Vodafone put on a very nice spread of beer, wine and nibbles. As I am always super organised, I had consumed some sushi at work before driving into the city. But I had some wine. Seriously, whens the last time you got something for free from Vodafone? I had a lovely chat with Hamish. We discussed awesomeness like 14.4k modems and the days where the BBS was better than the internet. It was. Once upon a time, in the early 1990s.

We were moved into a room off the Vodafone foyer. There we were given colored dots and broken up into groups of 5.  But before it all got kicked off, we were introduced to the Data Demons. These five boys/men are located at Vodafone owned stores in the central city and north shore and are experts in all things smart phone related. This is a new concept by Vodafone Retail to have these Data Demons accessible in store, 7 days a week. Not a silly idea in my book. I can think of at least one occasion where I have dished out smartphone advice to a Vodafone retail employee.

Sorry about the angle of the photo, but I’m sure you get the idea. Daniel and his crew of Data Demons did a presentation that in the past, you would have carried around 7kg of “crap” whereas this now fits into an approx 120gm smartphone. You can now have your GPS, Phone, Calendar, Documents, Notes etc in the one device and not spread across many. He showed a few slides of smartphone market growth etc and then told us how the evening would work. We were split up into our coloured dot groups and sent to various corners of the V’Nue suite. He also proved that Data Demons are human and had some issues with his laptop. C’est la vie.

First up for our Green Group was the Blackberry Bold. This told me nothing I didn’t already know about Research in Motion and the Blackberry Bold as a device. I’ve come across Blackberrys and I know people who love and people who hate them. But the gentleman who did this presentation did a very good job and covered everything one would expect in a first meeting with the Blackberry.

We then moved on to the Nokia E71. This was the phone I was going to get before I found out how much I loved the iPhone. Again, a really nice presentation of slides and excellent MS Paint skills for this presenter. For the other people there, I think they got this phone more that the BB Bold. Instead of someone holding up a phone going blah blah, we had slides, and I’m a visual learner. I admit I may have learnt a wee bit about the operational side of this phone.

By the time we got to the Mobile Broadband display, the whole group thing had kind of disintegrated. I learnt that the white/black vodems are different, and well the netbook, I had one of those.

At the end of the evening, with half the people left, they had a draw for the HTC Magic. I was pleased that the guy who won the phone did in honesty. It would have been better going to me, but he had this horrible, bulking winmo phone and the HTC with its static-glass touch thing will change his life.

My highlights of the evening were photographing Paul Brislen’s desk, Hamish explaining the magnetic floors and an old lady announcing that she had only come to get a battery for her trusty Nokia 3320. WTF!?!? But these things happen.

Congratulations to Vodafone on a good evening. Sorry I didn’t learn much, but considering you had the Amway function next door, and congratulations on that too, but you did an excellent job and overall I rate the Data Demons 4.5 out of 5. They’re all nice young men, well spoken and knowledgeable. I would love to chat to them in a store any time about mobile data.

My day started innocently enough. I went and had my monthly facial at Beauty on the Hills in Drury. It was bliss. After this, getting on the motorway, I realised time wasn’t on my side. I had to get over to Constellation Drive to collect my new computer monitor, but needed to stop at an ASB branch to withdraw $100 towards the cost of it. My original plan was to go to Botany Town Centre first and get the money there. But with time ticking, Sylvia Park seemed awesome. I got to the counter at the ASB and they told me that I can’t physically withdraw money from my Accelerator savings account, after some begging, they agreed to put my empty cheque account into OD to let me get the money, on the pro-visor that I transferred the money electronically from my savings account to the cheque account before leaving the store. Yay for iPhone’s Safari browser and boo for the Vodafone 3G reception inside Sylvia Park. But by the time I got back to my car, I had made the transfer required to keep my bank happy for another day.

Now I had to get over to Constellation Drive. Where possible, I will never drive any further north than Newmarket. This is where I whipped out the TomTom app and punched in the address. Bingo. It got it slightly wrong, so I used some gut instinct and it got me close to where I needed to be. I used google maps satellite view to figure out that I had to drive around the back of a building to find where I needed to be. Got the monitor. Its awesome. Review to follow.

