Yesterday I mentioned that the 3UK Apple iPhone 4 tariffs didn’t come with the 500Mb – 1GB of BT Openzone WiFi access of their competitors, and suggested you needed to take that into consideration when choosing the best tariff.  Well, BT have gone and changed the whole marketplace now…

BT have said that those BT Total Broadband users who used to have a limited number of minutes on BT FON and BT Openzone access points can now have unlimited access to all 1.5 million hotspots, in fact, BT went further and said that this change was the result of networks like O2 limiting the 3G data usage.  BT also make a point that you’ll be able to use this access on your phone, iPad and other tablet devices.

So, although your 3UK iPhone doesn’t come with any WiFi access, if you are a BT Total Broadband customer, you actually have more access to those hotspots than an O2 iPhone / Broadband customer does, and this, for some, might make this a better combination.

Also, BT announced that they will shortly be offering a downloadable application that will help locate the BT FON and BT Openzone hotspots.

Although it’ll be no surprise that a firmware update was coming to the HTC Hero (we covered it here), and last week the Android v2.1 update started to roll out in Asia, HTC have now confirmed that the Android v2.1 update for the European HTC Hero will start (but not complete) this week.

The firmware update will be a two stage process.  The first stage, a small minor update, should start appearing on HTC Hero devices over the next few days, and will be followed by the main update “towards the end of the month”.  This second update will wipe the phone (so you’ll need to backup your data beforehand) and is sufficiently large that HTC are recommended you use a WiFi / Broadband connection to download the update.

Overall, this is good for the HTC Hero, and will of course allow access to many application which are Android v1.6 or higher, and give access to many of the latest applications of which some even require v2.x, however, what is currently unknown is how quickly the operator specific firmwares will be released.  I would hope to see these be available in a similar timeframe, but as with Symbian branded firmwares, you may see a delay between the HTC release and the update being available for any individual device.

A while ago, 3UK dropped their 15GB per month contract tariffs for Mobile Broadband.  Well, if you felt that 5GB per month was not enough, then we’re pleased to let you know that the 15GB per month deals are available again on the 3Store.  In fact it seems for many options, the 15GB per month replaces the 5GB per month option at the same price, so this is even better value than before! It should be available for Mobile Broadband, 3UK MiFi and laptop deals (and even the 3UK iPod Touch Bundle), although as with many things 3UK -related, you are likely to find these are all 24-month contracts, and not the more traditional 18-month ones.

I’ve been providing a fair bit of coverage over the planned network outages over the last few months, which are part of a long term growth strategy by 3UK, and today they have announced they now have 10,000 3G mast sites.  As well as that, 3UK have confirmed their target for 2010 is 13,000 3G mast sites.

I like the fact that they are both expanding coverage as well as providing additional capacity within their current coverage areas, which is key as more and more people are using Mobile Broadband, and equally, just using the internet directly on their devices.

Congratulations to 3UK for hitting 10,000!

Later this week, I’ll be meeting up with a number of people from all different departments within 3UK, so here’s your chance to get any questions you have asked direct to people within 3UK who may be able to provide feedback for you…

Obviously they need to be general questions about the overall service, or plans for the future (although I doubt they will magically reveal their future product / phone handset plans), as I won’t be able to deal with specific individual problems, but if you have any questions, please add a comment and although the comment may not appear on the public site, I’ll read it and pass on the question if appropriate…

I already have 3 or 4 questions to put to 3UK, so I’m hoping this event will provide some useful information for you when I writeup the event.

In attendance at the event there should be 3UK staff from Customer Services, Handsets, Mobile Broadband, and Products & Services, so whatever your question, I’ll try to pass it on…

Last week 3UK made some changes within their network, such that the maximum possible download speed has increased from 3.6mbps to 7.2mbps.  Now, not every USB Mobile Broadband dongle can take advantage of these faster speeds, but if your dongle can, you may find an increase in speed (you may never get the maximum, but at least the speed should have increased).

