Paul O’Flaherty: What if ISP’s operated like Cellphone Carriers?
Paul O'Flaherty released this curious little vidcast that makes a good point.
Sprint Mifi: Day #1 @ Home Office Location
The Sprint Mifi results are encouraging thus far: 113ms ping time to a server in NYC, 1005k download & 413k upload. Should be VoIP-worthy. We'll see what happens next week when I'm back in SFO for a few days.
Taking The Plunge On Sprint Mobile Broadband
After thinking about 3G based mobile broadband for the past month, and suffering through another bout of paying for less than stellar access at hotels, Andy Abramson finally broke through the last of my resistance with a post about weekend Mifi deals on Amazon. I fell for the offer of the one cent Mifi device and decided on Sprint as the carrier.
As I mentioned earlier in the week I had been wanting to add the service to my T-Mobile account, since that where I have my cell service…and I’m happy with them. But many people told me that T-Mobile’s 3G network was not up to the task. Also, they don’t yet offer a Mifi-style device. That left Sprint and Verizon as my options.
Reader Poll: The Nokia N97?
For months I've been waiting for a new cell phone. There seems to be a dearth of suitable candidates available. So I'm going to try running a reader poll. I had been very interested in the Nokia N97 which has…
Vodaphone Introduces Femtocells In The UK
Femtocells have been a topic of considerable discussion over the past year or so. Femtocells are small devices that act like a tiny cellular base in your home or office. To your cell phone it’s just another tower. However, instead of interfacing to the carriers back-end network it backhauls the calls over your local broadband connection. Some have noted that this is ideal for the carrier since they don’t actually incur the cost of that backhaul segment. As the person paying for the broadband connection, you do.
Vodaphone appears to be the first cellular carrier in the UK to actually introduce the little beasties. Andrew Grill’s “London Calling” blog has an excellent description of them based on his early first-hand experience. His tale includes both acquiring and installing the device. That he is able to extend cellular coverage into the basement flat (apartment) of a Victorian era home seems especially useful.
Truphone Extends Reach With IM, Twitter & Skype Integration
Truphone issued a couple of press releases today. The first release announces full interoperability of IM with MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger and GoogleTalk in its iPod Touch and iPhone applications. They have also integrated Twitter into the TruFriends view of the Truphone application.
In the case of GoogleTalk users can also make and receive voice calls using the Truphone application. Similar voice capability is in the work for users of MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger.