Pownce, the micro-social-blogging site launched by Digg.com founder Kevin Rose, has launched its mobile site, mobile.pownce.com. The site is optimized for mobile browsers (apparently it even looks killer on the iPhone, perhaps someone can confirm this for us) and allows you to do most everything on your phone that you can with a PC browser.

Twitter, Jaiku, and now Pownce all have mobile-oriented sites, as do Facebook and MySpace. Is anyone out there still unconvinced that the mobile web is going to see a bigger explosion of users than you can imagine?

Martin Sauter has a great article on why the Mobile Web had such a terrible start, and why he thinks it’s going to see a boom soon, as well. I know that I’ve been known to break down in tears and assume the fetal position when AT&T’s data network has an outage.

MAXroam (SMStextnews sponsor) has announced their ‘Roaming Mad’ story competition, which rewards consumers for sharing their horror stories of high roaming rates. The MAXroam SIM, recently launched by Cubic Telecom, is a borderless SIM card offering significantly lower roaming rates. The MAXroam SIM also eliminates the hassle of getting a local SIM and trying to figure out the rates for it.

The Roaming Mad story competition encourages consumers to submit their stories of crazy roaming bills and attempts to get a local SIM when travelling. All entries will automatically be rewarded with a EUR5 voucher off a MAXroam SIM. Ten EUR50 vouchers will be handed out to the travellers with the highest monthly roaming bills, and the best story submitted will receive an Apple iPod Touch.

I had my own issues recently when traveling to Amsterdam for a week, and in the future will likely look into a MAXroam SIM. You can submit your story online at www.maxroam.com. It only takes a minute, and you automatically make EUR5, so you’ve got nothing to lose.

I stumbled on this post by Stuart Henshall and couldn’t resist sharing. Stuart recently had his car broken into and the thieves stole his stereo. To replace it, he chose the Sony MEX-BT2500, which retails for under $200 USD. What’s so cool about this stereo?

It’s got Bluetooth.

For less than his phone cost, Stuart is now using his Nokia N81 8GB with his car in ways that I dreamt about several years ago, when I got my first bluetooth headset and started listening to music on my Nokia 6620 with it. Sure, he can connect his phone to his car’s sound system for handsfree calling and that sort of thing, that’s nothing fancy. Cars have been doing that for a few years now.

What’s cool about this setup is that his N81 8GB has, well, 8GB worth of music on there. And it can stream music via 3G (where supported). This brings a whole new bevy of options. When connected and a call comes in, the music pauses, and gracefully fades back in automatically. When he gets back in the car from a stop, all he has to do is press play on the phone, it’s already reconnected itself. Seamless in its true sense.

Personally, I’ve installed a 3.5mm lead in my truck, so that I can plug whatever device I have handy in and use my truck’s speakers and superior sound system. It’s awesome with my N95-3, as I can use HSDPA to stream internet radio, or download a podcast and listen to it on the go. Stuart and I agree that this makes connected MP3 players that much more attractive, and could be a devastating blow to iPods and Zunes that don’t support Bluetooth or the ability to connect to a cellular network to stream music on-the-go.

What do you think? Would you rather have an HSDPA-capable phone as your in-car MP3 player, with an 8GB microSD card installed, or a 160GB iPod?

Recently, a Canadian fellow, 22 years old, stopped into a Bell Mobility store to get himself a new phone and took advantage of their new unlimited mobile browsing plan. He assumed that this meant any data coming through his mobile was unlimited and set it up to tether his home computer to his phone’s data connection.

At $65,000, he figured his first bill was a mistake, and continued using his phone to download movies and other large files. When he called in to inquire about it, he was informed that his total had jumped to $85,000. Apparently the new Bell Mobility plan does NOT include tethering to your computer. He’s fighting the charges, and rightfully so.

