the Euro for a substantial chunk of mainland Europe, as well as the occasional paradise isle. No point in me turning up in Germany in my thermals if shorts would be more suitable.

As it happens it looks like the weather is going to be the same in Hamburg as it is in Lincoln Station so the Germans must also have done something wrong. Hah!

So for me Google Now, right now is looking quite useful. I like the way that it tells me how long it would take me to drive home from wherever I am at any particular time in the same way that in the morning it tells me how long my drive to work is going to be. It also seems to vary its output based on traffic conditions.

It’s pretty cool. At this point in time I’m not worrying about the fact that it knows quite a bit about me though that is something I will have to keep an eye on. The fact that I can switch Google Now off doesn’t make much difference here because probably all that is doing is switching off the display mechanism and not the actual gathering of the data itself. I dunno.

Anyway I’ll keep you posted on my progress in Hamburg. Look out for a post on the world’s biggest model railway. Oh and there’s Euro-IX of course. A gathering of the world’s finest internet exchanges which I will be attending as a director of LONAP. I will report back.

Ciao baby.

Categories
Business mobile connectivity phones

year on year blog stats show huge growth in mobile users

Interesting to see how readership of this blog has changed year on year.

In March 12012 only 12% of visits came from mobile devices. By March 2013 the figure was 35.5%. The number of visitors to the blog has also grown by 88% year on year (March 2012 – March 20131) so the actual real terms increase in readers accessing trefor.net via a mobile device has increased by 458%.

I note that in 2012 the iPad was the most popular device followed by the iPhone and the SGS2. In 2013 this has changed to iPhone/iPad/SGS3 though there are so many variants of Samsung phones in use that if you add them all up the numbers for Android are roughly the same as for iOS.

There were very few visits from the Nokia Lumia series and none from the Blackberry Z10.

1 year on year for the full year numbers to the end of March have grown from 110k to 220k visits fwiw. It is only a small property as blogs go.

Categories
End User mobile connectivity online safety

Unwanted text messages from dodgy outfits

Just had two text messages in this morning. One made me smile. It was from Premier Inn (yes I no longer suffer Travelodge) reminding me of my booking and booking reference number. I thought that was good. “Like”.

The other was from an extremely dodgy looking outfit saying “Government Legislation allows any unaffordable debts to be legally written off. Reply Y for a callback or click www.d-lg.co.uk and use our quick enquiry form”. The number was 07767169003.

Following the link takes you to a really dodgy looking site telling you nothing about who you are talking to. This really annoyed me – the opposite effect of the sms from the Premier Inn.

We the people really do need to get to grips with this.  In fact that statement about Government Legislation must surely be erring on the side of illegal. I think I will explore it and find out more.

Categories
4g Business ofcom

EE by gum – 4G hits the fells

EE 4G availability in CumbriaTwitter informs me that EE has launched its 4G broadband service in Cumbria. Great. Their press release tells us that their coverage extends over nearly 100 square miles and over 2,000 residents, many of whom are homeworkers.

A quick scan shows that this news is all over tinterweb. For some reason no one other than B4RN sends me press releases so I don’t have a blog post already written about this one :). Not that that is a big deal – most of the stuff out there just regurgitates the press release which ain’t particularly imaginative or value add.

What would be interesting to see is the business case put together within EE for the service. Prices apparently start from £15.99 a month and presumably scale up based on bandwidth consumption. Assuming the take up was in line with the national uptake for broadband (74% in Q1 2011 according to Ofcom) and bearing in mind the lack of competition then that would give EE 1,480 * £16 = £23,680 a month or just shy of £300k a year revenues. I would guess they will be able to make money out of that. I’d also expect users signing up for this service to buy other EE services so I should think the overall revenues will be quite a bit higher.

Out of interest I went into EE’s availability checker it told me that the service wasn’t available in Cumbria yet! I don’t live there anyway!! If I did live in Cumbria I would buy the service and find out what this internet thing is all about.

That’s all…

Categories
End User mobile connectivity phones

Samsung Galaxy S4 launch – exclusive

Apparently today’s the day. The Samsung Galaxy S4 launch. A quick Google for “galaxy s4 release date” produces about 29,400,000 results. Lots of people writing stuff, trying to get on the bandwagon, attract traffic to their site. Dirty attention seekers! Bet they carry advertising :).

Regular readers will know I am a Samsung Galaxy S3 fan. It is a good phone. I have been trying out the Nokia Lumia 920 but it doesn’t really cut it. It isn’t that it is a bad phone. It’s just that its User Interface isn’t as good as the Galaxy.

My concern, and this isn’t particularly a big deal, is that the Galaxy S4 will just be an increment on the S3 in the same way that the iPhone 5 is just a small evolution from the iPhone 4. We will find out soon enough.

These gadgets are getting so good that we expect each new one to be a huge leap forward from the previous. One wonders1 how much further evolution there is in the smart phone.

That’s all. Just on my way to the Information Commissioner’s Office Technology Reference Panel meeting at the British Computer Society.

No such thing as a free launch.

Ciao

1 I don’t really – just thought I’d say that.

Categories
Apps End User mobile apps phones

Nokia Lumia 920, Windows 8 compared to the Samsung Galaxy S3 when using social media

windows phone 8 screenshotsMy next observation on my play with the Lumia 920 relates to the user interface. It’s a very smooth phone for moving around mechanically. A swipe of the finger take you to another relevant screen – more so than the S3 which feels as if you have to return to the main screen more often.

I use Tweetdeck on the GalaxyS3. Since using the Lumia 920 I’ve grown to realise the things that are particularly good about Tweetdeck.

Tweetdeck lets me easily move between my stream, mentions and DMs and when I read a tweet it shows the conversation trail.

The Nokia Lumia 920 is organised differently and I’ve not found it easy to remember my way around. The tweet stream is shown in “People” but my own tweets and mentions are shown in “Me” which is a completely different tile. I can’t therefore flick easily between them as I can with Tweetdeck.

Tweetdeck doesn’t seem to be supported on Windows 8 yet.

The same me/people split seems to apply for Facebook. The concept is good but the reality is that I personally want to look at all my Twitter stuff in one place and all Facebook in another. Ok so I can just use Twitter directly using the browser. I sometimes have to do this even when I am using Tweetdeck – Tweetdeck doesn’t let me easily see who is following me & who I am following.

Perhaps where I am getting to is that everyone has their own preference for UI and the Lumia 920 / Windows 8 is being constantly relegated to second choice whilst I have the Galaxy S3 as an option.

I’m not giving up though. The Office suite is more important for work that is all this social media stuff and that may be where the Lumia 920 finds it’s niche. It’s probably not where Microsoft and Nokia want it to be though. More in good time…

Categories
Apps Engineer mobile apps mobile connectivity

AA wots goin on ere then? On Board Diagnostics – OBD

AA vanIOBD system used by the AA had occasion to call the AA this morning. I was out at the crack of before dawn to take in my usual swim on the way to work when knock me down with a thirty pound sledgehammer the car wouldn’t start. Never had a problem before but hey, stuff happens…

I called the AA at 7.40 am and was promised a van in my front drive at 8.40. Ok cool. I had my usual Weetabix with banana and before I knew it an sms came in on my Samsung Galaxy S3 telling me the AA man would arrive at 08.10. Very good. Impressivo.

OBD connectionFollowing breakfast I moved into the front room to keep an eye out for the van and at just before 08.40 it drove past. I must get the house number on the gatepost fixed. Walking out to the drive I saw the van drive past the other way – I definitely must get that number fixed !:)

At the third pass I flagged the van down and it pulled into the drive. Yay.

Fortunately the car didn’t start as soon as the AA man tried it. I had this irrational worry that once he got there there wouldn’t be anythingOBD crypton AA wrong with it. Out came his diagnostic kit and he set to work. Now this is really the point of this post. The AA man plugged a connector into a socket just below the steering column that I didn’t know was there, got his ruggedized tablet out and ran some tests.

Trying the engine again the car started straight away! Blimey!!

The AA man (I should have asked his name – it may be on the docket which is in the car but I can’t be bothered to go out and get it) showed me that there were no error codes and thatOBD toughbook basically there was nothing wrong with the car/engine. He suspects it was a low fuel pressure or at least a temperamental fuel pressure sensor. If the on board computer doesn’t think there is enough fuel pressure it won’t let the car start. The car deciding to start was nothing to do with the plugging in of the OBD kit. It is now ok again.

The worry of course is that this might happen again. I didn’t want to keep thrashing the battery to start the car in case it ran it flat (fwiw) and itwon’t really be any different another time though there is a scenario where if the car isn’t going to start it doesn’t matter what the state of the battery is..

The information obtainable via the OBD interface was impressive. I could in real time see the changes to the fuel pressure as I pressed my foot on the accelerator. I’m sure there must be a market for an application that streams data from the engine management system to a cloud based data base that would allow me to observe the trends related to what is happening with my car engine. It might help me to spot problems before they happen and mean I’m less likely to miss my swim in the morning.

This is a machine to machine big data job with a mobile data SIM connected to the engine management system. It would be very simple to add a tracking function to this as well.

This may be available but I’ve not seen it. Car tracking systems seem to be more about recovering stolen vehicles and spying on your truck drivers to make sure they aren’t slacking than anything related to anticipating problems with the car. In itself this is fine but more could be done.

You could use the same SIM for in car internet browsing whilst on the go. Not for the driver but maybe for the kids use with an iPad to keep them entertained on a journey.

Anyway that’s my threppence halfpennyworth. The car is fine now Praise Be!

Categories
End User phones

Nokia Lumia 920 camera compared with Samsung Galaxy S3

snow on railway lines taken with Nokia Lumia 920I’m not going to go into a detailed comparison/review of the Nokia Lumia 920 camera compared with Samsung Galaxy S3 camera but I will share a few observations.

First two photos:

Alex Whitworth taken with Lumia 920Alex Whitworth taken by Galaxy S3

 

 

 

 

 

The one on the left was taken with the Nokia Lumia 920 and the one on the right with the Samsung Galaxy S3. I have no complaints about the photo quality of either camera but you do have to say that they look different. They were both taken at the same time – the Lumia in my left hand and the S3 in my right. I personally think the Galaxy S3 looks more natural.

The  S3 camera definitely has more functionality out of the box. For example panorama mode is an additional app download for the Nokia and the S3 has far more variables that can be modified in its settings. Having said that I guess the Nokia stance is that the simpler the camera, ie the fewer settings you have to play with, the less likely things are to go wrong.

I don’t feel that the increased functionality of the S3 has been detrimental to my photo taking though. The Lumia 920 is a lot faster in bringing up a photo on screen once you have taken the picture. It’s just a sideways swipe of the finger. I’m wondering whether the reaction time of the S3 is because I’ve got a lot more running on it. It’s something I’ve begun to notice recently. Both camera apps  take the same amount of time to fire up which is important because I often find myself wanting to take a quick photo of something – Lancaster bomber flying by etc1.

The header photo is “snow on the line at Newark Northgate train station” taken with the Nokia. You will be relieved to know that this light dusting was not enough to cause railway chaos though it did mean we were slightly late into Kings Cross as the driver was taking a tad more care than he normally would – good to know we were in safe hands. Arrive alive and all that!

Alex Whitworth, the model shown sitting down is one of our excellent product managers. Which photo do you prefer? The people shall have their say!

1 I should point out that I don’t often take photos of low flying Lancaster bombers. I was merely using that situation as an illustration of the kind of scenario that demands quick reaction time with the camera. I could have used a low flying spitfire as an alternative. That of course would have required even faster reaction time being a fighter and therefore designed for speed and agility instead of bomb carrying capacity and range.

Categories
End User phones

A stroll through the Lincolnshire countryside with Nokia Lumia 920 and Samsung Galaxy S3

Drive Carefully Sign at North GreetwellI’m just doing a lot of work with Microsoft Windows 8 at the moment and am running it on the desktop and on the Nokia Lumia 920. It is taking me a while to get into the OS but it is going to be on the menu on trefor.net for the next few weeks.

