MoBro – Mobile Broadband
I use mobile broadband. It’s a killer product poised, I think, to do for internet what cellies did for telephony. My main issue is that it doesn’t have the brand or name in public consciousness to match. WiMax while, comparatively, sucking is still much more cool than Mobile Broadband, at least a bit cause it has a better (and standardized name). I’ve heard mobile broadband referred to as HSPA, HSDPA, 3G Internet, etc. What I’ve started referring to it in my own small head is MoBro. That, to me, is the simplest amalgamation of the two words, and I like the sound. I wondered if this was standard and it’s not, people still refer to, uh, MoBro, as a variety of things, none of which is MoBro. But that’s what I’m calling it from now until something better comes along.
For reference, I paid like 17,500 for a USB modem and connection, on Mobitel M3. That’s on a monthly payment scheme as well, its cheaper cash upfront. The thing that sucks is that its metered Internet, about Rs 1 per MB. I like Dialog, but their data rates work out to about Rs 2 per MB. I spend about 6-7k per month, and that’s include pretty heavy video use and some data downloads. I don’t download music much anymore because, for the first time in years, I’m paying for it. I’d be OK paying up to 10k a month for unlimited.
What makes MoBro so much better than other solutions is basically that it’s so much simpler. I sat down at Mobitel and walked out with a working connection within 30 minutes. Try that with DSL or WiMax, dudes have to come jump around your house and all this crap. MoBro is truly plug-and-play Internet and it’s available almost everywhere – even in Sri Lanka. Actually, especially in Sri Lanka, which has a very mature 3G network. It’s also fast, fast enough to stream most YouTube (sorta). I found the Dialog connect a bit faster, but perhaps because its worse marketed and thus less congested than M3. More to the point, I can access Internet almost anywhere at good speed (car, friends houses, round work firewall) and absolutely anywhere at GPRS speeds. When the next gen of laptops with MoBro built in come round I think we’ll be well on the way to a future where Internet is something you take for granted on any computer, like FreeCell. Literally free cell, it’ll be free (as in speech, not beer) and cellular.
The prob with MoBro as u call it is the bandwidth. The operators over here don’t aren’t capable of giving you unlimited bandwidth. Even after busting 15 grand they still insisting on applying a cap. WTF? And I have issues with this fair use policy.
I pay $60 a month for unlimited mobile access from AT&T. It is after combining home DSL and cellular phone service. I get about 1.2MB down/500KB upload. But when we are in Japan(about a month a year) at my GF’s place, we get 3.9MB downloads from Japanese network. I can’t remember the upload speed. But at her house 100MB fiber is $60 a month. May be I can move there and start a hosting service for SL.
This is a bit of a sore topic for me.
The 3G iPhone was released in New Zealand last week and everyone was expecting appropriate MoBro data plans from Vodafone NZ. They decided to go for “customer rape” instead.
Rs. 1/2 for an MB? That price range would give the MoBro community in NZ a giant collective orgasm. The cheapest data plan here (and you have to sign up for 24 months) is Rs. 4150 for 1GB a month. That works out to over Rs. 4 per MB. Exceed your 1GB data cap and you have to pay Rs. 42 per MB!
If you don’t sign up for a 24 month plan, casual data rates start at Rs. 930 per MB! Yes… that is NINE HUNDRED AND THIRTY per MB!
You guys have it good in SL :(
If you want value for money, the Hutch/Three Networks offer (in OZ) of 6GB for $39 or Rs. 4000 is pretty decent >> http://www.three.com.au/threestore/mobilebroadband.xhtml
The killer app, however, is VOIP on your HSDPA mobile phone.
Some ph0nes, like the Nokia 6120, ship with SKYPE pre-installed and mobile providers are offering a data product as an upsell option. Uppity providers like Three have whipped off the blinders and refuse to see VOIP as an assault on their cash cow (regular voice service revenue). Instead, they offer bolt-on plans for mobile data that allow you to use SKYPE, email, web, and new innovative products like ORB (a network tunneling feature that lets you access your home PC froom your mobile phone) that work great if you are at work and you want to fetch a file off your home PC.
For over ten years, Appu has pooh pooh’d the idea of convergence and insisted that voice will be the killer app. For once, Appu is glad to be proven wrong…
“MoBro” ???
Friggin brilliant!
Appu thinks Indi should be in branding, if he isn’t already…
Since Kalu had already digressed from the MoBro discussion, Appu would like to unkindly rub a bit of salt in the wound by pointing to this offer in Oz of $69 (Rs 7000) for 150GB of ADSL 2+ (10 to 20 mbps download and about 1 mbps upload) and excess usage beyond the 150GB is shaped (no cost but speeds drop to about 128 kbps) >> http://www.tpg.com.au/
chuckle, chuckle… Appa wanna quite Rajapakseville and move Down Under!
each connection is proxied and a real IP is not given
instead the host issues a local 10.x.x.x IP
and dialog’s proxy is blocking dig lookups
it also strips whitespace in html and xhtml content in http responses
so it’s not the same as having an adsl connection from SLT