The carriers have such a rough time convincing people to use data on their handsets and wonder why. It’s situations like this that scare people away from their mobile browsers. Why wasn’t this chap cut off, or at least given a phone call when they realized what he was doing? Did Bell Mobility really think this guy would (or anyone for that matter) deliberately run up $85,000 in data charges?

Back in August I reviewed 3’s X-Series tariffs , the ‘unlimited data’ add-on for contract customers bundled with a range of applications , and rather liked them.

However, I wasn’t able to test the Slingplayer Mobile application and was dubious about its value a part of the more expensive Gold tariff. This option, costing double the basic price at £10 per month in the UK, allowed unlimited streaming of media to an X-Series handset from a PC (via the Orb software package) or from a Slingbox ‘place-shifting’ device. Well, the nice folks from Parys Communications sorted us out with one to borrow and now I’m eating some humble pie…

For those not in the know, a Slingbox is a small electronic box of tricks shaped similar to a bar of gold (or so I believe from watching the ‘Italian Job’). It contains both an analogue and a Freeview (DVB-T) tuner, but can also be connected to a set-top box (for cable or satellite TV). It then connects to your broadband service and allows streaming of whatever is being watched or any channel from its internal tuners to PCs, PDAs and now Symbian phones so you can watch them away from home (hence ‘place-shifting’).

Usefully the Slingbox also provides an infrared transmitter that knows how to control most popular set-top boxes, DVD players and the like so channels can be changed, menus can be operated and recordings started and stopped remotely too. 3 were the first network in the world to introduce the Symbian client coupled with unlimited streaming over 3G and it wasn’t until almost a year later in October this year that Sling made the client generally available.

Setting up the Slingbox is easy, even with the spaghetti of cables under my TV the instructions had me hooking it up to my Sky box in 5 minutes with all the various cables needed included. An annoyance I hadn’t anticipated was that the Slingbox requires a wired connection to your broadband router so I had to move that closer to my TV (Homeplug-type devices can work around this - Sling even sell their own), but otherwise it worked straight away.

Once connected to my home network and switched on, I loaded the PC client and configured its network settings. Again this worked first time and I was able to start watching and controlling TV on my PC. Exciting as this was though (read reviews here, here, here for more on its basic features) I wanted TV on my mobile and moved straight on to my N73 handset to download the Slingplayer Mobile application from 3’s portal.

On running the application for the first time I entered the details of the Slingbox I wanted to view (the application can remember several if you have more than one) including a long number and letter sequence that I had written down during the initial PC-based config. Then I hit ‘start’ and held my breath… Around 10 seconds later the client indicated it was connected and starting to stream. Another 20 seconds or so passed and then voila! TV… on my phone. I threw on a hands-free kit to get the best out of the sound and settled in for a play…

I’m not sure what I expected, but the quality was simple amazing. I would have believed it over a WiFi connection, but over 3G streaming from my ropey home broadband? Wow. Although I had the option to switch it off I also left the sound set to highest quality stereo and it was as good as listening to FM radio on the device. I was astounded. Control of my Sky box was slick too… the client received the configuration of the set-top box I had entered on my PC earlier and through a ‘remote control’ menu I was able to access all of the features of my Sky box including the menus – the options appeared to have been customised for my device. Intuitively the mini-joystick on the phone controlled channels and menus as if using my remote control and I selected a couple of buttons I used regularly to add to a shortcut bar.

Showing colleagues at work many wouldn’t believe the video wasn’t being played from a memory card.

However, sat at home or in the office I already had access to TV when I wanted it so I set about testing it properly… on the move. I figured the train was as good a place as any. As a rule, anywhere with a reasonable 3G signal was absolutely fine, but there was nothing doing on 2G. On a 20 minute journey into Waterloo the picture would stutter on 2 or 3 occasions, but even if lost completely it recovered well without intervention after 10 seconds or so. One problem tunnel where only a 2G signal is available routinely caused the connection to fail, but otherwise I was surprised by its reliability. Off public transport and sat in coffee shops or waiting for an appointment the experience was much the same as at home – seamless. The picture was sharp, the sound was stereo and always synchronised with the picture and even text was crisp and clear (if not a bit small).