I am also going to be comparing Windows8 with the Google ecosystem – Chrome and Android. This isn’t one big post or article. It’s a series of bite sized chunks discussing specific aspects. I think this whole subject area is important because I see the business customer base polarising between the two. It might take some time for this to be totally apparent but it is happening.

It’s a cloud versus mobility versus desktop play. Whoever gets the mix right will take the top spot and by definition, money. Apple isn’t in this business centric game other than a boutique player.

Nokia Lumia 920 mapsgoogle maps on Samsung Galaxy S3In playing with Windows Phone 8 (or whatever it is specifically called) – I am using the Nokia Lumia 920. Some of my comments may be specific to Nokia rather than Microsoft but for simplification I am going to assume that they are one and the same.

The first opportunity I had to compare the two was last Saturday when my beloved wife and I decided to go for a stroll through the (bitterly cold) flatlands of Lincolnshire. We settled on a walk to the Cherry Tree Cafe, a renowned purveyor of hot drinks and home made cuisine in Sudbrooke.

To figure out how far it was to walk and how long it would take I used Google Maps. 3.5 miles and one hour five minutes. Perfect. We could get there for a cup of tea, walk back and I would be able to sit down and watch Wales wallop Ireland at the rugby. As a cross check I did the same with the Nokia Lumia 920. The answer I got was a slightly longer 3.6 miles but giving me an elapsed time of one hour thirty seven minutes. Oo I thought.

The walk actually took bang on one hour five minutes – it would have been less had my wife who is a bit of a racing ferret not had me in tow slowing her down.

Now it may be that Nokia assumes a slightly older and less mobile demographic as its main customer base but this isn’t a good start. The error of half an hour represented around 50% delta in actual time taken. Not much use if you rely on a service to plan journey times. That’s all for now.

PS note the header photo was a sign we passed in the village of North Greetwell. It should read North Greetwell, Please drive carefully through our village!

PPS Each phone photo taken with the other – review of cameras to follow soon.

Categories
End User phones

Nokia Lumia920 dead on arrival #Windows8 day

image

I’m having a Windows8 day. This means I’ve backed up my laptop and flattened it to install Windows8 Professional.

I tried installing Windows8 & keeping my files last week. After a whole afternoon in which Windows8 “checked my programs for compatibility”, advised me which ones wouldn’t work or were not supported and then went through a whole rigmarole including several restarts only to find at going home time that the install had failed and the PC was restoring Windows7.

I parked it until today and have gone for the complete reinstall. All in all this took a couple of hours including creating a new Microsoft account. I used to have [email protected] but I haven’t used it for years, lost the password and I think at some stage Microsoft might have locked it. Anyway I now have a new one – surprisingly enough [email protected] was already taken:)

In tandem with all this I started up my new Nokia Lumia 920, fully charged last night and ready to rock and roll. Except it isn’t.  An hour into the setup it stopped working. Dead. No life at all. This isn’t a phone you can take the battery out of and put it back in to see what happens. The battery is not removable. Putting in the charger had no effect. It is an ex phone.

The Nokia Lumia 920 has been sent back whence it came. Not a good start. I have another charging up. This is a shame because I have a feeling that, availability of apps aside, the combination of Windows8 desktop and mobile is going to be good.

There are two other issues to consider. Windows8 is very different to everything I have seen before. It’s going to take a while to learn its foibles. The first feel though is that one the intricacies have been sorted it will be fine but this will be a subject for another post in a week or two.

The other issue is disk space. I backed up my Windows7 laptop to a 2Terabyte hard drive. I had around 60Gigs free on the laptop at the time. Restoring the data from the backup is a problem. I have run out of disk space before the job has been finished. I can’t imagine that Windows 8 is 60GB bigger than Windows 7 so something needs sorting out. At the time of writing I haven’t had time to do this.

I took some photos of the Lumia before sending it back. I’ll need to get them off the phone via Google+ for the moment. That brings me to another point. With this Windows8 setup I want to be an all Microsoft user. This means not using Chrome. I’m not sure whether that will work for me but we shall see. I’ll have to switch to SkyDrive for backups and whatever other “apps” that Microsoft brings to the party. I think it’s going to be a tough week or two getting settled with Windows8.

This is the plan. All stuff relating to [email protected] is going to be just Microsoft and all [email protected] stuff is going to be just Google. I’m waiting for the touchscreen Chromebook to come out but may have to bite the bullet before hand.

When I announced this morning on twitter that today was Windows8 day all I got was sympathy. I have to say that so far the sympathy has been justified but I am going to persevere. The biggest issue for Microsoft is whether the general public will persevere. I guess if all new PCs are shipped with Windows8 then eventually people will have no choice but to run with it. I don’t think it is going to go down too well in the corporate world if my own experience is anything to go by.

Watch this space

 

Categories
End User phones

BlackBerry Z10 smartphone comparison with Samsung Galaxy S3 and iPhone

trefor with blackberry10We have a BlackBerry 10 and have put it through some rudimentary comparisons with the Samsung Galaxy S3 and iPhone 4s1. The iPhone5 may perform differently but I don’t think it hugely matters as the comparisons are not particularly scientific.

Bootup

  • iPhone4s 38seconds
  • BlackBerry10 79 seconds
  • Samsung Galaxy S3 26 seconds

Galaxy S3 wins hands down but reality is that most people keep their phones on 24×7 and the BlackBerry has to perform a handshake with the BlackBerry Enterprise server so it is no wonder it takes longer. This test is therefore probably not hugely relevant but seeing as we had done it I’m not going to waste the info.

At this point the iPhone4s left the room and we continued testing:

Web browsing

BlackBerry10 ZThe BlackBerry10  is supposed to major on speed of web access and this would appear to be the case. We tested the BB10 versus the SGS3 on two websites. Initially we chose a random site europafastenings.co.uk – speciality fasteners and screws – you know it makes sense. Both devices loaded this site in around 6 seconds though there is a lot of room for error in the measurement with this method – clicking on start buttons on timers and also trying to ensure that both of us did it simultaneously on two devices.

We moved on to html5test.com which gave us a reading as to the speed of our web access – at least for html5. For good measure we also threw in Google chrome running on my laptop.

  • BlackBerry10 485
  • Samsung Galaxy S3 390
  • Chrome on Windows7 448

Higher is better here so at first glance, and with only a small set of comparison points BB10 is, as it claims to be, a fast device for accessing tinterweb.

Couple of videos for your delight and delectation. Firstly Timico Engineer Dean Asher talking about his first impressions of the BB10 which are very good.

The second vid is Dean showing off BlackBerry Flow which does seem to have some very nifty features in allowing you to switch between applications.

All in all the BlackBerry10 is likely to be a device that corporate IT managers can give to their staff that won’t make them complain about its functionality. To a large extent it is going to be all about the timely availability of apps. Time will tell whether the BB10 turns around RIM’s fortunes but it looks like it could give them a sporting chance.

1 I couldn’t find an iPhone5 around the office and not being an Apple fan I don’t care if someone comes along whinging saying that the iPhone5 is much better than the iPhone4s. iPhone5 sales are disappointing the markets anyway and it’s no wonder I couldn’t find anyone with one 😉

Categories
End User phones

Android, Windows 8 – Windows 8, Android – just like that!

Samsung Windows8 and Android phonesCars always seem to look the same these days don’t they? That’s because they are all designed with optimum aerodynamic efficiency in mind. The result is a bit boring by and large and very challenging for an advertising industry that has to resort to increasingly off the wall ideas to differentiate their client’s product.

The mobile handset industry has to some extent evolved along similar lines. After years of trial and error there are only a few mechanical designs that make sense, notwithstanding the fact that manufacturers keep suing each other for copying their rounded edge or single button.

Here are two Samsung phones. Clearly one is Windows8 and one is Android. The only real differentiation is in the software running on them. The time can’t be so far off when all phones are pretty much the same, probably made in the same factories and with well established software and from a few global players. The applications sets will be pretty much identical on each platform.

All that will be left will be the challenge of how to differentiate one phone from the other – the pitch for cool factor. I was at a meeting yesterday where one presenter was clearly an Apple and Facebook enthusiast. I am not. I don’t trust either organisation. I am a Google and Twitter fan.

There is no real reason why I should trust Google and Twitter any more than Apple and Facebook or even Microsoft for that matter. They are all after my money one way or another.

So that’s it. The future of the mobile phone. I’d like go fast stripes on mine please…

Categories
Engineer mobile connectivity voip voip hardware

Timico mobile VoIP app now available on Apple App Store

I started to look at mobile VoIP clients a good 8 or 9 years ago. At the time the handsets were near enough useless – battery life was rubbish and the processors lacked the oomph to properly run a SIP user agent.

The advent of the modern day smart phone has changed all this, together with years of development effort put in to improve the soft clients themselves.

Now, most of us have a VoIP client on our phone – almost certainly Skype, maybe 3CX, Bria or Eyebeam. I stopped counting the number of low cost VoIP calling services that you might use as the target for the mobile VoIP client.

Many desktop VoIP clients are not supported on mobile. So if you use MSN or Facebook or Google+ or Lync even their mobile clients almost certainly do not support voice but are just used for presence and Instant Messaging.

The dwindling list of vendors of Unified Comms equipment offer their own mobile VoIP clients, which necessarily have better functionality than those I’ve just mentioned from the major platforms. Ask Avaya or Mitel about it and they will proudly show off their solution. These vendor specific solutions usually use a third party soft client tailored to their specific need. Bria from Counterpath is one and MobileMax is another.

I am very proud to announce that Timico has introduced its own mobile VoIP client . There are some clear differentiators from the generic soft phones mentioned earlier and used with hosted solutions.

First of all the user’s account is tied to the employer’s VoIP subscription, so the desktop extension and DDI is the same as the mobile. The user interface is also similar to that of the soft client running on the desktop and is controlled using the same familiar portal. Mobile users can not only speak and do video calls with other users of the network, but are able the see the availability of others

There is more to the technology that goes in to making a successful mobile VoIP client than is at first apparent. A little technology primer might serve a useful purpose here. When you speak into a telephone you are using an analogue broadcast service, i.e. your voice. In order to get to the telephone at the far end this analogue signal is converted into data packets (i.e. digitised) and then transmitted using computer networking technology, in our case Internet Protocol and the layers of networking technologies that come under its umbrella.

The sent packets have to traverse a number of hurdles in the guise of different networks and routers before arriving at their intended destination (next door, Australia – anywhere connected to the internet). Voice is very time sensitive. You really notice the difference if there is a delay between the person at the other end speaking and you hearing it, and vice versa. Slow or poor quality hops in the network can affect the quality of the user experience.

Use of mobile networks for VoIP transmission comes with its own specific issues. 3G is a notoriously latency ridden data service and a number of mobile operators actually block VoIP services (although they are far from transparent in their approach to this). It is too early to assess the practical usability of 4G because there is only one service provider in the market and that network will be only lightly used. The issue of cost of bandwidth over a mobile carrier network has also historically made VoIP impracticable in many cases.

WiFi is the sensible alternative. Although even WiFi comes with its own issues with Ethernet style best efforts transmission. Packets that collide with other packets don’t arrive at their destination. The busier the local WiFi network, the more likely you are to suffer from poor quality voice.

In practical terms this is likely to mean if you are sitting in an office with many hot desks where WiFi is the principal means of connecting to corporate resources, then that network is likely to become congested. This congestion may not be particularly noticeable to laptop users just doing emails or general web use.

A congested WiFi network that is ok for most uses might not be good for VoIP. In an office environment this can be engineered around, by creating more cells/hotspots each with fewer users. At home there is far less likely to be a problem although VoIP packets in this scenario are more likely to be using the open internet for transmission.

A VoIP phone is actually a computer that looks like a phone. Fortunately the lost packet compensation and packet processing techniques used in modern mobile VoIP clients (smart phones/computers) are able to overcome many “noisy” environmental scenarios, or at least go a long way towards mitigating their effects.

Timico’s announcement today comes after some time working with partners (Genband) to develop the soft-client. The app is available on the Apple App Store  to existing (and new!) Timico VoIP customers and is a piece of cake to install – use of our Mobile Endpoint Provisioning (MEP) portal means all the user has to do is enter a username and password and they are up and running.

The MEP is worth further mention. With the MEP comes the ability to change mobile client settings on-the-fly which provides the Timico operations team with a critical tool for managing your mobile VoIP solution in near real time. There are over 200+ settings that the MEP controls, including default codec selection, NAT traversal settings and the keep-alive timer value.

There are often deployments where we might initially need to make adjustments to these settings to suit the environment in which you use the service. We can do this transparently and without requiring interaction with the end-users.

Another feature to our service that is designed to provide the optimum user experience is our Client QOS notification. The mobile client analyses the RTCP statistics in real time. Should these stats fall below predefined thresholds then the user will receive a notification informing them of ‘network quality issues’.

I’ve been around polling some of the early users and got the following comments:

  • “I’ve ditched my deskphone and now just use the iPhone app”
  • “Connects very quickly”
  •  “I was sat in Starbucks in Canada and used it to call the office”

I’m sure that I will have previously mentioned that last year we won the ITSPA Award for the best Enterprise Unified Comms service. This mobile client adds nicely to that existing feature-rich service set. It’s going to be a terrific tool for people who need to make calls out of the office but don’t want to pay extortionate roaming charges or use their own phones.

Because the VoIP service is tied to their company’s business account then all calls just appear on the standard monthly bill. Calls to other internal VoIP users are of course free.

So there we have it. The mobile VoIP client has finally come into the world of reliable, serious business strength communications. If you want to try the service check it out here .  Press release yurr1.

1 note South Walian accent

Categories
End User phones

The mobile OS landscape in 2013 #Android, #iOS,#WindowsPhone8,#Ubuntu,#Mozilla,#Tizen

Trefor DaviesI have yet again looked up and this time noticed new stirrings in the mobile world in 2013. We have the usual Android v iOS battles but there are skirmishes at the outer extremities of the mobile universe that we will be able to watch from the comfort of our armchairs and 24×7 media coverage.

First of all the fight for the number 3 mobile OS position. We have all been watching with interest to see if Microsoft can get anywhere. They have spent a lot of money on Windows Phone 8. I have typically poopooed1 Microsoft’s chances especially as there seem to have been a lot of negative reviews for Windows 8 at the desktop. However the Davies family is currently testing Windows 8 on a laptop at home and the first reports are very positive. If further analysis supports this diagnosis then the prognosis could be quite rosy. Microsoft would have to work very hard to get beyond #3 but they have the stamina to play a long game.

Next up is RIM. I have long since written off RIM but I have heard nothing but good about the BlackBerry10 and I actually get to lay my hands on one next week in advance of the launch. This comes with reams of pages of NDA but hands I will indeed lay on (it). The stakes for RIM are massive. Whilst Microsoft has many irons in the fire RIM’s shirt only has BlackBerry written on it and it is very much on the table.

Then we have the new kids on the block. You might think that the block ain’t big enough to accommodate a new kid but these kids come with some attitude2. There’s the Ubuntu for mobile due, we hear in 2014. Building upon an Android base, if Ubuntu for mobile gets attention from the global open source community it could become a real force to be recognised.

Mozilla have announced their intention to move into the mobile OS space with a pitch for standardisation and true portability of apps without being locked in. Then there’s Samsung’s Linux based Tizen. Samsung, if you believe the word on the web, is looking to reduce its reliance on Google and has become a Platinum member of the Linux Foundation with a bung of $500k.

All in all it is going to make for an interesting couple of years ahead. In my mind I was thinking consolidation of the mobile OS market but this is pointing at fragmentation. Whether the new contenders get anywhere beyond throwing the occasional punch remains to be seen but we will all have ringside seats for the big fight3.

That’s all for now. Have a great weekend 🙂 I’ll let you know how we get on with BlackBerry10 and Windows 8. TTFN.

1 doesn’t really look like a word when you see it in print does it but I couldn’t be bothered to think of an alternative and it is in general use.

2 I’m sorry this language is getting even more flowery than normal but it is 4.30 on a Friday afternoon and the chances of anyone reading it are rapidly reducing

3 OK that’s it I promise. I’m off.

PS My New Years resolution is henceforth to not use so many cliches in posts in 2013.

Categories
Cloud End User phones

External SD card or no external SD card – Google Nexus4

Trefor DaviesJust scanned through a review of the Google Nexus 4 Android handset in the Grauniad. One of the things that caught my attention was the decision to not support an external SD card. Apple has lead the way with doing away with SD cards on the basis that they wanted everyone to do everything through the cloud.

The argument for a removable drive is that you can easily move data on and off the handset. My Galaxy S3 does support an external (micro) SD card but I have to say the only time I ever remove it is when I change handsets which, repair jobs aside, is less frequent than once a year.

Proponents of removable storage also remind us that we are using more and more space for photos and games. The former is certainly true for me but my needs would be accommodated with a large enough internal storage in the first place. What currently happens is that I run out of space on the phone (say) and have to adjust the settings to save media to the SD card which is a manual step that should be unnecessary.

All my pics are automatically backed up the the cloud using Instant Upload over WiFi. Once Instant Upload has done its stuff I then also shift them off the phone via USB to my laptop and once a month (ish) back up to one or two external hard drives. I’m not sure I’ll ever rely totally on the cloud for the backup.

So on balance I agree that we no longer need to support external SD cards as long as the phone itself has a suitably large capacity in the first place which, considering the low cost of memory, should not be difficult. Any growth in storage usage is likely to be down to a change in habits that accompany the use of a new handset so I can’t see that running out of space should be a problem – just make sure you have enough from the off.

Whaddaya think?

Categories
Engineer phones

kiss goodbye to the set top box – Android Stick

Trefor DaviesI think I’ve been burying my head in the sand as I have only just noticed Android thumb drives. Following on from my earlier post on low cost Android tablets 2013 could well be the year you kiss goodbye to your set top box, if you had one in the first place. Mini thumb drives loaded with Android and with a HDMI interface for plugging into your TV are the way ahead. They are sourced from China for around £32 including delivery!

