I’m back at my desk after a swift tour in the UK last week, a place that appears to be home to one of the most advanced mobile Internet industries I’ve seen recently. My home country of Germany is certainly no laggard when it comes to offering high-speed Internet over 3.5G networks but the UK is a big step ahead. Everywhere you go on the high-street there are promotions and advertising for ‘mobile broadband’ which is the carriers way of trying to pull in DSL and cable customers with the promise of the mobility factor. 10 pounds a month gets you a 2 year contract with a free ‘dongle’ on a 3G network 15 per month nets you 3.6mbps access. Even the pay-as-you-go offerings are good. Its very consumer focused now and seems to have moved on from business-level marketing.
I had been using a 3UK SIM card for my UK visits and paying 5 pounds for a week of 3G access but that’s dropped down to 2.50 now with a 1 pound, no-questions-asked SIM card. (I bought a second one and dropped it into my Q1 Ultra while I was there!)All this mobile Internet activity isn’t centered around PC’s and UMPCs though. It’s centered around the advanced user profile of the average UK mobile phone owner. Everywhere you looks, kids and young adults are using smartphones and it’s not just for texting. MMS seems to be taking off along with online email access, video calling and other high-end activities. The ‘mobile broadband’ advertising is definitely a play to get these mobile phone users into the idea of data usage and not for the average bandwidth-hungry laptop user. They need to be careful though because the smartphone is becoming more of a bandwidth drain than a laptop. My photos and podcasts are up and downloaded from my mobile phone now and I’m regularly playing online videos. If this usage pattern continues with other smartphone users, the carriers bandwidth planning will be way off; just like it was when file-sharing screwed up the DSL and Cable bandwidth usage calculations for the ISPs 5 years ago. Whatever the drive is though, mobile broadband is definitely penetrating the consumer market in the UK now and a 150 quid, carrier and Facebook-subsidised MID would probably work in the UK better than anywhere else at the moment. A few TV-star or film placements in the right movies would send those fashion-conscious kids running to the tills!
During the week there were a couple of bits of news that I didn’t get round to to reporting. Firstly, the 32GB SSD Everun. I was going to write something about it but I decided to contact Raon Digital instead to get the inside story on it. It’s still not clear to me how they are offering the 32GB drive so I’ve written to them again. What is clear is that it’s faster than the old SSD-based drives (it will now be as fast as the HDD drives, not slower, as with the 6GB SSD) and will be a drive located in the HDD bay, not soldered onto the mobo. Effectively, it’s an S60H with the drive taken out and an SSD dropped-in. I’ll relay the final details in the Everun forum when I get them. Dynamism are offering the 32GB model for $1099 which is by far the cheapest SDD-based device you’ll find at the moment. I’m afraid it’s not enough to tempt me back into using the Everun though. I’m really enjoying the Q1 Ultra since I changed and I plan to complement it by buying a MID as my next pocket-Internet device. Probably the Gigabyte M528.
The other bit of news, which I’m really not too interested in as it seems more of a demonstrator or proof-of-concept than anything else, is the Nokia N810 with WiMax which might launch this week. I wonder what that N830 was then? One of the interesting things to watch on this will be the initial pricing and per-month cost. It will give a good indicator of how the carriers want to play the contract and subsidy game. Will they go for 24-month or 12-month contracts? Will it be flat-rate? What speed will it be? We might hear more from CTIA tomorrow. [There’s an interesting but largely promotional podcast on the US mobile market at the CTIA website.]
One more interesting item, and another good one for VIA following the recent HP 2133 news, is the report that Isaiah is moving towards release in May or June. this is excellent news for VIA as it means that within a very short time we could see OQO’s, U60’s, T770’s and WiBrains with much more processing power and it will of course attract new developments in the productivity ultra mobile PC space. [CNet via GottaBeMobile]
That was the week that was, but now it’s time to look forward to the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai. Reporters have arrived and I’ve already seen blogs from The Inquirer and ZDNet. Josh Bancroft, Intel’s employee, blogger and ultra mobile PC owner is on his way there and will be blogging too. Expected: Atom processor launch dates. (I estimate end of May.) New devices (guaranteed. Probably some that are exclusinve to carriers.) and some nice ecosystem announcements (probably relating to Moblin.) I’m pretty sad that I’m not out there myself but that’s how it goes. I tried hard to get it organised but it just didn’t happen in the end. Instead i’ll be staying up overnight and drinking lots of coffee! Stay tuned to UMPCPortal.
