Vodafone and 3G
Discussion
Vodafone launched in November (although their laptop Mobile Connect data cards have been available for a few months). I upgraded yesterday from an old Nokia 6310i which I've had for a few years on Vodafone 2G to a Motorola E1000 on Vodafone 3G.
My old Nokia was basic (black and white LCD; no polyphonic ring tones; no camera; etc) but it did what I wanted, i.e. GPRS and Bluetooth to a laptop/PDA. I haven't managed to configure the E1000 yet but hopefully it will do the same but at 3G speeds (which, even if it only goes at half the maximum 384kbps, would still be a significant increase over GPRS). I suppose it's still early days but the E1000 was downloading MP3s and movie clips yesterday at a fairly decent speed, e.g. around 20-40K/second perhaps.
However, I was surprised to find that Vodafone Live! (which I had previously dismissed) is better than my expectations. The video clips don't take forever to download with 3G and, when viewed with the full screen and stereo speakers of the E1000, the experience is actually quite good. There's also a free 3 month trial period for sports, news and film preview clips; and three free downloads of music tracks per month until February (although infected with DRM of course). The camera on the E1000 was a disappointment - bad quality - even though it's meant to be 1.2M pixel.
I suppose it's too late for me (now being locked into Vodafone for 12 months) but how are other peoples' experiences with 3G ? I didn't get 3 because it's a "walled garden", i.e. access only to 3's content but not to the Internet. I understand that t-mobile, O2 and Orange will launch their 3G offerings shortly ?
My old Nokia was basic (black and white LCD; no polyphonic ring tones; no camera; etc) but it did what I wanted, i.e. GPRS and Bluetooth to a laptop/PDA. I haven't managed to configure the E1000 yet but hopefully it will do the same but at 3G speeds (which, even if it only goes at half the maximum 384kbps, would still be a significant increase over GPRS). I suppose it's still early days but the E1000 was downloading MP3s and movie clips yesterday at a fairly decent speed, e.g. around 20-40K/second perhaps.
However, I was surprised to find that Vodafone Live! (which I had previously dismissed) is better than my expectations. The video clips don't take forever to download with 3G and, when viewed with the full screen and stereo speakers of the E1000, the experience is actually quite good. There's also a free 3 month trial period for sports, news and film preview clips; and three free downloads of music tracks per month until February (although infected with DRM of course). The camera on the E1000 was a disappointment - bad quality - even though it's meant to be 1.2M pixel.
I suppose it's too late for me (now being locked into Vodafone for 12 months) but how are other peoples' experiences with 3G ? I didn't get 3 because it's a "walled garden", i.e. access only to 3's content but not to the Internet. I understand that t-mobile, O2 and Orange will launch their 3G offerings shortly ?
Oranges already works reasonably well, with coverage increasing very quickly. There are still problems, but a lot of this is down to equipment etc. It is getting there.
Realistically, in about a year or so you should start seeing handsets / pc cards that work well, speeds will be up, coverage will be good and 3G to GPRS handover will be seemless.
Realistically, in about a year or so you should start seeing handsets / pc cards that work well, speeds will be up, coverage will be good and 3G to GPRS handover will be seemless.
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