Running with Android allows you to download apps from the Google Play Store which means you can, in theory use the drive to run BBC iPlayer, Netflix or any other media service service. You can also insert a micro SD card with some of your favourite1 movies or music for locally sourced content. These drives support WiFi for internet access and you can either plug in a USB keyboard or use wireless access to control it.

It’s everything you can do using the RaspBerryPi but without having to learn to programme or sysadmin. If you use an external powered  USB hub you can plug in some extras and, for example, use a webcam for video chats.

I’m going to get one and check it out. The only problem I can forsee is that we only have one telly at home. This is already called upon by two boys competing for XBox time and my wife who wants to watch every cookery programme on the planet. Also I don’t really watch that much TV but hey… It’s got to be done I think. It’s a cheap way of hooking your TV up to the internet.

The next problem is which one to buy – Amazon has 840 results for “Android Stick”. Any suggestions duly noted.

Ciao.

1 I think I’m starting to sound like a cheesy TV advert here!

Categories
End User phones

7″ Android tablets for $40! How low can they go?

Trefor DaviesMany moons ago when 10BaseT still trod the plains of Shenzhen and ATM was still just about available at the desktop I worked for GEC developing Ethernet physical interface components. On a number of occasions I visited our manufacturing customers in Taiwan to discuss specifications & show off new products etc.

What struck me about the high volume consumer electronics market that we were selling into was the total lack of secrecy in the game. Who was paying what for which component was know to the cent and if a new and cheaper alternative became available then the old part could be designed out in two weeks. It was all about cost, cost, cost.

As is massively obvious to us all this world has continued to move on. The days of discrete Ethernet components have long gone and everything is now very much system on a chip. You really need very little technical nous to put together new electronic gadgets and products these days. Reference designs do it all for you.

At the bleeding edge most of the differentiation is in software and the ease of its use: hardware specs are pretty similar and the battleground is in iOS, Android, Windows8 and “cloud”services.

At the trailing edge, and specifications seem to move to this space very quickly, it is still very much about cost. Much of what you hear is the high profile publicity pushed out by the tech giants – Samsung Chromebook £229, Googe Nexus 7 tablet running Android 4.1 (Jellybean) for £218, iPad mini £269 (expensivo), Kindle fire HD £159. I realise these probably don’t fit into “trailing edge” but they are cut down versions of the headline product or cheaper equivalents.

At the seriously low end there are some amazingly cheap me too products around that are probably seriously work taking a punt at. Check out alibaba.com. They have 7″ Android tablets selling as low as $40.89 – that’s roughly twenty five quid. it isn’t difficult to envisage having a few of those scattered around your house for when you want to check what’s on TV, the weather, train times etc etc. At that price the tab doesn’t even have to last that long. If it breaks chuck it away and get another one, probably even more cheaply. The performance needed out of these devices doesn’t have to be highly specced.

Although we all live in a consumer world some of us also operate in business. It is clear that the business world will also move to the point where the hardware is totally incidental and that companies will run on a set of integrated services defined according to the needs of their particular industry or market.

If I was starting a business from scratch today I doubt that I would set out to physically own any software. I might not even provide staff with hardware – they could use their own, cheaply sourced and probably more up to date than anything I would provide.  I would concentrate on the service set that I needed together with establishing an appropriate level of security so that my business could not be compromised.

The one thing that does differentiate the needs of business and consumer is the level of service received. As a consumer if I lose my phone or my broadband gets cut off its a pain but I’ll live with it for a while. If this happens in business it is likely to cost me hard cash and so I want to be able to call someone for help as quickly as possible.

2013 is shaping up to be an exciting year in the tech world. It’s going to be a fun place to be but I will start the year with  a slightly more serious end to a post. If you are in business you are going to need a reliable partner that can provide you with communications service levels that will help and not hinder your plans. Check us out here and give me a shout if you have any specific needs or questions.

Happy New Year 🙂

PS Oh and let me know if you have bought one of these cheap Android tabs & what the experience was like.

Categories
4g Business mobile connectivity ofcom

4G spectrum auctions – bidders include BT

Trefor DaviesOfcom has announced the bidders in the 4G spectrum auctions. There are seven in total. Thought about bidding myself but I didn’t really have a firm plan of what to do with it if we managed to secure the spectrum.

The bidders include all the ones you would have expected – EE, O2, Vodafone and 3 in their various official corporate guises. Also PCCW who already offer a limited 4G fixed line replacement service in the UK. Then we have a company called MLL Telecom which has existing mobile spectrum licenses and provides managed networks  in the UK.

Finally, and perhaps most interesting, is Niche Spectrum Ventures Limited, otherwise known as BT. This business was only registered in June of this year and has already had two name changes: initially BT Facilities Services Limited (until sept 2012) and then BT Ninety-Two Limited (changed only last month).

I don’t have any inside track here – BT is being very tight lipped regarding their plans – but if I were a betting man I’d say this was another step on the road to BT becoming a fully fledged mobile network operator, again.

At some stage after divesting itself of Cellnet BT realised it needed to be in mobile and so is now an MVNO, partnering with Vodafone.  Buying 4G spectrum would be a natural step forward here.

Modern 4G kit is very flexible and can carry multiple operators networks – both in the modem and in VLANs applied to the various backhaul circuits. BT, with its own spectrum would be able to easily launch 4G services piggy backing on someone else’s existing infrastructure and the company has good relationships with both Voda (through the MVNO) and EE from its work in the Cornwall superfast broadband project.  Indeed the company won an award earlier this year for demonstrating the solution that could be used in a country wide 4G rollout.

It would be a big move for BT, upping its mobile ante, especially as the incumbent mobile operators are fighting a headwind of revenue erosion, but converged networks are the way forward and for a company of BT’s size it has to have a mobile play.

That’s my bet and I’m sticking with it. We will find out soon enough.

