Category: technology
Ultra Wifi is coming
This arrived in my inbox today.
Thank you for registering your interest in Ultra WiFi. We've been thrilled by the response to the offer and we are pleased to announce that Ultra WiFi will go on sale July 4th. It's a big step forward for WiFi in the UK as Ultra WiFi will finally bring people the great value, always on, internet access on the move they have been asking for.
Ultra WiFi is unlimited low-cost WiFi for just £11.99 per month. You commit to a 12 month contract and we commit to bring you low cost all-you-can-eat WiFi at Cloud hotspots and Hotzones across the UK.
With over 7,000 Cloud hotspots across the UK, including 9 city centre hotzones and hundreds of new sites every month, we are confident that no other WiFi provider can match this offer in terms of price and coverage.
We will email you next week so you can sign up for Ultra WiFi directly from The Cloud website.
Kind Regards
The Cloud Networks
Your wireless route to the InternetPlease see www.thecloud.net/ultrawifi for details.
Well like I said previously, its tempting. I mean its far off most broadband costs and everything mobile device I own, supports wifi including my phone. I like the idea of running Skype on my phone, specially now I know it works thanks to David. Yes I understand the cloud isn't everywhere and there are others like Fon arriving on the scene everyday. But to be honest, everywhere I tend to go has the cloud. Hummm, I might wait this one out a little and see what happens.
The Roaming GPRS and EDGE bill comes
So following on from my earlier blog post about EDGE coverage in London, where I wondered how much my next phone bill would be. So I finally got my Orange Bill and its a total of 68 pounds, which to be honest isn't as bad as bills I use to get 3 years ago. The interesting part of the bill is my Data charges.
| Originating Network | Place Called | Call Class | Megabytes | Cost |
| Orange | Orange WAP | Data | 5.3058 | 5.895 |
| AT&T Wireless | #Orange WAP | EDGEdata | 1.7179 | 17.180 |
| Roaming Call | #Orange WAP | GPRSdata | 0.751 | 0.751 |
| Orange | Orange Internet | data | 0.0031 | 0.000 |
Total exc. VAT 5.90 pounds (# incidicates that an item is non-VAT applicable)
Total non-VAT 24.69 pounds
Well how about that then? Talk about steep charges. To be fair I setup my phone to check for emails every hour plus I was on online all the time and I did do a little bit of IM and browsing on it. I'm somewhat suprised I only used about 5meg while I was out there in the Midwest. Its not all bad though, I just got a new contract which pretty much covers everything else I do including 500 texts a month and 200 minutes of Calls. Also now I'm riding around again, I'll be using GRPS a lot less again. So from now on, I'm expecting much cheaper bills of less that 30 pounds a month.
Why is there no EDGE coverage in London
When I was in America. I was suprised when my little data service icon on my SPV M500, changed from G (gprs) to E (edge). Generally GPRS delivers ISDN type speeds while EDGE delivers closer to slow Cable Speeds. In actual life, I was getting about analogue modem speeds (33.6k) on GPRS and single channel ISDN speeds (64k) on EDGE. Which isn't bad, because that's about the same as I got on 3G with my Sanyo S750. But what I don't get is why there is no EDGE coverage in London? I've been around and never noticed the icon change ever. While on Cingular in America I was always on EDGE and even out here in Bristol, EDGE is available once you get closer to central Bristol. Maybe it is the 3G networks pushing out inbetween technologies like EDGE? I do kind of miss having 3G (UMTS) on my phone but having Wifi is a huge plus and I'm honestly finding more use for Wifi than 3G recently.
Talking about EDGE and America, I'm a little worried about my next Orange bill. See I didn't use the phone much for phoning but I did use the data services a lot. I was trying to arrange the @media Social venue from outside the country and needed to email back and forth. When I looked at the Cingular roaming call charges on the Orange site, it seemed to be about 10 for a meg which is a super con but I'm hoping that I never touched that 1meg limit. I mean the phone was on EDGE a lot but wasn't actually transfering any data, so it should be ok. Anyway, I'll find out within the next 2 weeks exactly how much it all come up to. I'm expecting a large one but mainly because of calls from here to the America, ironically.
Which kind of Camcorder should I go for?
So I've now got the chance to get a camcorder of my own. The exchange rate for British pounds is great compared to the American dollar. So its natrual to go out get everything here, including some stuff which I wouldn't normally consider. Hence the Camcorder.
So it looks like I got 4 main choices. I've rulied out HDV cams because there still out of my price range and Hi8 is far too large and on its way out.