Now I needed to get to a Rebel Sports store to buy more sneakers for sneaking. I punched in “rebel sports” into the Yellow Pages app and it told me the nearest one was Wairau Road and showed me a map. Awesome! I knew how to get there from Constellation so off I went.

With shoes in hand and a monitor in my boot, I needed to go to the loo. I plugged “public toilet” into Zenbu and it gave me a few options, but none suitable. Fortunately there are petrol stations on the way from Wairau Road to the Motorway. And homeward bound I went.

I conclude that had I not had the iPhone today, I would be lost. I would be still at ASB pleading with the lady at the counter, or lost somewhere on the North Shore. I’m not sure which is worse. But one thing is for sure, I am pleased to be home, even if the wallet is feeling a little lighter.

Telecom have two options on the table for me as an iPhone lover. I can either sign up for their special offer OneRate180 on 24 month contract and pay $80 a month, getting 180 minutes, no text message bundle and 240mb free data included, and get a $600 account credit.

Third option and my preferred option, port my number to Telecom. Have an open contract, paying just $53 or thereabouts a month, I can have 60 minutes, 150 txt msgs and 240mb of data on a faster network.

At a saving of $120 per annum, why stick around with Vodafone when I can save time (in the form of network speed) and money with Telecom XT.

So there you have it. Once my Vodafone credit is gone, I will port to XT. Thanks for sticking through this series of blog posts regarding my perspective on a potential change in carriers. Call it my seven year telco itch.

1. Ericsson Model Unknown (Telecom Prepay)

Purchased 1999.

I bought this when I bought my first car sometime in. Kept 10 numbers in memory. Stolen in 2000.

2. Alcatel 301 (Vodafone Prepay)

Insurance Supplied 2000

The Y2k bug came and went. My insurance company gave me this phone to replace the above phone. I had it a month or so and then it met a watery grave in the carpark, MIT Arts Faculty building.

3. Nokia 5110i (Telecom Prepay)

Purchased 2000

Back in the day when I got this, only Telecom could text Telecom and Vodafone could only text Vodafone. Dark days indeed. All my friends at polytech had Telecom phones, so this was the only way to keep in touch.

4. Nokia 3315 (Vodafone Prepay / Vodafone Contract)

Purchased 2002

My brother worked at Bond & Bond Manukau and got me this phone on his staff discount. It was well travelled, including a trip to Bathurst in 2004.

5. Motorola Model Unknown (Similar to C118) (Vodafone Contract)

Purchased October 2004

Chinatown, Sydney in 2004. Was tiny. Still is compared to most phones around. But it always sounded like you were talking to people from a toilet cubicle.

6. Sharp GX30i (Vodafone Contract)

Purchased 2005

Yes I forked out the $1000 asking price. It was an awesome phone and I wish I still had it. It met its fate in the toilet one evening after I had been out for a walk. I forgot it was in my back pocket. Woops.

7. Sony Ericsson V800 (Vodafone Contract)

Insurance Supplied 2006

The Vodafone 3G network had just been released and this is the phone my insurance company gave me. I hated it. It always clicked when you opened it and was no better in size than my original brick phone in 1999. Last seen heading on a courier to Christchurch where my brother uses it as a spare phone. Maybe.

8. Motorola V3x (Vodafone Contract)

Purchased March 2007

Vodafone were doing a contract deal to get this phone for free. Compared to my V800, this was a nice phone. And it was a nice phone. Until a month out of warranty it started making a very weird, loud, beeping noise from all the speakers. Worried that it was going to blow up, I sold it to a co-worker for $50. He threw it at someone and broke it. Life goes on.

9. Nokia 6121 (Vodafone Contract)

Purchased April 2008

This is an excellent phone and I still own it. I just use it as a broadband modem now. But its with this phone, I learnt so much about mobile Internet and playing with phones beyond the calling/txting/pxting boundaries. I am very attached and have fond memories with this awesome, tiny phone. its a smart phone in disguise!