Categories
End User phones

Who needs a mobile phone?

sometime in the future in a far away GalaxyS3Mankind is evolving. We are getting taller (and fatter) and our right hands are changing to the shape of our mobile phones. The mobile phone is becoming physically a part of us. We are glued to it.

It is only a matter of time before the bio engineered phone is invented and this will eventually become part of our genetic make up with every new born child having a built in device capable of sending messages and allowing you to talk to people over long distances.

It’s going to be a strange world. One where it will be quite normal to see people holding their empty hand to their faces and taking into it – perhaps in the same way that you or I might hold our hand up to shout to someone in the distance.

Before long we will communicate in instant messages by dictating the note into the palm of your hand and saying “send” (or “go” – whatever you like 🙂 ).

Near Field Communications built into our “hands” will meant that entire brain memory sets could be transferred simply by touching palms with another person. We will have to be careful when shaking hands or giving high fives not to accidentally take on a virus or transfer stuff out that we didn’t want others to see. A mental firewall will be required.

Educating children will be easy, a simple download. Education will evolve to focus on physical and social skills because the academic side of it will all be automated. This will in time solve the obesity problem that developed over the millennia.

Particularly bright kids will get involved in research projects that will solve all conflict, create enduring world peace and finally explore the galaxy spreading the word to far away civilizations that today only exist in the first thousand Star Wars movies.

I expect you’re all wondering what on earth I’m going on about. Me too.  I went to the Newark 1 Business Awards last night, and forgot to take my intergalactic communicator. At first I was annoyed with myself. That feeling turned to resignation and then liberation and without twitter/email/facebook/sms  I proceeded to  spend a very enjoyable evening being witty2 and engaging and attentive and contributing to the overall convivial atmosphere of our table.

My world did not stop. Who needs a mobile phone?

1 in Newark 🙂

2 well I thought I was!

Categories
Engineer mobile connectivity

Train WiFi – the unexpurgated truth (as far as I can see it)

test data for WiFi versus O2 cellular on Eastcoast trains - click for full size imageThe only sensible way to travel to central London is by train. Whilst it isn’t cheap it is fast and has the benefit of allowing you to usefully use the time doing work and of course tweeting and writing blog posts.

I was tweeting away during one such trip and one of my pals, @HmmmUK, suggested I write a post on the connectivity on board the train. This is that post (said in a dramatic booming sort of voice).

Finding out all about the service was easy. Icomera, the company that provides it, proudly boasts about it on their website. I had thought it was satellite based but surprisingly it is based on a combination of satellite and 3G.

The connectivity is based on the good old “Moovbox M800” which you may not have known “provides a central network connection moovbox m800 - it's a cool name - thanks to Icomera for the picfor all the real-time communication needs of urban and suburban rail systems…

…combining up to eight cellular WAN radios with an aggregated downlink speed up to 28Mbps (in our dreams). The Moovbox will automatically change between network types including HSPA, 3G UMTS, EDGE and GPRS to deliver the best connection possible depending on network availability. The M800 can also be configured with a DVB-S satellite module for connectivity in areas where terrestrial networks and unavailable. Each cellular radio supports two SIMs allowing it to switch between different cellular providers and thus the best available network. Where a track-side or depot Wi-Fi network is present the Moovbox will use this as a preferred backhaul alternative at speeds up to 54Mbps.”

Icomera is a Swedish company which explains why I’ve occasionally had Swedish language adverts pushed to me when using the service. The ground station is in Sweden with a Swedish IP address.

To make this post a little more interesting I decided to test the on board WiFi against the O2 sim in my phone. I did this on a 2 hour 20 minute journey between Lincoln and London Kings Cross (the train was late – it shouldn’t take more than 2 hours 5 mins 🙂 ). After Newark I did continuous testing using speedtest.net on both laptop WiFi and phone sim.

Although I tried to start each test at the same time in reality one normally took longer than the other so the finishing times do not coincide. I managed 88 cellular tests but only 55 using the WiFi which suggests that the WiFi tests took longer to perform.

This is borne out from the average results which were better for O2 than for the WiFi.

Average Download Speed bps Average Upload Speed bps Average Latencys ms
O2 mobile data 2002 872 203
On train WiFi 985 618 231

The recording process was not perfect. We have to remember that I was hurtling through the English autumnal countryside at 125mph for much of the time (must have been less than that seeing the train was late) and there were times when the speed test stalled due to no connectivity and continued when it picked up a signal once again.

It felt like it did this more often for the O2 sim which you could understand losing connectivity in parts of the countryside whereas the satellite should have had a continuous connection. That said the fact that I was able to perform more speed tests with the former is telling. Of course it may have been down to more people on the train using the WiFi than their cellular connection but I can only report my own experiences. The numbers speak for themselves.

Cellular WiFi
Fastest Download (bps) 6176 3930
Fastest Upload (bps) 3233 1580

Although I do use the on train WiFi I have on occasion resorted to the cellular connection in my laptop (O2 in phone, Vodafone in laptop) and whilst this test used O2 not Voda I suspect what it is telling me is that it makes more sense not to bother with the onboard WiFi and just stick to the mobile networks.

It also makes me wonder what sort of cellular connectivity they have on the Moovbox M800. I guess must have a lot of people hooked to it on that train!?  They must use some sims because the latency seems low for a satellite only connection. In fact thinking about it I wonder if they used a satellite at all on my trip?

Icomera looks like it has established a nice little niche in transport based connectivity but I suspect that passenger expectations in the UK have overtaken what Eastcoast is providing.

That’s all for now – click on the header image for a full size graphical representation of the test results. You will see that there are many more “good” results for the cellular connection than the WiFi. Also it’s no surprise that the best cellular readings come when the train is in or near a station.

Categories
End User phones

Most popular blog posts

Samsung Galaxy S3 seen next to a Samsung Galaxy S2The most popular blog posts at the moment are those talking about problems with the Samsung Galaxy S3. In the last month I’ve had just under 7,000 page views of the “Galaxy S3 not charging” posts here and here (in order of popularity) and over 4,600 views of the “problem with headset socket on Galaxy S3” post. That last post has had over 14,000 views since it was written (as an aside it’s surpassed only by the “how to bypass Pirate Bay filters” post which has had over 18,000 views).

