Option GlobeTrotter Fusion

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chiefie

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#4110 21-May-2005 13:08

I am looking to get a GPRS/UTMS (3G)/WiFi PC Card that I can plug into my laptop and use it wirelessly either on Vodafone or WiFi. I found this, but can this be found available in NZ?

http://www.option.com/products/gt_fusion_spec.shtml

p/s: Woosh Wireless, when will they increase their transmission area to cover CHCH suburban/residential area?

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freitasm

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#14898 21-May-2005 13:16

Should work ok... But is it available in NZ?

chiefie

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#14900 21-May-2005 14:20

i dont know... that's why i'm asking about it here... Vodafone 3G Mobile Data Card is not WiFi ready eh?

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tonyhughes

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#14903 21-May-2005 17:49

lots of laptops have wifi built in, so its a bit pointless to make users pay for wifi capabilities if they already have it. (and our market isnt big enough to support too many different devices)

I used a netgear pcmcia wifi card in my old laptop + a 3g data card

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#14904 21-May-2005 17:54

I have wifi built into my sony vaio laptop and there are so many places in Auckland for free net access and when I can't find somewhere I use my GPRS card.

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#14905 21-May-2005 17:58

yeah - im out in the regions, so not much wifi (but some).

i use my 3g card a lot ( i have a Sierra T3G card ). Good speed, im in a 1x area and average about 114kbps

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#14906 21-May-2005 18:02

They (T3G) they don't work too well in Europe though! and I just pop my SIM out of my handset and place that in the data card and away I go. I have used 3GSM on overseas operators and it works great. Glad to see voda NZ are going to be testing HSDPA or HSPDA or what ever its called.

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#14907 21-May-2005 18:05

absolutely.

i wouldnt use any cellular data while roaming due to excessive cost on both networks

I would use Wifi

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chiefie

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#14908 21-May-2005 18:48

i know most laptop has wifi, my laptop has wifi too. but it is the centrino intel 2100 chip and it is working quite erratically from time to time... so thinking of getting a pcmcia wifi and of course with option to have 3G/GPRS access if possible too.

beside the wifi is only 802.11b, would be good to have 802.11g for use at my home wifi.

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johnr

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#14909 21-May-2005 19:48

Yes its a good idea and that card has good specs,

tonyhughes

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#14910 21-May-2005 19:50

Yeah. I am still using 802.11b at home becuase i spent a lot on netgear product to set it up, and if i want to do a large file transfer i will just plug into a 100Mbps cable or use DVD-R.

99% of what I do doesnt require a connection thats any faster than ADSL.

Jama

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#14971 24-May-2005 08:36

Tests overseas show that current HSDPA speeds will only just reach the performance levels of EVDO. The current theoretical limits on HSDPA are 3.1Mbps down and 384Kbps up. Where as EVDO Rev A is 3.1Mbps down and 1.8Mbps up. It will be years before HSDPA is commercially available with a max download speed of 10Mbps.

Don't forget also that UMTS (HSDPA) runs at a freq of 2.4GHz - the nature of radio propagation means that the higher the frequency the lower the coverage footprint. In other words in a mobile situation you will be skipping between UMTS and GPRS.

Telecom CDMA runs at a freq of 800MHz which gives a much larger coverage footprint. Also, a number of carriers in Europe have or are rolling out EVDO networks running at 450MHz solely for the reason of providing wireless broadband. At 450MHz the coverage footprint is massive. This band is left over from the days when parts of Europe ran NMTS (Nordic Mobility Telephony Systems (or something)).

I can remember a few years ago Voda saying they were a trial network for GPRS and would be one of the first to commercially launch. That didn't happen they were a year late.....

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#14982 24-May-2005 11:09

Ericsson did a off shore demo of max speed 9 mega bit/sec. (HSDPA) The people were out in a boat and the transmitter was on land. I will go look for the atricle when I have time. (next day or two and place the URL in this thread)

But yes Jama is correct about the coverage foot print of 800mhz and 450mhz,

Jama

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#14987 24-May-2005 12:40

hot off the press

http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/May2005/1469.htm

HSDPA Trial in Israel. They got around 1Mbps but are talking about 3.6-14Mbps - impressive!

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#14990 24-May-2005 13:50

Not bad the review I read was a test site set up and was not done on a live network (the cellsite had no other traffic on it)

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#14993 24-May-2005 14:49

I guess the big question though for Voda is how will HSDPA be priced. I know this is early days but will HSDPA be seen as a mobile technology or as an alternative to wireline broadband technology? It does give Voda the opportunity to become a credible player in the broadband market up against Telecom and Woosh, etc but is it financially viable from an infrastructure, backhaul and overall resource perspective to price HSDPA at Jetstream/Woosh levels?

It will be interesting to see how the BCL WiMAX trial goes as this technology has the potential to replace or undermine cellular mobile data networks.