Although greatly impressed there were a few areas for improvement… The free Slingbox client that 3 gives away presents the image across the width of the phone’s display. This felt like a real waste of screen space as my N73 turned sideways has an almost wide-screen aspect. I eventually solved this by downloading the newer, generally-available client from the Sling website. Although not free (£20) it adds this crucial feature and allows the image to be scaled to fill the screen or displayed fully with letterboxing. However, it is a shame that 3 have not updated their client. Another cause for complaint was the start-up speed of the connection. This varied depending on signal and was a little slower on the move – at it’s slowest (over a minute from clicking ‘start’ to viewing an image) it was frustrating and particularly so if re-connecting after one of the rare disconnections. However, my biggest complaint doesn’t really relate to the Sling product at all… it’s TV.

There’s nothing on. Well, nothing worth watching….

The problem is that I normally only sit down to watch TV when something I want to watch is on. Having mobile TV was great but at 8am on the train into work all I could watch was painful breakfast TV… It was at this point that it dawned on me why so much attention to detail had been put into the remote control features. A Slingbox really is at its best paired with a DVR such as a Sky+ box. I went home, re-wired and configured the Slingbox to work with my hard-disk recorder (no Sky+ in my flat!) and bingo… telly nirvana. With the ability to watch shows I wanted from disk, to pause them when I was interrupted and rewind TV if the signal dropped the Slingbox was complete. Rather than being something to idly fill the time, I looked forward to commuting to catch up with the previous night’s Sopranos. On other occasions I’d watch live TV on the train home, pause it at the station and finish the program on the TV once I arrived. ‘Showing off’ my girlfriend called it, but she always says that when she’s impressed…
So would I recommend a Slingbox and Slingplayer Mobile? Absolutely I would – particularly if you’re a regular traveller. But there’s another factor to consider too… the price. Although not making much effort to publicise it, 3 offer a free Slingbox to Gold tariff subscribers. These normally cost about £95 from internet retailers, but if you intend to subscribe to Silver tariff anyway upgrading to Gold for an 18 month contract will only cost an additional £90. That’s pretty good value for a Slingbox and unlimited media streaming in my book.

Update: Since I started this review Sling have released 2 new products in the UK – primarily adding High Definition features. The original model is now referred to as the ‘classic’ but continues to be available for sale and free from 3. Although I haven’t tested them, reports indicate the new models are compatible with the Symbian client, but that there is no noticeable improvement in quality of mobile experience – that requires a PC or Mac client.

And all of a sudden the world’s media spotlights on Bell Mobility’s data charges…

Link: BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Shock at $85k mobile phone bill

A Canadian man has been shocked to receive a mobile phone bill for nearly $85,000 (£41,000).
Piotr Staniaszek thought he could use his new phone as a modem for his computer under his $10 unlimited mobile browser plan from Bell Mobility.

He downloaded high-definition movies and other large files unaware that this incurred massive extra charges.

Bell Mobility has since lowered the bill to $3,243, but Mr Staniaszek says he intends to fight the charges anyway.

I was checking out The Australian IT this morning and came across this review of the country’s mobile broadband services. I was quite surprised to see Virgin Mobile mentioned. For me, Virgin Mobile is unequivocally voice and text. Data rates here in the UK on Virgin Mobile are nothing short of atrocious. You must always beware of greeks bearing gifts, so goes the saying; or mobile operators displaying their data rates charges by the kilobyte. (Virgin UK: 0.5p per Kb — STUPID).

So it’s with some surprise that I discover that Virgin Mobile Broadband in Australia are knocking out an AUS$80/month unlimited deal (which includes $520 worth of mobile calls and 1gb data). Nice.

Here are the key points from the article:

Virgin Mobile Australia

For $80 a month, users get a mobile phone, $520 worth of calls, a mobile broadband unit and 1GB of broadband usage. This makes it attractive to people looking for a new mobile phone plan and ready to take the plunge into mobile broadband.

