October 29, 2010
London Underground wireless Internet trials are due to start on 1st November at Charing Cross Tube Station.
BT Openzone, who provide wireless Internet hotspots has joined up with London Underground to trial for 6 months wireless Internet service at Charing Cross tube station. Any BT broadband customers with unlimited BT FON Wi-Fi minutes and for BT Openzone customers will be able to access the service at no extra charge, it will allow Internet enabled devices such as smartphones, laptops or netbooks to connect to the Internet as they are in the Charing Cross Tube Station.
The Strategy and Commercial Director for London Underground, Richard Parry, said:
“Around 68,000 passenger journeys are made a day at Charing Cross Tube station. We hope that our customers will find it useful to have access to the internet while they are using the Tube station during this six-month trial. Live service updates will allow passengers to check the status of the Tube and other transport services while they are on the move at the station.“
The Mayor of London’s Transport Adviser, Mulveer Ranger, said:
“An ever growing commuter populous has been clamouring to be able to check their emails and browse the net whilst on the go. This trial at Charing Cross will allow them to do just that whilst on the Tube platform. This is an important step towards seeing how this could be achieved and is part of the Mayor’s ambition to examine ways in which we can use technology to adapt the city’s transport system to meet the needs of those using it.“
It would therefor appear that providing the trails go well and customers using the London Underground find it useful then it could well be rolled out further across the Underground network, this could work well for business as people are able to do more work on the way and way back from work or when travelling across London.
Customers on O2, Tesco Mobile, Vodafone and Orange who have Wi-Fi minutes included in their contract may also be able to use the BT Openzone network while other users will be able to purchase BT Openzone vouchers to be able to access the network.
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October 15, 2010
Three Mobile has completed it’s £400 million three year long network upgrade which will see them have 12,400 3G sites.
The upgrade and increased coverage programme done by Three Mobile brings the company up to 12,400 3G sites which has a 3G population coverage across the UK of 97%.
 Three already had the largest UK 3G network and over the course of the last 3 years the network has done 2 things, first it has improved the coverage for areas that cover 4million people and also it has added 50,000 square-Km of coverage, this equates to an area that is twice the size of Wales.
With Smartphone use dramatically increasing and there even more demand for mobile broadband the improved and extended network should give customers a much greater level of connection.
The CEO of Three, Kevin Russell said:
“Thousands of people across the country have put in a phenomenal amount of work to build the UK’s biggest Mobile Broadband network. Smartphone and Mobile Broadband use is exploding and we have built a 3G network that reaches further than ever before, as well as bringing more capacity into urban areas where our customers need it most.“
Three have provided a few interesting points about their upgrade which include that it took 8.5 million man hours of work, there were more than 3,300 engineers involved, 10,000 transmission cable and microwave upgrades were done in the past 12 months and 8 engineers were attacked by birds! 
Three network carries over 100 terabytes of data each day, with more than 40% of this from people streaming videos from sites such as Youtube or on the iPlayer, 38% is done from web browsing with a large 6% taken by Microsoft software being updated, messaging through applications such as Skype and MSN takes up a further 2.5% of the usage.
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October 4, 2010
Three have launched a new Pay Per Day mobile broadband internet access deal for those who only need mobile broadband access every now and then.
The Pay Per Day mobile broadband deal costs £2 and gives users 24 hours mobile broadband access with 500Mb of data transfer.
The top up does not have an expiry other than 24 hours after it is activated. Also, top up vouchers of £10 would give 5 individual days credit which can be used as and when they are required. The top up vouchers or credit can be purchased online or in shops.
Joe Parker, the director of Three mobile Broadband said:
“Three’s Pay Per Day deal is the ideal proposition for business travellers, iPad owners and students who have a fixed broadband connection at home but also want the flexibility of being able to snack on mobile broadband whilst away from their home.“
500Mb of data transfer is enough for around 5 hours browsing the internet, 500 emails or downloading 16 music tracks.
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September 7, 2010
BT Total Broadband customers who have iPhone or Android mobiles will be able to get an app that will connect their phones to free unlimited Wi-Fi connections.
 The app, called the BT FON app will notify users of the nearest WiFi hot spot to them, users will then be able to enter their email address and password and select if they want to automatically be logged in to a BT Wi-Fi area.
Being connected to these WiFi areas will save customers money as the access to BT FON and BT Openzone is free for BT Total broadband customers and there are 1.6 million of the Wi-Fi hot sports avialable worldwide.
The app will not only auto sign usesr into available Wi-Fi networks when they become ava\ilable but will also provide a map view so you can see where there is available access points close by.
What’s more, BT are donating 50p for every BT FON app that is downloaded (up to a maximum of £10,000) so providing 20,000 people download the app then BT will be paying up the full amount to BBC Children in Need.
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August 25, 2010
T-Mobile are running a limited time offer on their PayG Mobile Broadband with a price reduction and free days.
 The price of the T-mobile PayG mobile broadband has been reduced from £19.99 to just £8.99 + a £10 top up. Customers will receive 30 days of browsing for free when they buy their first days browsing for a cost of £2.
The T-Mobile dongle allows users to access the Internet from almost anywhere without the need to have a fixed line Internet connection which makes using a laptop to access the Internet when out and about far easier.
