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 On the edge of real and Cyberspace .. there is one place you can go. Unfortunately you aren’t going to get there in a hurry .. Cause “Edge” is not very fast at all. Welcome to the country with criminally high mobile broadband fares and insanely low 3g Coverage (at least by some providers). Gather round the flickering embers of your broadband routers and let me tell you the sad tale of Belgian mobile Broadband.
Over the last 2 years I have said my tethered life goodbye and thanks to my trusty blackberry I've been able to have ‘the internet’ in my pocked for at least 2 years now. I must say I greatly enjoyed being able to read my emails, my Facebook feed and other internet gizmo’s over my blackberry and pretty soon my “virtual social life’ melded with my ‘regular social life’ as my connectivity to the net became ubiquitous. Speed and cost where not REALLY and issue due to the fact I got the data account from work, and most of the traffic that I was generating on the Blackberry was mostly “low bandwith” stuff. Email, some Facebook messages and some tweets. Surfing was something i only from time to time (mostly using Google and Wikipedia to win intellectual arguments) but that was about it. I did figure out how to tether my Blackberry but only used it once or twice. In the end I extended the battery life of my Blackberry by setting it to GPRS/EDGE setting only because the traffic I was getting was mostly low bandwidth and text only.
Fast forward 2 months and I wake up in a completely different situation. The broadband connection on my (personal) Cellphone is no longer a “work-perk” so I’ll need to cough up the cash for that myself. The Blackberry has since been replaced with a second hand 3G Iphone that I managed to buy for the ridiculous price of 200 euro ... and I have the Ipad’s Micro-sim cardslot hungrily awaiting its meal. Peeking out from my Laptopbag is of course my MacbookPro or My Acer Timeline who ALSO want connectivity should this be required. In all .. it a recipe for a nightmare.
The downside is (at least for Belgium) Data plans for phones are either ridiculously priced, have insanely low data limits or are a combination of both. The larger providers have ‘relatively good’ 3G coverage but their plans go up to 40 euros when you’re looking for a relatively good solution. ( Bandwidth caps limit from 200 megabytes up to 2 Gigabytes). When you’re going for a ‘regular sim / regular data plan’ for a “normal phone the prices are high.. When you mention you have an Ipad or an Iphone they charge you even MORE ! ( Mobistar is VERY good at this). So if you are a n00b who asks for a IPHONE plan you end up paying MORE for your data then when you just ask for a ‘data plan’ for your phone.
One of the companies that does break free from this money hungry pack is Mobilevikings ( www.mobilevikings.com ) For 15 euros a month you get 15 euros worth of talk time, 1000 text messages and one gigabyte of data. Thats a pretty smooth deal .. If you take a ‘data only’ micro-sim you pay 12 euros a month for a gig. Not bad for your Ipad ...
Having Jailbroken my Iphone ( Fuck you Mr Jobs and your megalomaniac proprietary empire) I found an application called MYWI that turns your Iphone into a 3G router (either by hooking it up as a usb based modem or by turning the wifi connection into a hotspot). BRILLIANT app and i was more then happy to pay the 19 dollars for it. With ONE device I could now provide internet access to my Macbook, my Ipad, my Iphone of course .. and my Ubuntu Laptop (and to anyone else who might need connectivity in an emergency). This was a perfect solution ! Ok, it puts a considerable drain on the IPhone's battery but that's why God invented chargers and power outlets. The solution saves me from having to endlessly search for 3G modem drivers for my Ubuntu system, Saves me from having to buy a sim card for my Ipad, Gives ANY device with Wifi that I own the ability to connect .. in short .. its perfect. I have literally turned my phone into a “broadband hub” for all of my tech. ( I need to mention that the lucky suckers who have an Android Phone running a version of Android 2.0 and who have a provider who allows it, can use this functionality out of the box).
But .. with the poor 3G coverage in Belgium .. most of the time .. I have an Edge connection. This is not really @mobilevikings fault (They rely on the @base network, and their broadband formula’s are the best in Belgium for the moment) But having edge when you only do mail and tweets and stuff .. is not really an issue. But once you open up the floodgates to “media rich” content like on the Ipad .. or want to tether your other devices via your own mobile hot spot .. things go down the drain. I see my 1 monthly 1 gigabyte data limit looming over my like a giant chocolate pie .. ( A 15 meter HIGH chocolate pie) and I only have an teeny tiny spoon to eat with.
For providers and owners of the broadband infrastructure, this whole situation is of course beneficial. With small pipes nobody is gonna rack up large amounts of data every month so their systems won’t be taxed. Meanwhile they can pick up buckets of cash with a shovel on overpriced data plans that have low ceilings and crap bandwith. I salute the guyz over at Mobilevikings.be for offering such innovative prices and formula’s .. but Edge is like freakin Dail up .... 128 Kbps might be ok for twitter, irc , facebook etc .. But open up a mid sized webpage and you’ll be able to monitor the hairs growing out of your nose before its done.
So I’ve been searching broadband coverage sites, been checking out deals offered by mobile carriers and .. even worse , been talking to Dutch co-workers who seem to live in a land that lies 100 years into the future when it comes to things like this. Cheaper rates , better connections, cap-less contracts .. But down here its like the Telecom business is being owned by Mr Scrooge .. holding the entire country back in its evolution towards a web-aware mobile population.
Links :
The 3G Coverage Map. (read it and wheep)
Mobilevikings.be
Mobile internet plans for a REGULAR phone (Mobistar)
Mobile Coverage plans for the Iphone (Mobistar)
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