Everybody’s favourite innovating mobile operator, 3, make an appearance too:

3 Mobile:

Last week, 3 Mobile halved the price of its mobile broadband plans, which means its 1GB plan is probably the cheapest offering on the market, at $14.50 per month. To qualify for this, however, you need to also sign up for a mobile service with 3, or be an existing 3 post-paid customer.

Big Red aren’t far behind:

Vodafone Mobile Broadband: Vodafone has by far the best value plan on the market, offering 5GB of download for $39.95, and is the only other provider to offer the same-size plan, but this usually costs almost double.

And finally Optus Mobile:

Optus has also looked to get in the game recently by quietly launching a 400MB and 2GB plan, which are cheaper if bundled with a mobile phone plan for the 24-month contract. Yes Starter, the 400MB option, costs $34.99 a month on its own, and yes Classic, which includes 2GB of downloads, costs $49.99. It is $10 less per month on each plan when bundled with a mobile plan.

We’ve got quite a few Aussie readers — so for them, I pose this question: Are you using any of the above services and are they any good in practice?

GOOOD morning Buzzwire!

The mobile streaming company has just raised a bank-account-warming 8 million dollars. Sit back, relax for a few minutes, then get spending!

Link: mocoNews.net - Unhealthily Obsessed with Mobile Content - Mobile Streaming Service Buzzwire Gets $8 Million Second Round Funding

Buzzwire, the mobile audio and video streaming provider based in Bedford, MA and Denver, has received $8 million in second round of funding. The round was led by new investor Sequel Venture Partners, and also included existing investors Matrix Partners and Spark Capital.

I wondered why my bill was so high this month with T-Mobile (the main account). 70 pounds worth of international calls on T-Mobile and 60 pounds of data. I used about 8 meg across the week. Sheesh. 7.50 a meg. It sounds reasonably innocent when you’re looking down the price plan in the store…

(”I’ll never use more than a meg when I’m abroad, so, you know, 7.50… well… fine for emergencies.”)

Think again, MacLeod.. think again…

I saw a Carphone Warehouse advertisement earlier whilst I was on the train. It read: “Get your dongle out at Christmas” and showed a picture of the 3UK USB modem next to a “From £10 per month” sticker. Heh…

I’m in one of those pockets of zero-to-patcy 3UK coverage so I’ve been sat in this office working away via Bluetooth to my 3.5g-conneced Nokia N95. Obviously you’d get about, what, an hour, maximum, from the N95’s battery working as a modem — so I thoughtfully brought my charger. Both laptop and handset have been plugged in and activated for about 6 hours and the service via T-Mobile has been impeccable — fast. Very, very fast.

All is not lost with T-Mobile…

Following the success of their first auction in September 2007, mobile domain name registrar dotMobi are having another auction, kicking off tomorrow (31st October 2007).

Amongst the 100 “premium names” in the auction are such gems as car.mobi, gps.mobi, gay.mobi, kiss.mobi, love.mobi and map.mobi. If the first auction is anything to go by, the stakes will be high - back in September hosting.mobi sold for $101,000 plus bank.mobi and download.mobi both sold for more than $50,000 apiece.

“The success of our first online auction generated more than $850,000, proving that the market is seeing a strong demand for mobile content. Already, more than 7.5 million pages of .mobi content have been created, many of them using tools that dotMobi makes available for free like http://ready.mobi/ and http://site.mobi/,” said Trey Harvin, CEO of dotMobi. “The auction proceeds allow dotMobi to make tools like these available to encourage the growth of the mobile web.”

Tim Schumacher, CEO of Sedo, said, “dotMobi’s premium names are specifically designed for brands wanting to reach a mobile audience The success of dotMobi’s first auction showed that there is a strong market demand for the mobile web in general and for .mobi names specifically. Additionally, the auction approach of making these premium .mobi domains available for ownership gives countless people and brands an equal opportunity to secure these most desirable domains.”

The auction - handled by domain specialists Sedo - is open to any company or individual, subject to Sedo’s standard auction terms and conditions with additional dotMobi requirements for buyers. Full information, including the list of auction names, is located on the dotMobi web site at http://premiumauction.mobi/.

Canadian mobile operator Rogers is uping the stakes with mobile data speeds in North America, unveiling what it calls the fastest download speeds in the country.

Following the expansion of it’s HSPA service to 25 Canadian markets earlier this month, Rogers - which offers service in the country under the Rogers and Fido brands - has today announced it’s begun field trials of its 3.5G 7.2Mbit/s service in Brampton and Montreal.

“The consumer appetite for mobile applications is undeniable in Canada and around the world,” said Rob Bruce, President, Rogers Wireless.” The data speeds achieved in this trial will enable Rogers to meet our customers’ needs with the most advanced, innovative services today and in the future.”
Rogers is the first wireless provider in North America to trial peak speeds of 7.2 Mbps and is among the top one percent of GSM carriers worldwide supporting 7.2. This trial launches the next evolution of Rogers GSM network, and represents a significant investment in leading-edge technologies. Rogers will have spent approximately $500 million over the past two years upgrading its network towards providing Canadians with the fastest and most reliable wireless network.
“Rogers is continuing to trial, launch and deliver innovative and reliable next generation wireless telecommunications services to Canadians,” says industry analyst, Mark Goldberg, of Mark H. Goldberg and Associates Inc. “The availability of 3.5G mobile services in our own backyard keeps Canada at the front of the world stage with respect to telecommunications services and applications.”

Link: Show Us Your Verizon Face: Verizon To Pay $1 Million To Customers After Falsely Advertising Data Plans As “Unlimited”

According to NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Verizon Wireless has agreed to reimburse $1 million to customers for wrongful account termination after falsely advertising their wireless plans as “unlimited,” when in fact the company sets limits and terminates the accounts of heavy users.

Good, good.

Bebo, the other MySpace/Facebook, is now accessible for a fixed fee of £3 per month. Meh. Whatever. Next.

It’s a little uninspiring for the mobile industry, I feel, if you spend a ton of effort educating people that they can pay £3 to access Bebo on their mobile… then you nail them for a few pounds a meg on every other mobile site they visit. Bill shock will just put more and more people off. Before you know it, you’ve got an MMS on your hands. (That is, you kill the introduction of a service particularly as a result of stupid pricing).

Mobile Choice has the details….

Link: Mobile Choice Blog: Orange offers Bebo Mobile for £3 a month

For £3 a month, Orange customers can sign up to Bebo Extra, which gives them unlimited access to Bebo’s mobile internet site without paying any data charges. They’ll be able to send comments via SMS, receive notifications back in return, and also send Bebo Mails by text.

Check out Orange’s Bebo profile.

Well I suppose it’s good news. o2 has been dragged, KICKING, SCREAMING, like an ultra annoyed, petulant I’m-right-you’re-wrong child, to the altar of unlimited.

David Long at ZDNet is rather unimpressed.

When O2 announced it’s tariffs for the Apple iPhone they conveniently skipped over what they meant by unlimited data by saying that “it was subject to their fair use policy” that allowed upto 1400 internet pages per day to be viewed. What they don’t tell you is that in O2s opinion each page would only be 4-5kb in size each as their limit is 200mb per month.

Strange that the O2 homepage is over 33kb and BBC is 22kb and that is without images of flash units which if included would likely more than double the file size.

I read the ‘unlimited = 1400 internet pages/day’ bit when they launched the iPhone in the UK and did the virtual equivalent of a shoulder shrug.

o2 make far too much money from mobile data — and have far too many stupid, stupid, stupid subscribers (content to pay the idiot rates) to be persuaded otherwise. Right on, o2! Milk’em. That is, after all, what the shareholders demand! They’re not a charity.

