WirelessMoves

Recently, I've been in Shanghai for a conference and as it was my first time in China, I was looking quite forward to see how GSM, UMTS, Internet connectivity, speed and access of resources at home through VPN tunnels would work from there.

Cellular Networks

On the cellular front, GSM and UMTS are working fine for me, but a few times when establishing a PDP context, no data would flow afterwards. After tearing it down and reestablishing it, everything was fine. Data transfer speeds don't seem to be very snappy back to Europe, but it doesn't matter much as prices are so prohibitive anyway, that I only use connectivity for downloading emails without attachments and for web browsing by using Opera Mini which does a fair amount of data compression.

Encryption and Tunneling

I am using mandatory encryption for sending (SMTP) and receiving (POP3) emails via servers back in Europe and both over cellular (with a German SIM) and the Internet at the hotel that works just fine. In other words, that's not blocked in any way. Also, my company VPN to Germany works just fine over the hotel Wi-Fi. After all of this working so well I was a bit surprised that the VPN product I use on my private PC would not connect to any gateway around the world, it seems to be blocked. A quick chat with the online support of the company, however, gave me a workaround within 5 minutes and I managed to get a VPN tunnel working to a gateway in the US.

Speed, speed, speed

When accessing servers in China from Europe I always have the impression that things are rather slow. Perhaps, I always thought, this was due to generally limited connectivity to Europe? But when bringing the Internet connectivity for the conference online I got a steady 10 MBit/s in the downlink direction and 10 MBit/s in the uplink direction to servers back in the US and Europe. So, no, it could not have been the transit links that were previously slow. Another thing demystified.

 

A quick thought on small hotels, Internet an Wi-Fi since I've just come across one of those: Like bigger chain hotels the staff also has no clue on how things work or what to do when things don't work around Internet connectivity. The big difference, however, is that it's not so hard to find the Wi-Fi router and the repeaters and get permission to restart them. After that, things work better than in bigger hotels 🙂 Yes, I know, I usually get a local SIM card for 3G Internet access but I didn't this time (in Canada) and was promptly confronted again with mediocre (at best) hotel Wi-Fi in 3 hotels. Back to the local SIMs then.

I've been doing a lot of e-book reading lately in a number of different forms and shapes and thought I'd write down some thoughts about my experiences here.

One form of e-book reading that I find quite useful and fun is on my mobile phone while commuting and also in the evening before going to bed. In both situations the tablet is too large and heavy and while the display is much larger and thus perhaps better for reading I prefer the mobile phone in such situations. Especially for text books where formatting changes are not an issue it works perfectly for me. And by the way there are many ebook reader apps available free of charge as are the books via Project Gutenberg which has huge amounts of classic novels converted to ebooks available. A great service so I made a donation, Paypal makes that quick and painless.

On the commercial side I have given the Kindle app on an Android based phone and an Android based tablet a try.  Again, I like the experience and books bought in the Kindle app or on the PC via the Amazon website are transferred to the device in a number of seconds. In particular I read a technical book with this solution, sometimes on the mobile, sometimes on the tablet and the Kindle app makes it easy to keep my bookmarks and last read page synchronized across devices. Very good! The downside of reading a technical book in electronic version becomes apparent when there is a need to quickly jump between different parts of the book. In a real "paper" book that works much nicer and faster than on a tablet. An advantage of the electronic version on the other hand however, is that it is searchable when one doesn't know the exact place of that piece of information in the book.

So while I like the experience I'm not totally converted. The argument that wins me over for most of my reading, however, is that I can have books with me anytime anywhere without extra space required or extra weight to be carried, both of which are precious commodities during commuting and traveling.

 

I have to admit that the diverse nature of spectrum holdings and wireless technologies used by mobile network operators in the US keeps me mystified and it's not easy to find out who has what kind of spectrum available. Back in 2011 I did a bands comparison between the US and Europe (see here) and came to the conclusion that there is pretty much the same amount of spectrum available for cellular on both continents. But this post tells little about which company owned which parts in each band. This is where these two posts (see here and here) provide some very interesting background information.

