For the last few weeks I’ve been testing the new 3 mobile broadband service.

For anyone not familiar with mobile broadband, it offers broadband internet without the need for your laptop or PC to be connected to a landline or wireless hot spot.

In theory this means you can get internet access wherever you take your laptop. If you just want to use the dongle at home on a regular PC you can do that too. You just plug a small USB device, called a dongle, into your laptop and you get instant broadband internet access.

Inside the box you get the USB dongle modem, sim card, user guide, USB cable and warranty card. All the necessary PC/Mac drivers are included inside the dongle – no installation CD is required.

The dongle is a very simple device that is easy to use. The dongle has a small compartment inside where you attach a sim card, similar to how a sim card slots into a mobile phone. To start using the dongle you attach it to a USB port on your laptop, the dongle comes with a USB cable if it is not practical to plug the dongle directly into a USB port on your laptop.

Once the dongle is plugged into a USB port it will automatically install the necessary software and then you’re ready to connect to the internet. I was impressed how easy the setup process was. There is no messing around having to use a installation CD to install drivers, all the necessary software is installed straight from the dongle. It truly is a plug and play device.

The broadband speeds you get with the dongle depend on where you live in the UK. According to the 3 web site you can get speeds of up to 2.8Mb, but that is dependant on living in an area where turbo coverage is available.

I tested the dongle out in 3 separate locations in the South of England and was only ever able to achieve a connection speed of 56k. It certainly brought back memories of my old 56k modem I used back in the mid 1990s. 56k is painfully slow.

I’ve read several reports of people getting far better connection speeds than me, so there is definitely good speeds to be had out there, but it all depends on where you live. Turbo coverage is an on going development that will be further rolled out across the UK this year.

The 3 web site shows June 2008 as the next rollout date, but looking at the map there is still a lot of areas shown in white which suggests these areas won’t have turbo coverage this year.

Even though the connection speeds have been disappointing for me, the dongle is not a viable option for me right now; I am still impressed by the device. If the coverage was better in my area I would definitely consider buying one. I don’t think it would make me use the internet more than I do now, but it would certainly offer the convenience of surfing the net when on the move.

I think mobile broadband is an interesting move by the mobile phone companies that has the potential to do well, especially when the turbo coverage matures.

My advice to anyone considering buying one is see if you can ask for a demo in a shop and make sure the connection speeds are good enough for you.

3 also offer a 14 day money back guarantee so if you do find yourself in an area where turbo coverage is not available then you have the option to return it.

There are some good deals with 3 currently if you fancy taking the plunge, especially when used in conjunction with one of their unlimited text plans. If you’re an exisiting 3 customer then you can take advantage of half price broadband until the end of April.

3 offer a choice of broadband packages, from casual users with a limit of 1Gb data allowance per month, up to 7Gb data allowance per month for more hungry users. That allowance might not be as high as some internet service providers offer, but it should be enough for most people, unless you download a lot of movies and music each month.

Overall the dongle is a nice device and I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that I get turbo coverage soon.

Update: As of 1st May 2008 the price of the dongles has dropped from £99.99 to £49.99 for customers opting for PAYG. The dongle continues to be free for those opting for a monthly contract. The drop in price is welcome news. I think there is scope for the price to drop further. A further drop in price would make this a very attractive option for those living in a turbo coverage area.

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Many of you in the UK may be familiar with a recent broadband satisfaction survey conducted by the BBC Watchdog program.

Some of these surveys need to be taken with a pinch of salt and there is always arguments about how accurate they are, but I was glad to see my ISP – Zen Internet – coming in 3rd place with a satisfaction rating of 93%.

I’ve been with Zen for many months now and I’ve been extremely happy with the service I’ve received. I’ve never had to deal with their customer support team, since my broadband connection is so reliable, so I cannot comment on how good their customer support is. But in terms of broadband reliability I cannot fault them. This is completely opposite to the experience I had with Plusnet, my previous ISP.

Much of the improvement in my broadband connection, since switching to Zen, is undoubtedly down to me improving the internal phone wiring in my house, and fixing a filtered ADSL face plate on the master socket. BT may have improved the technology behind MaxDSL since it was first launched as well? But I’m sure having my broadband connection with Zen has helped too.