So it’s nice to call it unlimited…. but… well, it’s stretching the truth a little isn’t it? ‘Unlimited’ with a 1gb fair use policy is a lot more believable.

T-Mobile or 3UK, much, much better value alternatives starting at 1gb of inclusive data.

Here I am sat in beautiful San Casciano in the middle of Italy just south of Florence. I managed to find a little bar to sit in whilst I gaze out across the rolling fields of Tuscany. It’s siesta time at the minute — most of the shops are shut and, crucially, so is the only decent place that serves pizza.

I thought I’d use this opportunity to test out the 3UK USB Modem that I got a few weeks go. If you recall, it’s a tenner a month for a ‘fair use’ gig of data per month. Since I’m in Italy, I get to take advantage of 3’s ‘3 Like Home’ plan (at least, I sincerely HOPE I do with the Modem package) meaning that any data I use here in Italy is included as normal — since I’m roaming on 3 Italy.

If I was roaming in a country without an incumbent 3 network, I would not be feeling so smug. In fact this blog post would have cost a good amount of cash paid to T-Mobile to cover the data costs.

I’m pleased to report that there is, generally speaking, a super ‘3 ITA’ (”3 Italy”) signal, wherever I go. My Nokia E61i, currently with my main 3UK account, has been loving it. I’ve been Google Mapping, emailing and browsing like-no-tomorrow.

The data speeds here in the middle of nowhere (although Leonardo Da Vinci was born somewhere near here I think) are excellent and compare well to the UK speeds. Love it.

Link: Consumer Data Bolt On - Tariffs - Mobiles & Tariffs - O2

SMS Text News reader Barry got in touch just now to highlight O2’s rather stupid ‘unlimited’ data offering. They’re trying to hard to match similar options from T-Mobile and Three, but manage to completely screw it up by throwing in loads of conditions and exclusions.

Here’s what they have to say:

O2 Web Bolt On gives you unlimited* browsing through your phone for £7.50 per month

So far so good. What do you reckon their definition of ‘unlimited’ is? 1Gb? 2Gb? Maybe even three? Nope - not a hope in hell. Buried in small print on the page, they say:

A fair use of 200MB per month applies to the O2 Web Bolt On. A fair use of 3GB per month applies to O2 Web Max.

Eh? Let’s compare this with T-Mobile. Web’n'Walk on your phone is £7.50 a month, and gives you 1Gb of data. You can even do pay-as-you-go Web’n'Walk for a quid a day.

However, there is one ray of sunshine in this whole mess. They give you a free trial of data services to all customers before you decide to commit. How much do you reckon you’ll get for free? If you’ve got a tariff with less than 600 minutes, it’s a very generous 100KB. Wow, what a lot. It gets even better if you’ve got over 600 minutes a month on your tariff - you get a whole 512KB to play with.

The bottom line? Utter crap. Sorry and all that, but it is. If these are the basis for the T&Cs for EDGE data on the iPhone, then I’m wondering whether Apple realise they’ve really shot themselves in the foot.

Update: SMS Text News reader Paul got in touch, pointing out that the T&Cs for the Web Bolt On are even more strict than first thought. Witness these points, from the O2 terms and conditions page

The O2 Web Bolt On can only be added to a consumer voice tariff and allows you unlimited use of O2’s 3G/GPRS Mobile Data Services for Permitted Uses only.

Permitted Uses of theO2 Web Bolt On are uses of your SIM Card within a handheld mobile device for the purposes of Internet Browsing and email (excluding BlackBerry® email) only.

Any other use of the O2 Web Bolt On will not be a Permitted Use, including but not limited to:

1.      Use with Data Cards or Modems;
2.      Instant Messaging,
3.      IP Telephony,
4.      Point 2 Point file sharing and file transfer,
5.      VoIP (e.g. Skype™),
6.      Video and TV streaming,
7.      Slingboxes; and
8.      Use in conjunction with routers.

