three-web-cube-broadband-box

[paulbds]

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/44249/three-web-cube-broadband-box

Hi just seen this (twitter) whilst away in America
Bit jet lagged so apologies if already been covered on this site

3 keeps on giving (selling) us new products
I believe it's on trial and may roll out later

Paul

[Ben]

Welcome back!

No I've not seen this; looks great, I guess it's a trade of increased wireless performance for the lack of portability. Makes sense.

[Hands0n]

I have a sample from Three and have blogged about this here --> http://technoratia.com/2012/02/10/web-cube-broadband-in-a-box/

Feel free to ask any questions :)

[Ben]

I'm so horrendously jealous right now.

Does it have 802.11n?

[gorilla]

I like the prospect of this, but it needs faster download speeds and more data. My internet use is very legitimate these days, but with streaming services like spotify, napster, iPlayer, netflix, lovefilm, YouTube, iTunes, podcasts 15GB is not going very far.

That said, well done to three for being first to market. Again. :D

[Ben]

No, this solution is != to wired for streaming services, which, unfortunately for Three and this proposition, seem to have finally reached tipping point. Hurrah.

What would be reasonable? 50GB?

[Hands0n]

Does it have 802.11n?

Yes Ben, it does (802.11b/g/n) and the WiFi is a very strong signal, outreaches the MiFi by several metres.

[Ben]

Yes Ben, it does (802.11b/g/n) and the WiFi is a very strong signal, outreaches the MiFi by several metres.
That's what I wanted to hear! To be a worthwhile product this is essential.

[Hands0n]

There are a couple of YouTube videos of the Web Cube being unboxed. One is by our very own Getti :)

Dan's video --> http://youtu.be/ryglEiwatmw

Tracy & Matt's blog --> http://youtu.be/UVwWE4OFNkk

I was going to do one myself, but there's not anything I could possibly add to the two above.

[The Mullet of G]

Well it looks kinda cool with all of the blue lights and stuff, but as a home broadband solution is pretty dire.

At best your paying more than £1 per GB of data, which is piped to you at a pretty depressing speed with a hefty ping time, all backed up by Three's legendary CS. So its useless for online gaming, downloading and streaming is out due to the poor download speeds and data cap, so all its good for is browsing ebay and checking your emails. Why would anyone pay £15+ a month for that?

[Ben]

No fixed line. I think that's about the only reason. But I think it's a pretty compelling one.

Make no mistake, though - this is a niche offering in this form. We should see some great offerings once LTE is rolled out, though; including full-on home-phone replacements.

[The Mullet of G]

About the only places it would be any use are rural areas with poor broadband coverage, but those same areas probably have poor 3G coverage also.

It'll definitely make more sense when LTE rolls out, but currently its pretty poor. For me the future is cable, Dick B is upgrading me from 50Mbps to 120Mbps free of charge, by the time LTE rolls out he'll probably have upgraded me to a terabit line, gotta love Dick B. :)

[Hands0n]

Well it looks kinda cool with all of the blue lights and stuff, but as a home broadband solution is pretty dire.

At best your paying more than £1 per GB of data, which is piped to you at a pretty depressing speed with a hefty ping time, all backed up by Three's legendary CS. So its useless for online gaming, downloading and streaming is out due to the poor download speeds and data cap, so all its good for is browsing ebay and checking your emails. Why would anyone pay £15+ a month for that?

Worth breaking that lot down a little, just for discussion sake.

Broadband has come to mean many things over time, like "unlimited". But put in context against a maximum of 19.2Kbps GPRS then anything that is 1Mbps and above is likely to be considered broadband in mobile circles. I think it is a tad unfair putting any wireless communication up against wideband/fibre cable delivery.

The speeds that I, and very many others, see on Three's network are multi-megabit. It is not at all unusual for me to see 6Mbps and above, with a peak of 13Mbps. All quite respectable. Ping times are the lowest in the mobile network industry (remembering to keep this all in the context of mobile).

Three's CS remains as dire as ever, neither getting better nor worse. However, Three have a Twitter-based UK CS support that has proven very useful to solve the problems that their 333 operation cannot. That said, I see exactly the same kind of complaint made against all of the other mobile networks CS operations and so while it is not any mitigation I think it is fair to say that in terms of CS we're pretty much all in similar boats.

Given the low ping times and high speeds Three's HSPA+ network is more than sufficient to play online games. I have had this tested out by my own gamester who is completely intolerant of network latency ruining his playability. We set the PS3 to the Web Cube and it performed flawlessly.

The biggest drawback with ALL mobile broadband right now is that data caps do in fact persist. The only way around this is to take up Three's The One Plan where no such data caps exist and tether your device to the smartphone.

So whilst there will be those for which the Three network will be of no particular use - and that is equally applicable to all networks - for those where the network does reach then devices like this may indeed be very suitable. Particularly so where the intended use of such a device is quite applicable.