Tag: Everything Everywhere

Categories
4g End User mobile connectivity phones

iPhone5 – why would you want to buy it? #4G #LTE

The iPhone5 est arrive. This year has seen a long list of major events come and go. Now it’s the turn of the iPhone5. Ordinarily this would do nothing for me. From what I can see the spec, in the main, is no better than the Samsung GalaxyS3. I’m not a zombie fanboi, activated by keywords in Apple marketing material, programmed to obey unquestioningly, asking only how much money to profer on the altar of the fruit.

The one feature that the iPhone5 has that makes me think about getting it is support for 1,800MHz. This is a massive coup for EE (eh?). We don’t have a real list of LTE alternative handsets yet. All the main manufacturers are on the list. I don’t want two S3s (my current phone is an S3 on O2) and I don’t see a compelling enough reason to go Lumia.

My attitude to Lumia might change when Windows8 is properly launched but for the moment it aint. So it looks like iPhone5 then.

I’m not totally convinced. Do I really want to toss my principles aside for the sake of using a LTE service that won’t work in my home town using a handset that won’t roam on any other network?

Categories
4g Business mobile connectivity ofcom

Everything Everywhere LTE Launch

The Ofcom decision to allow Everything Everywhere to launch an LTE (4G) service on its existing 1,800MHz spectrum has resulted in lots of press coverage this week (here’s me in the the Telegraph) and complaints from the other operators who have to wait for the auctions in the new year.

I can see both sides of the argument and like it or not I agree with the Ofcom decision to let them get on with the launch. We have to get these services out there so we can all start using them. I expect there to be no further delays in the auction process after this.

The big question in my mind is what the LTE packages are going to look like. I could be wrong but I sense that EE is not going to launch very fast services because speed uses up more of the spectrum. My bet is that the services will be perhaps 10 or 15Mbps using smaller chunks of spectrum and not the whizz bang speeds the technoogy can actually achieve.

10 – 15Mbps is still a lot faster than what we have already and allows the operator to offer faster services downstream without having to change its infrastructure. EE could alternatively offer the faster services at launch but at a premium. When it comes to it we don’t actually need 40Mbps (say) on our phones. What we will notice is the faster response rate at 10 – 15Mbps than we currently get.

Offering a speed that is not orders of magnitude faster than the existing services will also help prevent network congestion although the EE infrastructure has had a huge capacity upgrade in readiness for the launch.

The other interesting thing to look out for will be the pricing or more specifically how much data usage you will get for your money. Also which handsets will be supported?

Not long to wait now. Although Timico is an O2 and Vodafone house I will be getting myself an EE 4G SIM to play with.

That’s all folks…

Categories
Business mobile connectivity

sms going nowhere? – that’ll be everything everywhere

On the tenth of May I sent pal @deanelwood an sms – did he want a beer after work?  He didn’t reply.  Hmm I thought. Poor guy must either be in hospital in intensive care or away on holiday and is offline – after all everybody needs to switch off sometimes.

He got the sms yesterday – that’s 16 days later. Mine was not the only delayed one which was somewhat of  relief. He told me that the delays are apparently down to network integration issues at Everything Everywhere.  I’m sure they will get it fixed but this does leave them open to quips such as “nothing anywhere”:)

Categories
Business mobile connectivity

Orange and TMobile announce UK JV Everything Everywhere

Orange and TMobile unveiled their UK joint venture today. I was quite impressed with the slickness of the delivery of their online press pack, not that I often download press packs. It isn’t often I comment on purely mobile news. I’m into IP.

On this occasion however it is such a big announcement that it has attracted my attention. Such a large scale business has to figure out how to keep it’s messaging simple whilst communicating what is presumably a hugely complex change to the business. This I believe it has made a reasonable stab at:

  • Everything everywhere
  • Best for customers
  • Biggest network
  • Benefits begin this year with x-network roaming
  • Boost for sales
  • Brilliant service
  • Acceleration into the business market

Whilst in principle a bigger and better network should server customers better there are a number of things to watch out for here.

  1. Bigger and better often means slower to respond.
  2. Bigger and better often means poorer customer service
  3. The business market is a completely different kettle of fish from that Orange and TMobile are used to
  4. It isn’t clear to me how the jointly larger high street footprint will result in a boost for sales unless they are jointly going to spend more money picking up customers than they used to and this has it’s downsides in terms of operating margins. They have to keep the brands separate or the likely result is a lower overall sales level (which might of course be accompanied by lower operating costs)

I should mention that as an O2 and Vodafone service provider I have an interest to declare but I’m not really letting that colour my opinions. The success of this venture is going to depend on how well they can make the complex business of running a mobile service simple. Only time will tell.

PS I’d love to have their  marketing budget.

PPS It wasn’t immediately obvious to me that the name of the JV appears to be “Everything Eveywhere”. Marketing money well spent?