That’s a lot of problem phones out there.

Categories
broadband End User mobile connectivity

When did you last phone “home”?

landline use Timico VoIP phone app for iPhone available from Apple App Store

Landline use in decline

Landline use seems to be in decline. When I got into the office this morning I called home. I’d lost a tie and thought I might have dropped it on our drive.

When I want to call someone my usual way is to go to the logs on my phone and click on the relevant number/name. As often as not the person I want to talk to is high up on the list of recent calls – wife, kids, stockbroker, shrink (etc).

I called my wife’s mobile. She didn’t answer. So I called “Home”. I had to scroll a very long way down the list of logs to find Home. In fact I last called Home at 20.08 on the 1st November. 70 calls or text messages down the list. Anne answered the Home phone and you will be happy to know that she found the tie, a very smart blue bow tie, and has it safe in the house.My point is that we are using our landline less and less. Typically for calls to grandparents. I’ve even taken to answering the home phone by saying “Newport Arch Chinese Restaurant” as quite often its a scammer on the other end of the line.

Everyone in our house has a mobile phone. All the adults are on all you can eat plans and it makes no different whether we use the fixed or mobile phone. Nobody rings me on the Home phone. The kids rarely use their phone for voice calls. They either text their friends or they use it to access the internet for Facebook Messaging. The youngest often goes online on the XBox if he needs to chat to a friend!

I’d like to bet that for a large proportion of the population the landline number is hardly used at all and is effectively only there because you need a landline to get Broadband.

There have occasionally been calls for BT (Openreach) to provide data only lines, known as “naked DSL” without the costs and overhead of the voice service. BT has always pushed back on this, saying there is no demand and that the costs would not be greatly reduced.

It would be interesting to see how many households don’t use their landline at all. My bet is that millions of us would put our hands up and voluntarily relinquish possession of our old fashioned phone. It might be worth having the debate…

Categories
4g Business mobile connectivity

4G cost an issue?

4G EE LTEI note the Beeb is reporting today that people are saying the cost of signing up to an EE 4G plan is too high.

There are always going to be whingers. Either people will like the pricing or they won’t. It’s a straight business decision on the part of EE. Network operators are under constant margin pressure because they have chopped their pricing too much in the past. 4G represents an opportunity to build value into their businesses.

My biggest concern is how successful they will be in adding additional margin generating services to their portfolios. If you look at the EE pricing then everyone gets unlimited voice and texts and they are just offering variable charging based on data consumption. On its own this isn’t enough but I’m not sure I see networks successfully adding other services that people are willing to pay for.

Agree?

Categories
4g Business

4 G E E L T E 4 ME?

4G EE LTEEE is doing a good job at building up market expectation. Today the mobile network operator launched its pricing plans, available from the end of this month.

Consumers can have unlimited calls and texts with 500MB of data for £36. Remembering that I used 60MB of data in one minute on the O2 LTE trials I suspect that not many people will stay on this plan. The options are:

500MB £36
1GB £41
3GB £46
5GB £51
8GB £56

I assume that this comes with a phone though it isn’t clear. Their site suggests you can get the Nokia Lumia 920, 820, Samsung Galaxy S3 LTE and Note 2 LTE, HTC One XL and the iPhone5 plus a few other also rans (sorry).

If you use up your data allowance you won’t be able to access the internet until you buy a data add-on (ok). It isn’t entirely clear but it looks like the cost of a data add on is £6 for 500MB or £15 for 2GB so it makes sense to get your plan right in the first place.

I note there is a roaming package for £5 a month though this doesn’t seem to apply to data which in my mind is what I am most likely to use when roaming – checking restaurants, bars, local attractions (library locations etc).

The speeds are quoted at 8 – 12Mps on average.

It also looks as if they will not be blocking VoIP

Continue reading “4 G E E L T E 4 ME?”
Categories
End User phones

Looking forward to getting my Samsung Galaxy S3 back

Sandown Park panorama taken with Samsung Galaxy S3Quick brain dump. I’ve been using the HTC One S for just over a week now. You may recall I’ve had to send the Samsung Galaxy S3 off for a new screen.

The keyboard keys on the One S are smaller than I’m used to and I have to be very careful when typing things in not to get it completely wrong. The User Interface seems not to be quite as slick – more button presses than required for the S3. This might be totally wrong and I don’t have a specific example, particularly as I haven’t got both phones side by side to compare, but that’s what it feels right.

The smaller form factor of the One S is good except that it means that things are smaller on screen (ref keyboard above). I also like the “ring pull” feature you use to activate the screen but this in itself is not a major reason to buy.

I guess the One S must be cheaper than the S3 which is probably how it is positioned and sold and in reality it does have a great many of the benefits of Android ICS. The One S doesn’t have an SD card slot so I haven’t swapped my music across although I suppose I could have done it via cable – it does have 32GB on-board memory. I don’t listen to music often enough for me to have bothered.

Also I don’t like the zoom function on the camera. “pinching” the screen doesn’t work. You have to use the +/- slider to zoom in and out. The One S doesn’t seem to have the panorama feature though the burst mode of the S3 is there by default – you just hold the shutter button down and it just happens. The header photo is reused from a previous post – notionally to show off the panorama feature of the S3 but in reality so that I can “pin” the blog on Pinterest – it won’t let you do it without a photo (yes I know I’m a tart).

I don’t know whether these features also apply to the HTC One X but I’m not going to find out. Bring back my Galaxy S3 – as soon as possible – I will try and be more careful with you in future (strokes an imaginary phone lovingly) 🙂

That’s all folks…

PS I realise I have to be careful here. I don’t want to appear too much like an Apple fanboi. Samsung fanboi? Nah.

PPS this post is for Jonathan – he will understand.

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End User phones

iOS5 versus iOS6

An apple - grown in my back garden at homeOk lads and lasses. My wife has an iPhone4S. Should she upgrade it to iOS6? Pros and cons? Answers on a postcard or in the comment box.

PS she is desperate to have a navigational tool in her car. This should be a consideration in the discussion.