It’s nice to see 3UK continue to innovate within their products.

In a move designed to make it clearer what the purpose of the device is, Vodafone has rebranded their Vodafone Access Gateway as Vodafone Sure Signal; ie a device that should guarantee you a good signal in your own home.  The Vodafone Sure Signal (which we covered at its launch here) is now a lot cheaper than it was (£50 to buy outright for many contract customers, compared to £160 for outright purchase at launch), and still needs a minimum 1mbps broadband connection, although most people now have well in excess of that.  To clarify that £50 price; you need a monthly contract of £25 or more to qualify for the £50 price; if your contract is less, or you have a PAYG contract, then the price is £120 to buy outright (although for all customers there is an option of a £5 per month contract instead with a minimum contract term).

So, if you live in a marginal signal area and you have a Vodafone contract (or PAYG phone), you might want to consider whether £50 (or £120)  is money well spent to ensure a good voice (and 3G) signal for your own personal use…

A while back, we covered 3UK’s plans to update their network in London, which would result in small interruptions to their service as they replace equipment necessary to allow them to proceed with their major infrastructure merger with T-Mobile next year (allowing both networks to share the same infrastructure for the benefit of all customers).  Well, 3UK have just announced some wider plans in the South (in a variety of locations from Torquay to Ipswich, and from Milton Keynes to Folkestone).  If you want more information on the areas affected, when they will be affected, and the ability to sign up to receive text alerts (to 3UK or non-3UK mobile numbers) then head here for more information.

Thanks to 3mobilebuzz for letting me know about this new information.

Let’s start with the first issue; actually, it’s not called a MiFi in the UK, it’s called the Novatel Wireless Intelligent Mobile Hotspot 2352, as 3UK own the trademark MiFi in the UK (although Novatel Wireless own the MiFi trademark in the US).  So, the device competes with the 3UK MiFi device, and in some ways is better, and in others, not quite as good.

Firstly, the downside: it is currently only available SIM-free (for around £200), which is a lot more than the 3UK MiFi, which can be picked up for £50.  Of course, the 3UK is locked to 3UK, and only works on 3UK, whereas the Novatel MiFi is not locked, and will pick up the internet access point from whatever SIM is put into it, making it more suitable for anyone looking to use a network other than 3UK.

In terms of ease of use, it has one advantage over the 3UK MiFi; when you turn it on (by pressing and holding the power button) that’s it; it sorts everything out, and “just works”, whereas the 3UK unit needs you to then press and hold the 3G button as a second step.  The Novatel device also gives you access to the microSD card slot via the web interface, whereas the 3UK device only allows access to the card slot via the USB cable.

There are other minor differences; eg the 3UK device comes with the wireless encryption key under the battery inside the unit, but also on a piece of card to allow easy setup, whereas the Novatel only has the code attached to the inside of the battery cover.  This, at first glance, seems better, as it allows the device to remain powered whilst you connect a new device, but I discovered that every time I took the battery cover, my natural instinct was to turn the unit back the right way up (to allow you to see the status lights to see whether the new device had connected), and the battery would loosen enough to switch the unit off.  A minor point, and obviously once everything is setup, not a problem in real usage.

Another minor difference is that the Novatel device will work on 2G as well as 3G; whereas 3UK only offer a 3G-only Mobile Broadband service (although their handsets can roam onto Orange’s 2G network, their broadband devices can’t), and although I wouldn’t want to share a 2G connection to multiple devices, a slow connection may be better than no connection…

I’ll be continuing to trial the device for a little while, but at first glances it looks a nice unit, although everyone I speak to says the 3UK MiFi has one of the best 3G radio components available today, so it will be interesting to see how the Novatel device works under the same conditions that I tried the 3UK MiFi under…

Good news: TiVo is returning to the UK!

Not so good news (depending on where you live): It’s with Virgin Media

Probably the only company that could realistic bring TiVo back to the UK has done just that; Virgin Media and TiVo announced this week they will be working together to produce Virgin’s next generation HD boxes.  TiVo is providing the software to allow this, which will include Video-on-Demand and Broadband delivery of video too.  The TiVo functionality will be in both Virgin’s DVR and non-DVR boxes, which is all good news.

Given Virgin offer both their traditional Cable Modem service and ADSL, it’s not clear whether you’ll need to be within the 50% of the population covered by Cable TV, or whether it will be possible to get access to the TiVo features via an ADSL connection, but this is still very good news for those of us who have supported TiVo for many years.

Of course the other interesting situation is that Virgin already offer BBC iPlayer on their set top boxes, so assuming they don’t intend to remove that functionality, we may see the TiVo solution supporting BBC iPlayer (and even the other networks’ alternatives too, creating a very compelling solution, and one that can truly rival Sky).

Having launched support for the Wii earlier this year (using the browser and Flash support), last week BBC went live with an improved iPlayer solution using their own embedded code and are now featured as their own channel within the Wii Menu.

To get the new menu, head to the Wii Shop, and you should find the new BBC iPlayer Channel available in the Wii Shop for 0 points (ie free).  However, you may find you need to apply a Wii System Update first (if this is needed, you’ll be notified as you enter the Wii Shop Channel).

Once it’s all downloaded, it runs smoothly, although as with the PC client, the streaming will be dependent on the bandwidth your broadband has; and the BBC have released some interesting figures about bandwidth requirements…

As the Wii cannot handle a very high frame rate, the Wii iPlayer client “only” needs around 700Kb/sec (using the H.264 codec), and the BBC have said that any higher resolution or data rate would cause the CPU to struggle and frames would be lost.  Although the Wii obviously can’t support HD, this does mean that HD content is not available, only SD.

The BBC also confirmed that the normal PC client uses roughly 1,500Kbit/sec for SD content, and around 3,200Kbit/sec for HD.  What do these figures mean; well, for people like us stuck out in the countryside on a 512Kbit/sec ADSL line, even the Wii iPlayer client will struggle from time to time, and needs to stop and buffer the data for a while, but it shouldn’t be as bad as the PC client.

There’s no download option (unlike the PC or mobile client) so it’s streaming only.

However, the nice feature of this improved Wii client is that it does give access to the BBC iPlayer content on your TV without needing a PC plugged into the TV, although there are some nice fanless options out there for those who do want to do this (including a device we hope to cover soon here on UK Gadgeteer).

Screenshot of iPlayer on the Wii courtesy of BBC.

O2 have today announced a collaboration between themselves and PURE Digital, bringing PURE’s The Lounge Internet Radio streams to the O2 Joggler, and at the same time, reduced the price down to £99.99.  The O2 Joggler, if you remember, is a proprietary device offering access to a limited set of applications providing access to certain facilities (Weather, Road Traffic, News, Sports, local photo display, and messaging).  In fact, back in the March launch, O2 talked about Messaging and Internet Radio following in May, although only the Messaging support got added (and in June); so finally, they have added the Internet Radio support originally promised!

By working with PURE Digital, they are providing a “selection of the most popular UK BBC and commercial radio stations” (around 100 stations in total) out of the 12,000 or so available via PURE directly, although there’s no word as to whether the O2 Joggler also supports the listen again facilities of The Lounge.

O2 have also announced that the device will be upgraded from Flash 8 to Flash 10, and have announced an SDK will shortly be available to allow developers to create 3rd party application for this device, which will then be accessible to users via a dedicated App Store, which should be available before the end of the year (although based on pretty much all the timeframes so far being missed with this device, don’t hold your breath!)

Initially, the O2 Joggler App Store will only support free applications, which is probably a good move; and any developers interested in developing for this device should look at some of the UK specific widgets developed for the Chumby platform to understand what might work for the UK.  As a hint, Flickr photo display, Live UK train departure / arrival information, and BBC support would all help the device, not to mention apps such as instant messaging and Social Networking support, plus last.fm and/or Spotify support would help make this device sell better, and compete against the PURE Sensia and it’s own application support.

Of course, whether O2 would authorise all those applications is another story, but as the device does not use their 3G network (only the local broadband connection), there is little reason to limit the device, and support like this could in time make it a firm favourite with O2 customers…

As part of 3UK’s major plans to improve their network across the UK, 3UK have to start somewhere, and that somewhere is London.  Already hitting capacity in certain areas, it makes sense to me to start with London to roll out what should end up as a faster, better network, which is one of the two areas 3UK really still need to work on (the other being Customer Services, but that’s not unique to 3UK).  So, to achieve this, there are going to be some outages required, but 3UK are being open and upfront about this, and have even produced a webpage dedicated to these upgrades showing when and where they will happen.  If you go to www.three.co.uk/london, you will see the information for yourself (although over time this webpage may well change to reflect other areas of the country), and you can also sign up for text alerts to be alerted to these issues (which allows you to enter a 3UK mobile number, a non-3UK mobile number; nice option!, and up to 4 postcodes, to allow you to cover home and work, and a couple of other places too!).

Importantly, it looks like from next week until just before Christmas, you may find you lose 3G signal for around 6-8 hours; a mobile phone should drop to Orange’s 2G network for the period (although watch out, mobile data will be less reliable, and much slower), whereas Mobile Broadband users will not be able to connect at all during the outage.

Also from that page, you can enter your postcode (or town name) and it will tell you about any planned outages in your area; for the area around my home, for example, it tells me they performed some work last week, and have more planned for today, which might result in an outage for me; now, if they improve my home 3UK network signal, that’s no bad thing as far as I’m concerned, and well worthy of a few hours of no signal.

These upgrades are all part of 3UK’s plans to build their “Monster Network”, which I first covered briefly when I met with 3UK last month, and they plan to have all these major outages completed by the Summer of 2010 when their much improved network should be fully online.  Having seen their planned coverage map at the end of these works, we should all see a lot less areas of no 3G coverage, and improved capacity in key areas too.

I was fortunate to be invited to an online feedback session with David Kerrigan, who heads up the Internet services at 3UK the other night to discuss the recently launched MiFi device.  One common concern by the early reviewers was the 4 lights, and whether it was clear enough about what the status of the device was.  David said he took these comments onboard, and would look to see what could be done; a little LCD display was discussed, but whether 3UK are able to implement it we don’t know yet.

I raised a question about the lack of GPRS fallback on all 3UK Mobile Broadband devices, and David re-iterated 3UK’s position that with their plans for their “monster” network over the next year, they feel the problems of lack of coverage will go away such that thoughts of GPRS fallback should no longer occur.

Questions were raised over the current management interface, especially for Mac and Linux users, and David confirmed that “early next year” there should be a web interface available for these devices.  When pushed, David took onboard my comments about making new facilities such as this available to existing users, as well as users of the “next generation” MiFi device, and David stated he would feedback to the developers that this was wanted as a firmware upgrade for existing devices, as well as new devices, and I hope the developers listen and provide functionality like this to the early adopters.

A couple of important points from me; firstly, this confirms 3UK’s statement earlier in the year that they want to listen more, and take onboard feedback.  I’m impressed that they are willing and open to discussions on their devices, and for that, I fully support 3UK.  With their new improved network rolling out I guess that just leaves their Customer Service as an issue, although I’m not sure any mobile network could be said to have a “good Customer Service” experience.

Finally, a few snippets of other news; the Android phone announcement should be any day now, and promises to be an interesting device.  Also, 3UK confirmed that they will not be carrying the iPhone any time soon (that’s not to say they won’t ever carry it, just don’t hold your breath!); they said they feel their upcoming range of phones will offer a similar “or better” mobile internet experience, although they did finish with “We’re not saying never.. just not yet”!!

I’d like to thank David from 3UK, Sarah B from 3UK (PR), and the team at 3mobilebuzz for organising the feedback session.  If you have any opinions on 3UK, the MiFi device, or any other area of 3UK’s service, then leave a comment, and I’ll pass it back to 3UK at the next feedback session.

I’ve had access to one of these devices since yesterday, and I am quietly impressed by the device, and it’s capabilities; it’s not perfect (more later), but it certainly is a very useful device…

Although it costs a little more than a standard 3 Mobile Broadband USB Modem, the extra facilities it offers may make it worthwhile for many.  Basically, it shares it’s 3G connection over Wi-Fi to upto 5 devices at the same time.  Now, the 3G network speed is not enough for all 5 devices to be streaming audio or video, but would cope with all 5 checking mail and web surfing.  In fact, I’ve been sat here with 2 laptops connected to it, with one streaming Spotify music for over 2 hours now without any glitches or problems.

One problem with the device is that it is 3G / HSPA only; it will not fallback onto the Orange 2G data network (like a 3UK Handset would), so if you are out of coverage of 3UK’s own 3G network, it will not work at all.  3UK claim to be at 70% population with 3G, which is still one of the highest (if not the highest) for pure 3G connectivity, but the lack of fallback may leave you stranded in the short term.  Last night, 3UK showed their plans for a “monster” 3G network for 2010, which fills in a lot of gaps in their current coverage, so as this better network comes online, this problem will fade to some degree.

One key use of this device is for Wi-Fi only devices, such as the iPod Touch, the Nokia Internet Tablets, PSPs etc. and certainly all these devices gain extra features with connectivity, and it’s very easy to just turn the device on and be able to access the internet anywhere (with signal).  The battery is claimed to last 5 hours, and althougwe haven’t yet got to 5 hours of usage, it’s certainly a plausible figure.  If needed, you can turn off the wireless to limit it to local wired USB connection only, or you can turn off 3G to just give you a local wireless network hub for file sharing.  The network name (SSID) is quite obviously a 3UK device, so you may want to change it (all mangement needs to be performed via a wired cable connection).  You can also change the encryption key, although given this is listed under the battery, it may be easier to leave this alone for convenience.

Other positive points? 3UK are trying to ensure nothing (legal) is blocked by their Internet connection, and certainly everything we accessed worked fine without any issues.  As 3UK have good support for Skype, they are happy for you to run the client on your laptop.  Also interesting to note is that iPhones and iPod Touch can also use a MiFi to allow full access to Skype for calls; whether or not you are allowed to make calls on the Skype client is based on whether the connection is 3G (from the phone) or WiFi (from the phone); the fact that the WiFi access point then uses 3G is not factored in to the switch within the application, so these functions work fine too.

The only other downside we can find is that when you turn it on, you then seem to need to turn on 3G every time; it’s a shame it needs 2 buttons presses, and not just one, but this is a minor point.

The 3 MiFi will be available on Friday in Stores (and available to order online on Thursday)with two pricing options; the “Broadband 5GB 1 month” service will cost £69.99 upfront and then £15 per month for 5GB of data (with a rolling 1 month contract), or you can select the PAYG “Ready To Go” option at £99.99, which will include 3GB of data to be used over a 3 month period, and then it will move onto standard Mobile Broadband PAYG pricing.  3UK have indicated that there may be more tariffs in the future, and they will also review the 5GB limit over time too.

If you are worried about “Bill Shock” with this device (you will get warning SMSes, but as these are only available if you have the connection software installed and connect to the device via the wired USB cable, most people will never see these), 3UK have a “hard block” of £25 per month; once you hit this limit (comprised of the original tariff and then the overspend), 3UK will block the SIM for the rest of the month.  This is a nice feature to limit exposure, and you can ring up 3UK to increase or decrease this limit if you wish.  Of course, the My3 portal is accessible from any connected device (even on wireless) which gives you a live data usage figure should you wish to check how much you have used.

All in all, a useful device, and one you should consider if you want to have the capability of easily sharing your Mobile Broadband and have sufficient 3G coverage in the areas you want to use it.