Hands0n
8th March 2008, 02:16 PM
For some time I have been playing around with T-Mobile's Web N Walk data plan (£12.50/3GB per month) using my N95 as the USB/Bluetooth modem. It has worked rather well, but T-Mobile's HSDPA is currently capped quite low by today's standards. It really began to show this week when I needed to do some "real work" across it and it did rather let me down badly. I got the work done, but not without some issues. And so that has prompted me to take stock of what is currently on offer.
I finally decided on the Vodafone USB Stick (a Huawei E172) mostly because of its aesthetics but also because of its performance capability of upto 7.2Mbps. And so I walked into the Bluewater Vodafone store and 15 minutes later walked out with the little device. Adding it to my existing contract with Vodafone was a snip. I took the 18 month contract and so had to lay out an initial £79 for the Stick. For me, it was not too onerous or unexpected. The total cost of ownership over the 18 months will be £349 (or £19.38 per month averaged out). That is not at all out of line with ADSL providers in terms of line speed, data allowance and line rental. But for me this is not competing with my BB connection, rather it is complementing it by allowing me to detach and roam away from base freely.
I am using the Stick primarily on a Macbook Pro, but it will also be used on a Windows XP laptop. Rather than install the software on the included CD I opted to grab the latest and greatest from Vodafone's website (http://www.vodafone.co.uk/mobileconnect) which I strongly advise for any OS X Leopard users. The older Tiger drivers will not work at all well with Leopard.
Once installed it is simply a matter of plugging in the Stick and running up the Vodafone Mobile Connect app to initialise the kit. After that you can start up a connection (on the Mac) from the System Preferences | Network menu or from the menu bar if you have your connectivity set up there.
I ran a few checks on Speedtest.net but the results I am getting are a bit odd. I think that Speedtest.net does not know how to handle the 3G/HSDPA connection and says that all I can do is 512Mbps. However, ADSLGuide.org shows a much healthier 1.2Mbps ( http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results/id/120498397252717626206.html) although I think that may be a bit understated. But HSDPA is rather unpredicatable, switching in and out entirely statistically upon demand. But it works, and it all works very well.
The next few days will see me trying it out in all sorts of places and on different computers.
I finally decided on the Vodafone USB Stick (a Huawei E172) mostly because of its aesthetics but also because of its performance capability of upto 7.2Mbps. And so I walked into the Bluewater Vodafone store and 15 minutes later walked out with the little device. Adding it to my existing contract with Vodafone was a snip. I took the 18 month contract and so had to lay out an initial £79 for the Stick. For me, it was not too onerous or unexpected. The total cost of ownership over the 18 months will be £349 (or £19.38 per month averaged out). That is not at all out of line with ADSL providers in terms of line speed, data allowance and line rental. But for me this is not competing with my BB connection, rather it is complementing it by allowing me to detach and roam away from base freely.
I am using the Stick primarily on a Macbook Pro, but it will also be used on a Windows XP laptop. Rather than install the software on the included CD I opted to grab the latest and greatest from Vodafone's website (http://www.vodafone.co.uk/mobileconnect) which I strongly advise for any OS X Leopard users. The older Tiger drivers will not work at all well with Leopard.
Once installed it is simply a matter of plugging in the Stick and running up the Vodafone Mobile Connect app to initialise the kit. After that you can start up a connection (on the Mac) from the System Preferences | Network menu or from the menu bar if you have your connectivity set up there.
I ran a few checks on Speedtest.net but the results I am getting are a bit odd. I think that Speedtest.net does not know how to handle the 3G/HSDPA connection and says that all I can do is 512Mbps. However, ADSLGuide.org shows a much healthier 1.2Mbps ( http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results/id/120498397252717626206.html) although I think that may be a bit understated. But HSDPA is rather unpredicatable, switching in and out entirely statistically upon demand. But it works, and it all works very well.
The next few days will see me trying it out in all sorts of places and on different computers.