10. Apple iPhone 3G 8GB (Vodafone Contract – but for how long?)

Purchased June 2009

My current cellphone and I am in love with it. It is totally awesome and I wouldn’t be without it. Its the best phone I’ve ever purchased by a long shot. And you will hear me say that so many times on this blog.

So there you have it. My complete cellphone history. 10 Phones in 10 Years. Not too bad if I do say so myself. Sure there are some dubious choices in there, but hindsight in 20/20 and knowledge is power. I think I just set a record for cliches. But cliches aside, If I could change some of what I’ve bought and the decisions about telcos, maybe things would be different.

Test One – Speed

A direct side by side speed test using the speedtest.net application on my iPhone. I did this test from my desk at work in Mt. Wellington. The building can best be described as a 1962 vintage, concrete slab, concrete block exterior and tin roof. My office is located above a graphic design suite and we back onto a large hill formerly known as Hamlins Hill. I get full coverage on both networks at my desk. Below are the screenshots:

Below is my speedtest.net screenshot from XT

And now, my screenshot from Vodafone

Test Two – Coverage

I ran this particular comparison from my desk in Papakura. My house is a 3 year old brick and tile. My desk is located in the north-west corner of the house, which is in a slight dip, but not the lowest lying part of the town. On my desk, I have my laptop, two monitors, corded phone, printer, Sky HDi Box, Speakers and the usual geek assortment of odds and sods, and my desktop is running away somewhere there too. I’ve never had great Vodafone reception at this desk. In fact, I’ve been known to get NO SERVICE at times too. So I decided to take a couple of iPhone screenshots to compare coverage in this tricky little corner of my world.

Wow. Full coverage sitting at my desk on Telecom XT. ZOMG!

And the questionable quality I shouldn’t have to get used to from Vodafone 3G

Initial Conclusions

While I have not yet tested call quality, coverage or speed tests in other parts of town. I am impressed with the results I am receiving from the XT network. Honestly, the results I am getting make me more disillusioned with Vodafone with each and every test that I run. Customer loyalty aside and despite my feelings that Telecom are an evil, faceless corporation who screwed me over for six weeks when we moved in here, I am warming to the idea that I might just port to them.

As the iPhone has revolutionised my life, its revolutionising my debtors as well.

unlockit.co.nz offers a way to update the XT carrier settings into your iPhone without having to jailbreak it. You can download the carrier settings file here.

(As I did this in windows, my instructions are microsoftised, but there are instructions for both)

With iTunes closed, I opened the command prompt and put in the following text in its entirety.

“%ProgramFiles%\iTunes\iTunes.exe” /setPrefInt carrier-testing 1

I then opened up iTunes, plugged in my iPhone and went to the sync page. I held down shift and clicked update. Up sprang a window and I selected my XT carrier settings file downloaded earlier and away I went. Just to check, I put in my XT prepaid sim card and hello, this is my screen.

See the pretty XT logo in the top left hand corner. Totally awesome! This method isn’t guaranteed to allow you to roam. That’s an experiment that is too expensive for me to try! But now all I need is some credit on my XT sim card to do a few call tests and a mobile broadband speed comparison before I decide to stay with Vodafone or move to the eternally evil corporate formerly known as Telecom.

I emailed Vodafone and let them know that I am disappointed in their 3G and this is what they had to say:-

Dear Alison,

Thank you for your website enquiry.

I am sorry to hear that you are not satisfied with the 3G Broadband Speeds provided by Vodafone.

What has attracted me to Telecom’s new XT network is the speed. I use mobile internet more than I do calling and text messaging these days. In the space of 6 months my mobile useage have been revolutionised by mobile broadband with the likes of Gravity on the Nokia and now this blessed iPhone.

This week Telecom and Vodafone have exchanged blows in an effort to drag iPhone customers one way or another. And one person on twitter even had a spreadsheetpalooza comparing the costs involved in either telco.

Telecom offered up a $600 account credit if you sign up to their OneRate180 plan for 24 months, and they would give you free data upto 240mb per month. You would have to pay for a text messaging bundle on top of that and purchase an iPhone outright.