The offer is limited time and is available until 30th September and is available on both the black and pink MBB 610 sticks.
Offer available at: www.t-mobile.co.uk
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July 22, 2010
3 Mobile has topped a YouGov study to bmobile broadbande voted the best mobile broadband provider in the UK.
There were 12 categories that were looked at in the study, with 3 Mobile broadband topping 10 of them, including value for money and reliability amongst others.
The study was done using more than 2,000 UK mobile broadband users from Three, Vodafone, Orange, O2, and T-Mobile to rate their mobile broadband provider on 12 key points.
The 12 key points that customers were asked on were:
Installation of software
Network coverage
Getting connected
Staying connected
Reliability during the day
Reliability during the evening
Download speeds
Upload speeds
Ease of use
Customer services
Billing
Overall quality
Three have the largest share of the UK mobile broadband market with around 35% and have coverage to more than 95% of the population.
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June 21, 2010
3 Mobile have launched a free iPad sim for those who want to connect their Apple iPads to the internet.
 The iPad takes a Micro-SIM which is smaller in size than a standard mobile phone sim and is required to connect the iPad to a mobile broadband connection.
There are two Micro-SIM data plans available for the iPad.
Micro-SIM Only
1 month rolling contract
1GB usage
£7.50 per month
Micro-SIM Only
1 month rolling contract
10GB usage
£15 per month
Claim your free iPad SIM card at www.three.co.uk/Mobile_Broadband/iPad_data_plans
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BT Broadband customers are now able to have unlimited Wi-Fi acess at the 1.5 million available hotspots provided by BT around the country.
The unlimited access will be available to BT Total Broadband and O2 Mobile customers by accessing it on the BT Openzone and BT FON networks. BT FON is a Wi-Fi community where BT Broadband customers choose if they want to share their broadband connection with other BT FON members and in exchange they are able to securely access other BT-FON members broadband connections, it is basically one big Wi-Fi sharing community.
With the ever increasing requirement from users to access broadband away from the home through devices such as smartphones, iPad and laptops and with the recent announcement that O2 are going to withdraw the unlimited internet access that it offered with smartphones and instead set limits on how much data users can access to tie in with the launch of the new iPhone 4 which becomes available this Thursday 24th June the availability of more free Wi-Fi hotspots to use these devices will become a real bonus.
The BT Openzone Wi-Fi network is available in locations such as airports, city centers, coffee shops and hotels.
In total there are around 1.5 million hotspots across the country, with this figure havign increased by 800,000 during 2009 and expected tro rise to a total of 2.5 million by the end of 2011.
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June 11, 2010
O2 are pulling unlimited mobile broadband data for new smartphones that they sell and instead changing the tariffs based on how much data users want to pay for each month.
The new O2 smartphone tariffs are due to be introduced on July 24th which is the same day that the new iPhone 4 is due to be launched meaning all new contracts on this will require users to choose what mobile broadband data allowance they want with their new phone contract.
Existing customers who are already on “unlimited” data for their mobile phone won’t be affected until they come to upgrade or renew their contract. New customers or those who are upgrading a new contract will be offered unlimited data until 1st October and then form that date onwards they will have to decide if to take any bolt ons.
Unlimited data was used to draw new customers into using smartphones, but with the popularity of smartphones booming the mobile operators are now looking at keeping these types of phones profitable and to look after their network capacity.
The new O2 data pricing is:
O2 do say that the 500Mb of data (the minimum of offer) is currently 2.5 times the average O2 customers current usage, this does not say that this just related to O2 Smartphone customers however, as we anticipate the results to this statistic would be different if they took just smartphone customers into account.
Out of O2′s 21 million customers they say the changes will mean only around 3% of these customers will be affected and have to pay additional charges because these 3% of customers are using up around 36% of O2′s data capacity on their network.
As more applications and media becomes available over the internet for smartphone users we anticipate that in the future these data limits in place may have to be reviewed as going forward more bandwidth hungry applications will become available.
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June 1, 2010
The Apple iPad finally was launched in the UK on Friday 28th May, with it’s highly anticipated arrival comes many people wanting to get their hands on one and making the most of all it’s functionality, including using mobile broadband.
 The Apple iPad comes with a slot for a micro sim card, which means that putting a standard mobile phone sim into it will not work, as such iPad users need to get a special iPad mobile broadband deal which inclused the micro sim card.
Below is a brief run down of what each of the mobile broadband providers currently have on offer for iPad users to connect to mobile broadband on their websites.
3 Mobile (http://threestore.three.co.uk)
Both deals are on one month rolling contracts
Vodafone (vodafone.co.uk/ipad)
All3 deals are on one month rolling contracts
Orange (www.orange.co.uk/ipad)
- iPad plan
5p per MB capped at £40 per month
- iPad Daily
200MB data valid for 1 day
£2
- iPad Weekly
1GB data valid for 7 days
£7.50
- iPad monthly 15
3GB data and unlimited BT Openzone WiFi
£15 per month
- iPad monthly 25
10GB data and unlimited BT Openzone WiFi
£25 per month
What we anticipate is that with the launch of the Apple iPad we will see the take up of mobile broadband become even more popular as users want to realise the full potential of their iPads.
For any lucky owners of the iPad then the links and iPad mobile broadband tariffs above are your best options for connecting your iPad to the internet at the moment.
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