2008/07/18

3G on 3

The 3 dongle arrived and a working SIM inserted (Powerbook G4 12" running Leopard).

Then the fun started with trying to install software to drive the thing. It wasn't fun and the drivers from the Huawei site (it's a Huawei E220 USB dongle) didn't really seem to work, various others didn't either.

Then the suggestion was given for Launch2Net and after a quick download and install, everything sprung to life and the Internet appeared. Launch2Net has all the settings for various networks built-in, including 3 in the UK. They also support various dongles/PC Cards/etc.

The E220 only supports 3.6Mb/s download speed (didn't seem to quite manage it), but that's good enough for Email and general out of office business use. After playing with it for around 15 minutes, around 8MB of data had been downloaded, so data charges could easily mount up.

Well worth the €79.

2008/07/16

BT to fibre the UK (well bits)

BT has said it will spend £3bn to get fibre to 10m homes (that's about 40% of the homes in the UK) and it will only cover urban areas, rural areas will have to stick with copper.

BT are already spending £10bn on their 21CN, so that's £13bn ... not just a little spend.

The fibre upgrade works out at £300 per home (which doesn't seem that much on a per household basis).

Their reasoning is to deliver IPTV and other services and it is entirely possible that a household could spend more than £300 to get HDTV and VoD services.

1m iPhones sold in 3 days

Apple sold 1m 3G iPhones worldwide in 3 days and 10m apps from the app.store.

Not all could be activated initially as Apple had problems with their activation server, but these problems seem to have been cured, though there's still a lack of iPhones and O2 in the UK are taking orders and phones will be delivered at a later date.

Google having previously denied it is producing a Google branded (G)Phone - is still denying it, but rumours are spreading that they are indeed talking about manufacturing a device to head of the iPhone.

2008/07/14

iPhone App Store Downloads Top 10 Million in First Weekend

iPhone App Store Downloads Top 10 Million in First Weekend

Apple have sold over 10 million iPhone/iPod touch applications in the first weekend (3 days since Fri).

iPod touch users will have had to pay $9.95 (in the US) for the software upgrade to the v2 software.

As the weeks progress the number of applications will also increase (currently around 500) and the number of sales are also likely to increase as more people actually get their phones and the variety of applications also increase.

Play.com 3 dongle

It's Pay As You Go (i.e. no contract) and only £40 - which seems quite a good price. Just insert a 3 SIM and away you go. It can probably be unlocked too with the relevant software,

Get it at Play