O2 reserves the right to suggest an upgrade to O2 Web Max or to withdraw the O2 Web Bolt On from you at any time if O2 reasonably suspects you of using the service for uses other than the Permitted Uses or abuse of the service, including using an atypical volume of data as compared to normal users of the O2 Web Bolt On, which will normally be less than 200MB of usage within a one month bill cycle (termed “fair usage”).

O2 will contact you before the O2 Web Bolt On is withdrawn or upgraded. If for any reason contact is not possible then O2 may temporarily bar the service until contact can be made. In the event that O2 withdraws the O2 Web Bolt On, O2 is not obliged to offer any alternative replacement service. If O2 determines that you may upgrade to an alternative service which is more appropriate for your requirements then, if you consent, O2 will transfer you to the alternative service as soon as is reasonably practicable after you advise O2 that this is what you wish to do.

So basically you can’t use it for IM, VoIP, streaming, file transfer, or anything really useful. Do O2 realise the internet has changed a lot since the early 90’s?

Ever fancied getting your hands on a really cool .mobi domain name, but found it was taken? You might be in luck, as some of the 5,500 commonly used words the registry ‘reserved’ before offering registrations to the public are to be auctioned off  via Sedo starting this Wednesday.

“The mobile web is bigger than the PC-based, wired web with more than 1.6 billion Internet-enabled consumers walking around the world. Brands need an easy-to-remember way to attract consumers on the go. dotMobi has one of the highest sought-after list of in-demand domain names in the world,” said David Ryder, dotMobi’s VP of Marketing and Sales. “dotMobi is selling these highly- sought after names through Sedo because they are one of the main places on the Internet where brand managers search for domain names.”
Tim Schumacher, CEO of Sedo, said, “dotMobi’s premium names are specifically designed for people wanting to reach a mobile audience. Sedo’s buyers have been lining up for more than a year now to get a chance to buy these dotMobi names. We are excited that dotMobi will use us as their first online auction.

Full information, including the list of auction names, is located on the dotMobi web site at http://premiumauction.mobi/.

I’m just working away on my 3UK USB Modem. It’s genius. It’s fantastic. I’m sat in a huge commercial telecommunications company’s offices at the moment. Their wireless connection has been a bit iffy so I’ve been using the USB modem all afternoon.

Now and again I’ve been showing people stuff on the web. They didn’t notice anything different.

That is smart. They didn’t notice a speed problem, they thought I was connected via WiFi. Faaan-dabby-dosey.

o2’s call centre has been getting a lot of traffic today I’m sure. SMS Text News reader Barry has been on to them this morning asking about unlimited data.

Unlimited Data has been an on-going saga for ages. They’ve steadfastly avoided introducing any unlimited plans to date — and, alas, many of their (stupid) subscribers are wondering if o2 will reserve the data plan allowances for just iPhone customers.

I said that I was surprised to see they would be offering unlimited data to iPhone customers and that I wanted to know if they would offering unlimited data to non-iphone users. The first girl I went through to said no they wouldn’t as these were special iphone only tariffs.

At this point I imagine Barry was going nuts at this point.

I then asked for my PAC code and was passed through to retentions.

It’s a shame that this is the only strategy available to o2 customers to get any answers.

The guy there said that they would be offering new data tariffs as of the 28th of this month and that they would definitely be available to all customers. He asked how much data I wanted and I said the minimum I would be looking at would be 120mb as per Vodafone’s deal. He categorically said that their tariffs on the 28th would be better than those offered by Vodafone. I got the impression from the way he worded his question to me (how much would you need, 75mb, 120mb, more?) that they won’t quite be as good as T-Mob/Three but it is progress. Like you say let’s hope they have no silly restrictions.

Just swap. Enough is enough o2 subscribers. How long are you going to wait for unlimited data?

Otherwise, wait ’til the end of the month and find out just how bad the deal is…

Link: O2 to join flat rate club - www.mobile-ent.biz

Mobile Entertainment are reporting that O2 are about to launch a flat rate data plan in the UK - although quite when that’ll be (and how much it’ll cost) is anyone’s guess..