If (or when?) someone starts deploying LTE in the PCS 1900 MHz band, it would be one of the few bands worldwide in which four technologies are deployed simultaneously, GSM, UTMS, CDMA and LTE. Needless to say that manufacturing devices for the US (and for other continents with roaming capabilities) that can be used on more than one network in the US is getting more and more difficult. Also there is some talk of two carriers combining their surplus PCS resources for a common LTE network. Again very interesting from a device perspective as for one carrier such a device would have to support CDMA in addition to LTE while devices for the other carrier would have to support GSM/HSPA + LTE.

It must be happy days for Qualcomm who seems to be the only chipset maker so far that produces basebands that can do GSM, CDMA, HSPA and LTE simultaneously. Oh how I love the spectrum simplicity in other parts of the world 🙂

The title of this post might be a bit confusing but let's do the following thought experiment to compare prices for mobile Internet access with prices for circuit switched voice calling in terms of amount of data transferred:

A GSM voice call requires a constant data rate of about 25 kbit/s in both uplink and downlink direction (22.8 kbit/s with GSM channel coding to be exact), i.e. an aggregated 50 kbit/s. This includes overhead for coding and error protection in case you are wondering why I am not calculating with the nominal 12.2 kbit/s of the codec itself. So 50 kbit/s that is 3000 kbit/minute which is 375 kbytes per minute or 22.5 Mbyte per hour. The same amount of data goes over the air interface on the terminating side as well, so together that's 45 Mbyte per hour.

So how much are you charged for this amount of telephony "data"? Here things start to get difficult because prices vary per operator, country, contract, etc. So let's take a few examples. In Germany, prepaid calls are around 9 cents a minute. That is 5 euros 40 per hour, i.e. 5.40 euros for 45 MByte of data transferred. When staying in the same network, there are offers out there for 3 cents a minute, which would be 1.80 euros an hour. And if you take an on-net flatrate for 10 euros a month and then use it for 20 hours, that's 0.5 euros per hour, i.e. 1 euro for 90 Mbyte. To summarize the price for the 45 Mbyte of data transferred ranges from 0.5 euros to 5.40 euros.

Now let's look at the data side. A typical prepaid offer in Germany for 500 MB of data is 10 euros a month. In other words that's 50 MB for 1 euro and that is pretty much twice the amount as the cheapest voice example above. Let's go to the other end of the spectrum 20 GB for 90 euros a month. That is 222 MB per euro if used fully of course or 0.2 euros for the 45 MB. In other words, the cost for the data is about half of that of the cheapest voice call offer above in terms of amount of data transferred through the network.

So what's the point I am trying to make here? There is the perception in the industry that mobile data takes up much more network capacity than voice calls and brings in less money so voice calls must (still) be a much better source of income for network operators. But when looking at the calculations above that is not really the case.

Just as I am on my morning 30 minute train ride I am seeing ever more people who are using their mobile devices not only for voice calls (few) or SMS (quite some) but also for browsing the web, checking their email or using an IM program of some sort to communicate (quite many). On this particular train, the network coverage of the network I use is excellent except for in one spot where I loose the network for a minute. And already that is annoying. My experience on other train routes is not so favorable. So I can't help but wonder if in the future an even better way to differentiate from other network operators than in the past when mobile use was lower is to have good coverage along railway lines for those millions of daily commuters? I can see many commuters changing mobile networks when they see that others seem to have a much better experience. I wonder if those people making the decisions of where to expand network coverage do a daily commute on a train?

I recently reviewed the qualities of a entry level Android phone available at less than 150 euros and overall came away quite impressed. Here's a quick follow up on how image quality compares to one of the best camera smartphones, the Nokia N8. I've included two comparisons in this post one image taken at close range and the other showing more distant objects. It's of course not surprising that the image quality is lightyears away from the N8, even when only zooming into the image up to the resolution allowed by the 3 megapixel camera. But I don't think that's the point I want to make here. Have a look at image quality of a picture taken with a high end 600 Euro smartphone from back in 2002 (the Nokia 7650) and then come back and re-evaluate the entry level 3 megapixel camera quality 🙂

O.k., so if I could decide what to change about current Android phones so I could fully embrace the platform once my current Nokia N8 needs to be replaced it's actually not hard to come up with a long list. Not that I don't like Android at all, quite the contrary, it's just that there are still a couple of fundamental things that still don't work well for me. So here we go:

1. Fix Multitasking: This point would actually get at least 5 places on my list because this is my top grievance with Android. Much better than other platforms in this regard it is still nowhere near Symbian's multitasking capabilities. Even Android 4 – Ice Cream Sandwitch on a flagship device with lots of RAM keeps closing apps such as the browser after a while. So Google, repeat 5 times and say it out loudly: IMPROVE MULTITASKING!
2. Camera & Xenon Flash: The N8 has been out there for ages now and no other device has come close to the camera and Xenon flash performance of the device. Is it really that hard?
3. Offline Maps application: I am traveling a lot and I need a street and navigation app that works with preloaded apps. Sure, there are third party apps that do that but they are not part of the overall package and surely not with worldwide maps. But at least there's a solution today, even if it comes at a price.
4. Better privacy protection: I understand that Google wants to get a return for their investment by hording my private data on their servers. And I would even give them some but definitely not all Android sends home by default. So I'd wish that instead of the per default data export once a user is logged in I'd really like Google to ask me twice before exporting data.
5. USB storage connectivity: Some vendors have removed the USB mass storage option that emulates a drive on the PC. Can I please have that back? SMB over a file manager is an alternative but sometimes the cable is just more convenient.
6. Lock by SMS: Android manufacturers have some interesting schemes how to lock and wipe the device remotely when it is lost or stolen. But it can be done much simpler with an SMS from any phone at any time with a secret user definable password inside. The phone sends an SMS back that it is locked and you are done. Straight forward, simple, easy. Can I have that on Android, too, please? I know there are third party apps but I am a bit weary to loading an app that is allowed to send and receive SMS messages without knowing the author and without having seen the source code. Trust is the important thing here.
7. Smaller display: Bigger is better they say but from my point of view, display sizes have reached ridiculous levels. So please, a high end phone with a reasonable display size, say iPhone dimensions?
8. Cellular Radio Stuff: Yes, I want a high end device so please toss in HSPA dual carrier for improved cell edge reception. And as I travel a lot I value penta-band HSPA for worldwide use a lot. I don't necessarily need LTE in my smartphone if it increases power consumption, call setup times and if reduces the number of supported bands for HSPA. LTE is nice for my tablet and USB dongle for the netbook but on my smartphone I have different preferences.
9. And last but not least: Why on earth can only Nokia do a decent lock/unlock slider button on the side of a device?. Lock in a fraction of a second, unlock in a fraction of a second. No button presses, swiping over the display, waiting for the nice animation to fade away, just lock, unlock, lock, unlock, really fast. Timing is crucial, just like with my multitasking wish above. Which kind of nicely closes the circle.

Non of these things are really difficult to do and I hope by the time Android becomes the OS of my main phone I get at least my first wish plus perhaps a couple of the others. What do you think?

After saying so many good things about Android, Dual-SIM etc. in the previous posts let me get a bit critical for a moment here because there is something that is really bothering me and standing in the way of innovation: Multitasking capabilities on mobile devices are getting worse rather than better.

I know many of you out there think that Symbian is outdated etc. but when you look at it from an application execution point of view quite the contrary is the case. Let's take my Nokia N8 for example: It's multitasking perfectly and has no problem running my web browser, the podcast client, the file manager, my navigation system (Nokia maps), the email client, the gallery, the camera app, the ebook reading application and my messaging client all in memory at the same time. No they are not suspended, they are all running. The podcast player and email client work in the background while my navigation system in the foreground directs me to some place. Switching between the applications is seamless, they are all in memory, they are not suspended, they run all the time. I switch to the browser, it's instantly there, I switch back to the navigation system, it's immediately there, it was never gone. Do all that and then fire up the Youtube app and watch a video. Stop in the middle because somethning else comes up, go to the browser it's still there, go to the navigation system and its still there, go back to the Youtube video and it still waits for you at the position where it has been paused. It's perfect and by the way, it's all done in 256 MB of RAM!!!!

And now turn to Android. Here I have this super high priced tablet that almost has a gigabyte of RAM and I can't even switch between the web browser and my ebook reading app without the other closing. And that is really annoying because I like switching between the two apps to look something up while I am reading and then quickly return to the reader app. But each time I do this there is a delay because when I switch from the browser to the ebook reader, the ebook has to be reloaded again which takes a second or two  because the app was force-quit. When I switch from the reader to the browser again I have to wait a second or two because the web page that was previously shown has to be reloaded and re-rendered. Same with the Youtube app. You pause the video to go to another app for a second and then go back and the video starts from the beginning again. That's really annoying. And that with almost a gigabyte of RAM!?

Back to the N8 and there is zero lag time switching between the ebook reader and the web browser, with a dozen other applications also still running in the background and doing so without draining the battery by the way, which is often said to be the reason why apps are not allowed to fully run in the background on Android and other mobile operating systems. A second or two of delay, that's not too much now is it!? Actually it is, it's a serious usability defect!

Don't get me wrong I am not preaching the return of Symbian and the demise of Android and Co. What I am saying here is that it's time to beef up the multitasking experience on mobile devices because I am sure I am not the only one frequently hopping between applications and wanting to see that happen instantly rather than having to wait till an app is resurrected and has its data reloaded.

I can see tablets taking a bigger market share and replacing notebooks for a lot of things but for that to happen, at least for me, multitasking needs to be significantly improved before I would even remotely consider leaving my netbook at home because there's also the tablet. So please, Google, do something about it, there's living proof that things can be a lot better.

In part 1 and 2 of this review I've been taking a look at the dual-SIM capabilities of this device for voice and data and came away quite impressed. Part 3 now concentrates on the Android experience on this smartphone. Can it really be good for 138 Euros (SIM free) including taxes? The quick answer is: YES!

Four years ago, I reviewed the Nokia 500, a 90 Euro S40 phone that at the time had email capabilities and worked quite well for browsing the net with Opera Mini. But there was no multitasking, no 3G, no Wi-Fi. A couple of years down the road and for a bit more you get a full Android 2.3 smartphone which works surprisingly well.

General UI and Web Browsing Experience

Despite 'only' having 384 MB RAM the applications I use on my other phones on a regular basis work surprisingly well. The general user interface is quick to react, perhaps a tick slower than on those high end Android based smartphones, and scrolling through the screens is fast and absolutely smooth. The stock Android browser works well for smaller web pages but becomes a bit slow on desktop geared pages with lots of pictures and scripts. I also had it crash on me a couple of times on such pages. So I put Opera Mobile on the device and the experience was fast, even when zooming into a full page and having text reformatting active and I didn't get a single crash over several days. Obviously the screen resolution of 320 x 240 pixels makes web browsing far less enjoyable than on super high end phones but again, we are talking about an entry level smartphone here.

EMail

I didn't use either Google's or Samsung's email client on the device but went straight to K9 my preferred open source and independent email program on Android. Works great, fast and pretty much the same way as on any other Android phone. 100% usable

Youtube

Now video streaming must be a problem on such a cheap device, right!? Wrong, Youtube videos play smoothly without any issues over 3G, even when HQ mode is switched on. Very impressive!

Gaming

O.k. so you can't play games with such a cheap device!? Wrong again, Angry Birds plays just fine. It takes a while to load, but once there, animation is absolutely smooth. Even more impressive.

Other Apps and Text Input

I also tried a couple of other apps I'm used to on Android such as the '3G Watchdog" to keep track of my cellular data use and to have a cellular data on/off switch on the idle screen. Also, my favorite German train table lookup and punctuality notifier app (DB Navigator) works as designed. Obviously multi tasking is limited with 384 MB of RAM so changing from one app to another has a fraction a second or so of delay involved which would not be there if the app would have still been running in the background. But quite frankly, not even my Android pad with 1 GB of RAM can keep the web browser and e-book reader in memory simultaneously (something that needs to be investigated…).

Summary

There's of course much more to be discovered such as for example how good the GPS receiver is in combination with Google maps, how good pictures are that are taken with the built in 3 megapixel camera are, etc. etc. but I'll keep that for another time. In general, however, the direction is clear. The low-budget end of mobile is evolving as rapidly as the high end. 5 years ago, the same amount of money bought you much less than today, certainly not a full fledged smartphone experience as you can have with this device today.

Take the Nokia N95 for example, one of the most advanced devices 5 years ago. It included most of the functionalities of the Samunsg 6102 Duos, but it didn't have a touchscreen and the CPU and graphics unit were much slower.  Also, the N95 cost way more than the 139 Euro the Duos costs today. And the Single SIM variant of the device, the Samsung Galaxy Y costs even less than that. The only thing the N95 could probably do better was taking pictures…