- DV Cam
- DVD Cam
- HDD Cam
- Mpeg4 Cam
I like DV Cam because I know the quality will always be there, plus they all have Firewire for quick capturing to the computer but I hate those tiny DV tapes. DVD cam looks great but I'm unsure its easy to get the footage off this disc for re-editing on a normal desktop computer. I'm also not sure about the price of these 8cm DVD discs and how much they store. I believe 1.3gig discs will hold about 30mins? HDD Cam looks great, no tapes, firewire support and no worries about storage. They seem to be between 20-30gig and that seems to store about 4-5 hours of standard DV 25 footage. There usually a little more expensive but maybe worth it in the end. Then last of the bunch is Mpeg4 camera which store there footage to SD or Memory Stick using Mpeg4 instead of Mpeg2. This means the quality won't quite be there but you can fit a couple of hours on a 1gig SD card (which costs 40 dollars here at the moment). The thing I'm unsure about is how easy it is to edit mpeg4? To be honest the lure of using SD/MMC is very strong because everything including my phone, laptop and ipaq supports SD and MMC.
So although I may seem to be ruling out the others, I'm not but I do like these Mpeg4 camcorders. I've had my eye on the Sanyo Xacti range for about a year and bit now. But the only one which seems to be available at Circuit City at the moment is the 6megapixal monster VPC-C6 which weights in at 549 dollars, its almost as expensive as the 20gig HDD Camcorders. If I could find the 5megapixal version I would be more happy. However whats even more tempting is the HDTV version, which I've not seen anywhere yet.
So if you were in my poistion what would you seek and buy?
The cloud finally becomes a real alternative?
I actually saw this in Tom's blog. Mobile operators face wi-fi challenge. The crux of the article is here
The UK's mobile phone networks will come under attack today as wireless internet provider The Cloud announces a low-cost tariff for unlimited web access, making it easier for people to make free calls through the web from big cities, rather than use their mobile phones.
The Cloud is Europe's biggest operator of wireless technology, commonly called wi-fi, and its network is used by companies including BT, O2 and Nintendo. It is offering an £11.99 a month “all you can eat” internet deal covering 7,000 hotspots in Britain.
That will allow low-cost internet telephony in cities including London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham. Using the internet to make calls has already disrupted the business models of fixed-line telecoms operators such as France Télécom.
And my feelings are, that this is a good thing. Competition is great for the market and this may shake the hold Orange, O2, Vodafone, 3 and Tmobile currently have on the wireless/mobile space. Yes I'll still be paying some other corp for the access but hey I don't mind paying for Wifi if its in 75 percent of the places I go in London. And to be honest 11.99 per month isn't bad if your out and about a lot. Compare it to GPRS or even 3G data costs and 11.99 for a months worth of unlimited data is a bargin. Even compared to a broadband connection of say 20 pounds per month its actually not that bad. Some people may beable to even dump there broandband connection if they live close enough to a hotspot and the service is reliable (big question that).
Theres no douht in my mind that central London is pretty much covered with Wifi but funny enough even out in SE18 there is a selection of wifi near myself. One of those pubs is only 2mins away from my house.
Hey there is a reason why I picked a phone which supports Wifi out of the box. Skype may not run well on it yet, but give it time, plus lets not forget theres other VOIP solutions and always online instant messenger sounds great to myself. Once there is a symbian version of Skype the required cpu speed will drop and my phone will run skype like a dream. Till then I still have my wifi ipaq which runs Skype right now.
Don't forget to sign up if your interested in 11.99 pound unlimited wifi.
SPV E600 came yesterday, thanks Orange
Like Orange promised, the SPV E600 did come on Monday and I'm now a proud owner of one of the best little mobile phones you can get at the moment.
Poil asked for a list of my installed applications, well here you go.
- PocketRSS 2.x (RSS reader)
- iMov Messenger (jabber)
- Minimo 0.14 alpha (WWW Browser)
- Dynamo 2 (task switcher) – might remove this
- Keypass (password keeper)
- Betaplayer (video player)
- Agile Messenger (jabber) – can't get it connecting over xmpp at the moment
- VNC viewer (vnc)
- Wififofum 2.2 (wireless scanner)
- Wifi Tunes 0.4 (itunes browser)
- GSPlayer 2.x (music player)
My only gripes so far have been the power button which allows you to put the M600 in standby mode as well as power off. Standby mode also stops any music which you may have been playing. Its not a big issue because GSplayer and even windows media player 10 have display off options. Another beef is the Today screen which has been hijacked by Orange for there weird menu thing. Oh and one last thing, my Bluetooth Keyboard doesn't have drivers for Windows mobile 5, so it fails to work at the moment. Otherwise I'm totally happy. Simple things like the ability to automaticly restart music after a phone call is great. You can check out all my SPV M600 pictures here. Thanks again Orange, hopefully next time I come to upgrade the process won't be so painful.