An O2 insider said: “O2 will offer wholesale data, but we think most of the problems associated with the cost of downloading rich media through direct-to-consumer channels will disappear once all-you-can-eat data plans are widespread - you can expect us to make an announcement in the coming weeks.”

.. which is nice. I wonder how much of this has been forced through by O2 getting the UK iPhone gig (still allegedly, but as it’s now possibly the worst kept secret in the industry)..

(Thanks to Barry for the tip)

I’m sat here in the Grand Hotel in Hartlepool. Grand, it ain’t.

However I have my laptop plugged into the power source — and that’s working. There’s no wifi, obviously. Hartlepool is the world’s least connected wifi town (as I proved recently).

Yesterday I popped into the 3UK shop in the Middleton Grange shopping centre, which, by the way, is a hugely depressing place. There was a ton of excitement whilst I was on a conference call sat on a plastic chair outside Boots — I wondered at the overweight security guards jogging with a mix of super-exertion and pleasure etched across their faces. They all converged on a point by the emergency exit — some chap had apparently stolen a handful of pick’n'mix sweets.
I had to put my phone microphone on mute to save my conferenceees from overheading the shouts of exhaltation from the security guards when they caught the guy.

Anyway, I popped into the 3UK store and was given a super service. The only issue? Well there was a disconnect between what I was meant to pay.

In London, the told me that a tenner-a-month USB deal would be free on an 18 month contract if I was an existing customer (it’s a misprint in the brochure, the guy told me).

In Hartlepool, I was told no. That was only if I pre-registered my interest in the USB modem before the 4th of September 2007. I thought of saying that I had effectively done so by blogging it around the time of my meeting with Marc Allera. The sales girl was adamant though. She knew best. Ergo I paid £49.99 up front for the 1GB tenner a month service.

It is brilliant. Really, really, really good. It is — and this is saying something — almost indistinguishable from my 8mb BT broadband service. Even in Hartlepool.

I wonder how it will perform on a train doing 125mph? Not good, I don’t think. I don’t reckon any USB modem would.

However if you’re thinking of getting yourself a USB modem, do think about 3UK. Installation was a piece of simplicity — usage even simpler. Love it.

I’m off down to Maidenhead this morning to meet Kitt Gilbert Scott at Good Mobile Messaging. I’m going to take a tour of the new 5.0 version which is coming soon. I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

Obviously after their acquisition by Motorola, one might expect them to only support Motorola devices. Not at all. They’ll still be supporting a good range of platforms — just, I reckon they’ll have tighter integration with Motorola handsets, so I’m going to try and get a look at one of the Motorola Q’s running Good.

Collectively, I think I pay T-Mobile about 300 quid a month via two accounts. I have been really content with their Flext price plans and, of course, their data services — particularly since they lead the market with the Web’N'Walk plans for quite a while.

A while ago, I wrote that all of a sudden, I couldn’t use Agile Mobile, my instant messanger service, on my Nokia E61i. It just stopped working. Nothing would work.

I theorised that this could be due to T-Mobile actually implementing their ban on instant messaging via their standard Web’N'Walk plans. Fair enough. They did give enough notice. IM is meant to be canibalising their text revenues — or so many misguided operators believe. So I upgraded. I upgraded to the £12.50 per month Web’N'Walk that allows you to use instant messaging.

And?

F-All.

It was still screwed. Still didn’t work. So last night I took my 3UK sim from my E65 and installed it into the E61i and tried Agile Mobile. Woosh. It worked right away. No limitations.

That’s when I dumped T-Mobile. I do need a data connection. A proper data connection. I don’t need arsing around. I was happy to pay more — but it DIDN’T work when I did, so screw that, with bells on.

I’ve still got two accounts with them, but I will now decomission them. I’ll pay off the contracts. I’m now 3UK. Just need to figure out my transition strategy.