Vodafone offered up 1000 free MMS messages and 3gig of data free to all users on an iPhone plan for 3 months starting from your next billing date. Your text bundle remains untouched, ditto voice minutes.

But there are more difficulties involved. I still have $1100 odd of credit on my Vodafone account which I won through the 3G Guy promotion. If I move networks, I will forfeit this credit and have to pay an additional $360 + GST early termination charge.

So will I move to XT? I’m seriously contemplating it. But before I ink an agreement with anyone, I will put, to quote Richard Hammond, put them both to the test in my iPhone and decide from there.

]]> http://blog.alikatnz.com/2009/07/to-xt-or-not-to-xt-that-is-my-question/feed/ 3 http://blog.alikatnz.com/2009/04/mobile-broadband-twitter/ http://blog.alikatnz.com/2009/04/mobile-broadband-twitter/#comments Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:49:37 +0000 alikatnz http://whiskeygeek.wordpress.com/?p=116 Ok. Its been a wee while since my last post, but I thought this would be something worth blogging about. I haven’t ceased in my quest of geekdom, instead, I have been more involved in it than ever. And I can blame certain people, but they won’t be named here.

1. Twitter

Fantastic time waster. Brilliant. But I found out how really handy it can be today. I was having some trouble signing up to Vodafone Broadband Lite (more on that further down) and getting no where with customer services. So I twittered a tweet to @vodafoneNZ and the lovely man there asked me for a DM (Direct Message) with my mobile number and within 5 minutes, I was sorted. This is verses the 20 minutes I had ripping my hair out with their customer services desk the old fashioned way.

2. Dandy Warhols

Dear Vodafone, please change your hold music. They were a one hit wonder and 10 minutes of the same song, Bohemian Like You, is too much and drove me near suicidal. Thank you.

3. Vodafone Broadband Lite

I have noticed an increase in my mobile broadband data useage. I am lucky enough to have a nice Nokia 6121, while not the coolest phone, and lacking QWERTY sophistication, it does the few things I want. Lately I have noticed more and more, I rely on Mobile Broadband. Be it accessing my facebook page while I’m at the racetrack, using IRC while travelling to Hamilton (NOT while driving… ), or uploading funny photos to Flickr. Yes. I have become so internet addicted that I can get it all on my mobile.

Now until Vodafone brought along this nifty new plan of 100mb of Data for $10 a month, I was using their casual useage plan of $1 / Day, limited to 10mb. This was all good, but I rarely use 10mb a day, but I use my mobile interwebs most days a month, resulting in bills of around $20/month for mobile data. At least now I have the added bonus of not having to pay for expensive hotel data when on the road as well. Doubly awesome!

So from now until eternity, or whenever I buy a laptop with bluetooth, I will have to ensure I travel with my Nokia Data Cable!

4. Firefox

How I lived so long without this browser, I have no idea. I have a fantastic add on called ‘Yoono‘ which sits on the left hand side of my browser window and updates me with new tweets and facebook happenings like pokes and status changes. I can also use MSN Messenger on it, check and read my gmail and it also gives me my RSS feeds – something I was looking at useing to keep up with the play. I haven’t had a look at any other Firefox addons, but I will soon.

5. Ubuntu on the Acer Laptop

I took the plunge and gave Ubuntu its own 10gb partition on my Vista “powered” laptop. I put powered in quotes as running vista, it is a complete dog. Its very slow and painful and whilst I disable most of the pretty vista features, it was not designed for Vista. But just for booting up for an internet surf, quick internet check, Ubuntu serves me just fine. I’m still attached to MS Office tho. Read No. 6

6. Kudos to Warehouse Stationery

I got a flier in my local paper last week from the Papakura Warehouse Stationery. $49.00 to buy a copy of Microsoft Office Home & Student Edition. Limited to 15 copies only. So I was there before the store opened. I got one of those 15 copies and am now very chuffed to finally own a legit copy of Office. I will save up now to buy a legit copy of Outlook.