A update on the SPV M600 query
I got it! yep and it was well worth the wait!
So a quick update on whats happening with the SPV M600 which I'm still currently trying to get. So expansys emailed me on Wednesday and said they have 9 phones in stock, would you want us to deliver it to you tomorrow. I decided against it because it would mean a change of contract and everything would have to go through expansys instead of Orange directly. This may seem stupid if I really wanted the phone that badly but actually the new contact would have cost me extra every month, therefore ignoring all the time and money I've spent with Orange for the last 3 years. So I thought I would search the London Orange Business stores for M600's. I visited the Holburn, Cheapside, Oxford Circus and Woolwich business centres multiple times this week, after getting some hot tips about the M600 being delivered to those stores. Obviously all the trips ended up in no phones. I think the closest I got to the M600 was the Woolwich store, where they sold out the evening before I phoned up.
Anyway I decided do things a little differently after reading Dan's comment about holding Orange to ransom about moving to Vodafone. I decided to call Oranges, I'm moving to another network line. And it worked out well for myself.
They agreed to keep me on my current contract but change the amount of free text messages I get every month and give me the phone for free. At the time (yesterday – Thursday) I was dismissive of the offer because I thought the phone wouldn't be in stock for another month. So agreed that Orange should call me when theres actual M600's in stock which they can deliver the next day.
I decided to keep search and phoning Orange stores looking for any left over stock of the M600, just incase (i ride past 3 of them in the mornings). But the same women who I spoke to yesterday on the phone at Orange, called me mid morring and said what I've been waiting for months. We have stock of the SPV M600 would you like me to send you one on a free upgrade? I almost started laughing, yes indeed!
So now Monday at sometime my new phone should come and I will finally have the phone I've been waiting for. I just hope Orange don't jack me around because I know Expansys have another deliver of M600's on Tuesday and I will be very tempted to just call them up, unless one of the stores gets it in first. Geez sounds like a endless loop, doesn't it? Lets just hope Orange delivers on its promise. As I have a load of applications ready to install on it.
Orange why can I not have a strikingly compact M600?
Orange are simply taking the piss now. Not only do they have the phone I want in stock but they will not sell it to me because its classed as a business phone. Yeah how stupid is that? Tell me Orange what about the SPV M500, SPV M2000, 3G mobile Office card and the SPV M5000. Hummm well Orange? What adds to the insult is the fact that Orange France are selling the SPV M600 as normal and that Orange UK won't be releasing this phone out of the business tarrif till sometime in Summer at least (so I've been told). Anyway, I've bitten the bullet and bought the phone via a 3rd party. Expansys reckon they have the phone ready to go, so I've bought it from them under the understanding that I can return it within 30days if I'm not happy with it. I can also cancel the order if Orange get it before Expansys, but I very much douht it. So yeah goodbye to the Nokia N80, its a good phone but its not coming on to Orange till late May now I hear, Vodafone in May.
My thoughts on the Microsoft Origami
A friend of mine Birch, sent me a email.
I think this gizmo has a future because of its price point, wireless capability and mobility. i might even be sold on one. what do you think?
And my reply as I've only covered it not really put any of my thoughts down yet.
Honestly I think its too expensive. If they got it down to about 400-500 pounds it might start selling. Having a TabletPC already I know there good but not worth a extra 250 on top of a reasonable Laptop. If they did get the price down I would dump my HP Ipaq which runs PocketPC 2003. I would still keep my 12 inch Toshiba TabletPC because you can't beat a decent keyboard although my Bluetooth Keyboard isn't bad once its paired and running. But even 12 inches is too big for holding on a packed London train in the mornings. The 2.5 inch Ipaq is good but a little too small for playing video back. And don't even get me started on playing back H.264 content on a PocketPC! I'm sure its simply not possible. With a 7 inch Origami or other like device (ben), its going to be possible to playback h.264 with VLC without having to transcode the video first. Hey and its not just about watching and consuming. The Origami is going to be a great device for taking notes, recording audio and maybe even recording video has it has a Camera and USB2
Its generally a interesting device but I wouldn't give up my Laptop of it. But we can certainly say this could be the end of the road for PocketPC and PDA devices now. I mean the next phone I'm really interested in has everything my Ipaq has, so whats the point of having both I guess.