Author: Martin

One of the first train companies to introduce Internet access over Wi-Fi on board its high speed trains was Thalys, connecting Paris with Brussels, Cologne, Amsterdam and a couple of cities in between. When I first tried it back in 2009, performance was great, almost unbelievable. A year later in 2010, however, the offer was significantly downstripped, actually to the point of being of little use. When I complained at the time by email the response after many weeks was that it was a temporary problem and actually there is not much Thalys could do since it is managed by another company. Yes, yes, it's always the others that are at fault. No date was given when the service would improve again.

But Thalys keeps advertising the service, so now in 2011 I gave it a try again and found that the service has still not improved. Most of the time during the trip, the connection was so slow that web surfing was practically impossible. A few times, speeds increased to a usable level but only for a minute or two before the connection slowed to a crawl again.The only good use I could find was to send and receive short emails where it doesn't really matter how long it takes. What a shame because my initial experience shows that this is not a technical problem as things can work if enough bandwidth is provided via the satellite link. So Thalys, either fix your offer or stop your advertising that creates expectations your service can't meet…

Sincerely, a disillusioned customer

Many network operators are using some form of steered roaming, i.e. the mobile is actively discouraged to use a network it tries to attach to so it searches for another one that is potentially more attractive to the home operator of a customer. From a usability point of view this has one major downside which is the longer initial waiting time if the mobile is steered away from a network. But recently I have found at least one advantage: Every now and then, I use Vodafone Websessions for Internet connectivity when roaming which is usually only available in one of the networks in a foreign country while the voice service is available in several. So with steered roaming, the home network operator can increase the chances the 3G stick ends up in the right network without my help.

I just heard that the paper submission deadline for Mobilware 2011 to be held in London this year has been extended by a couple of days to the 13th of February to probably give a number of late submitters the chance to get their papers in. As I'm involved in the conference organization a bit I thought I'd let you know in case you are considering to participate. For details see my earlier post here.

In the past, I've used 3G in the US mostly for Internet connectivity for my notebook with prepaid SIMs, as only my Europe / World – 3G USB dongle could tune to the frequencies used in the US. But now with the new Nokia Symbian^3 phones with pentaband UMTS support such as the N8 and C7, that 3.5G indicator also popped up on my mobile phone when I recently switched it on in Los Angeles, both with the T-Mobile and the AT&T network. On first impression, Internet connectivity on the phone feels reasonably faster than just over EDGE. A definite advantage in an international meeting where dozens of international Blackberries hang on to the two GSM networks. Very nice, I love pentaband UMTS chips!

Recently, there's been an article in "Der Spiegel" (in German) on the, what I would call, "electronic revolution" in the German parliament. Since tablet computers have been allowed for use during parliamentary sessions, the article says that at least half of of the parliamentarians have gotten themselves an iPad.

And who could blame them as the devices are undoubtedly useful and they get them for free anyway as they get reimbursed (see the article). The other reasons for the sudden popularity of tables could also be the fact that other forms of electronic computing, i.e. anything with a physical keyboard is still banned. In other words, no notebooks and netbooks (see another article here). At first I wondered why such a discrimination was imposed but I assume it has been done to keep the noise level to a minimum that might increase if people en masse started to type on their netbooks. Ah well, you can't have it all I guess.

In my opinion, the good thing coming from this is that parliamentarians are now integrating computing, wireless Internet access and the Internet in general more in their daily life than before. And that's very positive as the laws they make having to do with the Internet, data privacy, etc. will impact them more than before as well. So they just might think a bit more before giving their vote.

Recently I was quite positively surprised when I noticed that the apps I bought in the Ovi store are not locked to a certain device but are part of my account in the Ovi store. In other words, when I changed my device I could install the apps again free of charge on my new device. That's good to know since I tend to change devices quite often so I'm quite happy that my apps will follow me to a new device. Makes a lot of sense from a user point of view!

How about the behavior of other app stores, do they allow to do the same?

These days I have to rub my eyes when reading just about any wireless news tidbits from the US. In almost every report the acronym "4G" is used for just about everything that is faster than a crawling few kbit/s. 4G is HSPA, 4G is LTE, 4G is this, 4G is that. Well, 4G isn't any of it. And quite frankly I am a bit tired and nerved because just like "open" and "free" it has lost any meaning in the mobile world. Another word or acronym misused to death. And actually I am just waiting for a marketing department pushing the line that a 4G phone that has to have 2 radios active simultaneously for voice and Internet is better than a HSPA device that can do the same over the same radio.

So hey, since everyone uses the "G" for whatever he likes, how about calling well built networks (not particularly in the country in which networks are called 4G…) that have the capacity to serve their subscribers with true broadband speeds in the 10 MBit/s range or more 5G? Hm, doesn't sound sophisticated enough for me, so I'll call them 6G networks. Yes, my frustration shows 🙂

In other words, I'm really tired of the "G" debate… Theoretical maximum speeds and "G's" are perhaps good for catchy marketing slogans but it's meaningless in practice. Instead, access ubiquity and capacity are what counts in a world where connected devices are becoming the norm rather than the exception.

When I recently roamed through a big department store I noticed two things: As in many big and concrete buildings, 2G and 3G network coverage is rather weak, especially on the lower floors. And secondly, many of the employees are running around with very fashionable DECT phones, designed in the 1980's. At some point I guess the DECT system has to be replaced, something that is likely to cost a significant amount of money. So once that comes around, why not partnering with a mobile network operator to put in a dedicated 2G/3G coverage for customers and employees and rather spend the money on this than a new DECT system?

I've seen network operators who even support short codes among users of the same "virtual company" and I could even imagine that such a service could be added to an already existing private subscription of department store employees. And, with dedicated network coverage in the department store, it's easy to guess which network operator employees would go to over time, perhaps including some of their family if you offer good family calling plans. To me, that looks like a win-win-win situation. And on top, management could even boost about outsourcing the telephone system, because, really, that's not the core business of a department store, is it…

A bit of a reflectional note today. It's currently winter season in the Northern hemisphere and while I do see daylight every now and then it's mostly indoors while I work. When I have time for taking pictures and posting some of them on Flickr, the sun has usually long gone down. So when I recently looked at my Flickr stream (see on the right) I noticed that there are many pictures taken at night and I couldn't really remember that I've done that much in the past. But perhaps there's an easy answer for that. My N8-00's camera takes great shots even at night so it's finally worth taking pictures in such conditions. Yes, camera-only devices could do that, too but I stopped years ago taking an additional camera on my travels unless there's a specific reason to do so. I am glad that when I had to choose between the N8 and the C7 with a less capable camera, I went for the N8. Kind of opens a new picture universe for me [ – end of advertisement section 🙂 – ] And now over to Southern California for higher temperatures and hopefully a bit more sunlight for a couple of days.

Many many years ago, Bluetooh version 2.1 updated its security scheme to something referred to as "Secure Simple Pairing". Not only was the process made more secure but also a bit more user friendly. Recently, I have started seeing devices using the Numeric Comparison protocol for pairing (e.g. the Nokia N8 and also a recent Samsung phone) where it's no longer necessary to enter a PIN but just to verify that the same number is displayed on both devices. Very neat!