You pay a bit more with Zen but I think it is worth the extra. In addition, by focusing on broadband and hosting, rather than trying to provide a broadband, telephone or TV service bundle, Zen can focus on providing good service in one area, rather than being a ‘jack of all trades and master of none’. I would certainly recommend Zen if you’re looking for a decent internet service provider.

A few months ago I was discussing the concept of plug and surf using the Solwise HomePlug. These are devices which enable you to use the existing electrical wiring in your house to create a home network. I’ve now got my hands on a couple of Solwise PL-85PE 85Mbps Ethernet HomePlug Adapters and I’m very impressed.

Each HomePlug Adapter comes with an ethernet cable, utility CD and small instruction manual. You need two or more of these adapters to setup a network. Installation was a breeze and I was up and running with a network in under 2 minutes!

You simply connect one of the adapters to your ADSL/cable modem using the provided ethernet cable and then plug the adapter into the nearest electrical socket. You then plug the second adapter into any other electrical socket in your house and connect it to a PC or games console using the provided ethernet cable.

These adapters don’t use any wireless technology so there is less chance of someone being able to eavesdrop on your network connection. You also don’t suffer any of the problems associated with wireless either such as thick walls reducing the wireless range. The connection from these adapters is rock solid with no interference or drop-outs, and the connection speeds are much faster than wireless too.

The beauty of these devices is that they are operating system independent. You can use them just as well on Ubuntu Linux, Windows XP, Mac OS X or games consoles, in fact any device you can plug an ethernet cable into.

I’ve read so many horror stories about wireless network problems when people upgraded to Edgy, the latest version of Ubuntu. The HomePlug would be a great alternative. I have tested the HomePlugs under both Ubuntu and Windows XP and they work flawlessly.

I was concerned that these devices might cause interference with other electrical appliances in my house like the TV, Sky+ box, microwave, dimmer switches, baby monitor or the house alarm, but I have been using the adapters for a few days now without any problems.

I’ve read on a couple of web sites some security concerns about these devices. Some people think it might be possible for the signal from the HomePlug to go beyond the electricity meter outside your house. Could it be possible for the signal to travel along the electricity cable from your house out into the street for a neighbour to eavesdrop into?

I think the chances of that are remote. Firstly the HomePlugs only have a range of 200 meters. Secondly, your neighbour would also need to be using the HomePlugs. And finally, you can enhance the security of your network using the configuration utility on the provided utility CD. The utility software allows transmission checks and adjustment of network names (encryption).

Each HomePlug adapter has a unique password printed on the plug. Using the configuration utility you can set the password for each HomePlug on your network. This then enables the privacy options on the configuration tool. Once each HomePlug has a password set you can assign a name to your network. The Solwise user manual explains this in more detail.

One thing to bear in mind, the HomePlugs need to be plugged directly into an electrical socket. Apparently they don’t work that well if plugged into an extension block.

I’m using the Solwise HomePlugs purely to enable internet access anywhere in my house, but you could also use them to stream video or music from one PC to another. If 85Mbps is not fast enough for you then there is a 200Mbps HomePlug AV Ethernet Adaptor too.

Overall the Solwise HomePlug is a great device which I’m very happy with. I’ve now got reliable, super fast internet access anywhere in my house I care to use my PC.

Buy the Solwise HomePlug from Amazon.

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The news from DigiWorld 2006 is that BT consider ADSL2+ to meet ‘foreseeable needs’. Unlike its counterparts in the US and Japan, BT has no plans to deploy FTTH (Fibre To The Home) on a nationwide basis in the UK.

One of the things I’ve been blogging about on a regular basis is when will the UK get a really fast broadband service. I was hoping that really fast broadband would arrive as part of BTs 21CN technology. That doesn’t seem the case now.

I’ve heard people before saying that FTTH in the UK was unlikely due to the costs involved, but surely this means the UK will lag further behind other countries. This is despite delegates at DigiWorld 2006 saying that the cost of rolling out FTTH will continue to decrease, making the business case more attractive.

FTTH is already being adopted in the US. Take for example, Verizon, who last week announced a Fibre-Optic rollout. BellSouth and SBC Communications are expected to make similar announcements soon.

In France, Iliad plan to invest EUR1 billion in FTTH for Paris over the next six years. There is strongth FTTH growth in Japan too, with 5.4 million subscribers at the end of March 2006.

Although these FTTH rollouts look promising, they seem confined to city areas rather than outlying areas. To rollout FTTH at a nationwide level would be a huge effort. Even so, I feel that is the way forward if we are to achieve truly faster broadband speeds. I think there is only so much you can do with the existing broadband infrastructure.

Further to my post on when will the UK broadband revolution will arrive, BT has now launched a web site where you can check when 21CN (21st Century Network) services will be available in your area.

Currently the web site only shows when your home phone line may be switched over to the new network. Broadband and ISDN services will have a separate switch on date which should be released on the web site soon. For me it says a switchover date of Apr-Jun 2009, this is a massive project for BT though, so we’ll have to see how accurate that turns out to be!

ADSLGuide managed to spot on this web site that next generation broadband such as Video on Demand and High Definition TV could be available as early as January 2008. This is interesting, but what I really hope for is a fibre optic rollout from the BT exchange to the street cabinets with a mini DSLAM installed in the cabinet. That will mean people like me who live a couple of miles from the exchange being able to enjoy these new services.

Back in August I was blogging about whether the UK will ever get really fast broadband. At the moment most people in the UK can get ‘up to 8Mb download speeds’. I use that term lightly since the majority of us will never see speeds that quick due to contention and distance from the local exchange.

In fact the ‘up to 8Mb download speeds’ term has already got one UK ISP into hot water when Bulldog Broadband was reported to the Advertising Standards Authority in September for not making clear that the 8Mb download speeds would quickly degrade as you moved further away from the exchange.

I know that some people can enjoy the speeds of ADSL2+, such as the ‘Up to 16Mb’ service offered by ISP’s such as Bulldog Broadband, but only if you’re lucky enough to live sufficiently close to an exchange that has the ISP’s LLU kit installed. For a lot of us that isn’t the case, so what can we look forward to over the next few years…

Well there are some interesting ADSL rollouts in some European countries and parts of the USA using VDSL2 that seem to be well developed. You can read here for a detailed description of VDSL2. This new type of ADSL can offer speeds of up to 60Mbps on a copper line around 1Km in length. Again not many of us live this close to the exchange, but if combined with a fibre optic rollout from the BT exchange to the BT cabinets in the streets then it could be viable here. Of course, such technology like VDSL2 is many years away, so again the UK lags behind some of its fellow European countries. No change there

Of course, BT already has it’s 21CN vision of the future, which is currently being readied for a trial in the South Wales area. But how long have the majority of us got to wait?

I hope BT accelerates these trials so the UK is not always playing catch-up with other countries. That’s the perception I’ve got. Perhaps anyone living outside the UK can let me know how broadband speeds are developing where you are.

ADSLguide

If you’re baffled by setting up a home wireless network, or don’t want to flood your house with loads of wires, or maybe you’re worried about someone eavesdropping on your wireless network, then maybe the Solwise HomePlug Ethernet Turbo is for you.

This device enables you to create a network at home using the existing electricity mains wiring in your house. One of the sockets connects directly with your ADSL/cable router, this acts as the sender. The other socket plugs into any 3 pin socket in your house (it incorporates a standard RJ45 socket and includes a CAT5 cable). This enables another PC/game console in your house to connect to the existing ADSL connection.

Each device transmits up to 85Mbps which is significantly faster than the 802.11b standard of 11Mbps or 54Mbps of an 802.11g network. The devices come with a CDROM which allows you to configure the devices such as allowing you to apply passwords to each device to stop tampering, change the default network name, plus diagnostic software to look at stuff like MAC addresses, date last seen on network, etc.

ADSLguide also have an excellent review of the Solwise HomePlug Ethernet Turbo.

Looks like quite an interesting device

You simply choose which server is closest to you and then watch the graphics. Have fun

UK internet service provider (ISP) Zen Internet have recently launched a new broadband package aimed at people with low monthly usage.

It’s charged at £17.99 for a 2GB cap with lots of additional features such as static IP. It’s exactly the same as their existing Zen 8000 Active package, just with a 2GB monthly cap.

I’m glad to see them launching this package. My monthly usage is fairly low so this new package will be ideal. I’m currently paying £24.99 for their Zen 8000 Active package so this will save me a bit each month.

Full details here:
Zen 8000 Lite 2GB cap

Zen have always charged a premium for their service. It’s not the cheapest out there, but their customer support is excellent and my MaxDSL connection is rock solid. I can see myself sticking with Zen for some time now.