Mobile broadband - Telecom vs Vodafone.....

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Zimsar10

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#88756 30-Sep-2007 15:49

freitasm:
ZIMsar10:
freitasm: The problem is that customers getting on Telecom know their investment on CDMA data cards is protected for another five years. Customers getting on Vodafone HSDPA now are not sure their investment is protected for another five months.

So would you rather Vodafone stay with inferior 2100Mhz technology & not move onto superior 900Mhz technology with improved coverage & building penetration?? I don't think you would be too happy with that somehow. Technology is changing all the time, most people who have invested $$ in technology are fully aware of this & are use to change, it's fact of life.

Don't twist my words please. Read it again, but I will summarise it here: if you have immediate needs, and need to invest now, and if you worry ROI, buy into something that will last five years, not five months.

Current Vodafone hardware won't work on 900 MHz, meaning anything you buy now will not work with the next, "expanded" network, in five months or so.

None of the current options will work with the "superior" technology as you call it.

Of course current hardware won't work with the new 900Mhz technology, but that does not mean that people who have invested in current 2100Mhz technology Phones/Vodems/Data cards will be left with an unusable device, they will still be able to use their existing hardware.

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#88760 30-Sep-2007 15:57

But then they'll miss out on the 900mhz benefits that you listed previously

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Zimsar10

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#88761 30-Sep-2007 16:15

cokemaster: But then they'll miss out on the 900mhz benefits that you listed previously

That's exactly right, but at least they don't "have too" upgrade straight away & they can still use their existing hardware. However, I understand that the current Vodem's Firmware can be upgraded to support up to 5Mbit's & a Firmware upgrade might be out within 6 months or so & new Data Cards to support up to 7.2Mbit on existing 2100Mhz technology, could be wrong, time will tell.

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#88784 30-Sep-2007 20:40

ZIMsar10:
cokemaster: But then they'll miss out on the 900mhz benefits that you listed previously

That's exactly right, but at least they don't "have too" upgrade straight away & they can still use their existing hardware. However, I understand that the current Vodem's Firmware can be upgraded to support up to 5Mbit's & a Firmware upgrade might be out within 6 months or so & new Data Cards to support up to 7.2Mbit on existing 2100Mhz technology, could be wrong, time will tell.

But if you are comparing oranges with oranges, don't throw an apple in the bag. If you take out the 900 Mhz from the equation we go back to the original question.

You are the one who added the 900 MHz "X" into the topic, which wasn't even talked about...

If you take it out and invest in 2100 MHz of course it will work now. But back to page 1, with some indoor problems, and less coverage than CDMA EVDO.

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Zimsar10

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#88946 1-Oct-2007 17:26

freitasm:
ZIMsar10:
cokemaster: But then they'll miss out on the 900mhz benefits that you listed previously

That's exactly right, but at least they don't "have too" upgrade straight away & they can still use their existing hardware. However, I understand that the current Vodem's Firmware can be upgraded to support up to 5Mbit's & a Firmware upgrade might be out within 6 months or so & new Data Cards to support up to 7.2Mbit on existing 2100Mhz technology, could be wrong, time will tell.

But if you are comparing oranges with oranges, don't throw an apple in the bag. If you take out the 900 Mhz from the equation we go back to the original question.

You are the one who added the 900 MHz "X" into the topic, which wasn't even talked about...

If you take it out and invest in 2100 MHz of course it will work now. But back to page 1, with some indoor problems, and less coverage than CDMA EVDO.

Yes, you are right, I was just trying to expand on the original question that was asked which was "Mobile broadband - Telecom vs Vodafone....." the OP did not specifically state "as per the current technology available".

I was merely trying to inform Mossie of future developments, sorry if this is deemed off topic.

exportgoldman

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#88962 1-Oct-2007 19:17

As a regular user of Vodafone data (Huwara Spelling!!!) Card [384K max]I find I drop back to GPRS speeds far too often in the central city. I don't know if this is because of coverage within concrete buildings, or if too many people are on 3G in the area.

When I am on 3G, the speeds are not great, with 500-2000ms ping times being common.

I don't know if I did upgrade my card, if this would improve (ideas anyone?) or if going to Telecom would be a better idea.

I like the Vodafone software, and remember Telecom's software to interface to the card being a little 'weird' and hard to get going.

To be fair this may have changed, and have been seriously thinking about moving to Telecom for data at least, if not mobile. (but with 3 new GSM networks getting ready to be build, I thought I would hold off a while.)

I know Vodafone had a roadmap about 2-3 years ago for all the way up to 100Megabits for mobile data solutions.

The thing which is annoying though is even though the new cards were meant to be firmware upgradable, we had to buy new cards for a customer anyways, and it appears to be the same with the Vodems.

I don't do a lot of data on the move, and a 1GB plan with fair overusage with LOW latency, or at least reasonable latency is what I would really like.

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#88964 1-Oct-2007 19:38

The VMC software can be set to use 3G only and this will stop it changing down to GPRS

Thats what I am doing right in Ramarama (way out South Auckland) and I get good HSDPA speeds average 1 mbps D/L

and latency is much lower around 100 to 140ms

I would change to a HSDPA device

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#88977 1-Oct-2007 20:42

exportgoldman:
I like the Vodafone software, and remember Telecom's software to interface to the card being a little 'weird' and hard to get going.

FYI - You can use windows dial up software, and avoiding having to use evdo/aircard watcher.

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exportgoldman

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#88991 1-Oct-2007 21:43

cokemaster:
exportgoldman:
I like the Vodafone software, and remember Telecom's software to interface to the card being a little 'weird' and hard to get going.

FYI - You can use windows dial up software, and avoiding having to use evdo/aircard watcher.

Thanks, good tip. I remember the other bearbug I had with Telecom data cards last time I used one, the dialup interface for the card never had a IP address (even though the internet worked fine.) They used some strange tunnelling. I wonder if this has changed, I didn't have much time to look at it as it was working OK for the client.

Oh, and Johnr, if I lock my card to 3G, where I live in parnell, I can't get coverage in some parts!

And cokemaster, good points about the new networks.

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#88993 1-Oct-2007 21:50

On Telecom CDMA connections you always get a full, non-NAT IP address. There's no tunnel going on.

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drhemi

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#89177 2-Oct-2007 21:19

cokemaster: FYI - You can use windows dial up software, and avoiding having to use evdo/aircard watcher.

Hi cool I never knew that. How would I go about setting up my system to use the windows dial up software. I am running windows XP and have the Telecom Aircard 597E. I am not that techno savvy but love having the latest gadgets.

For some reason the Watcher software bugs me.

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#89184 2-Oct-2007 22:15

The watcher software creates a dial up connection, it will be located under 'Network Connections', called something like 'Telecom 3G'.

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paradoxsm

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#89202 2-Oct-2007 23:55

I might have to play with the "watcher". and create a "lite" version just as I did with Woosh and the VODEM (I dumped the thought of the vodem as it was so incredibly bad I decided not to ever release it)

Personal opinion:

I would go with Telecom. Vodafone HSDPA seriously let me down, it was out for almost all of August, worked reasonably well for the early part of september then come mid-late sept, it would contiunously jump off the HSDPA network causing major latency spikes when it did so. This was after the Youtube promo was released. I could often not even connect to GPRS at faster than 5kbit.

I have serious concerns for the capacity and integrity of the Vodafone network. Don't forget lasts years SMS outages and the billing issues!

Telecom also offer "usage alerts" as emails and SMS so you know ehen you are approaching the limit.

Bring on the 6GB plan!!!!? Telecom?

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