Vodafone NZ's "Broadband Pro" & my HTC Magic

My HTC Magic is on a two year "Smart 80" plan. It includes 120 minutes, a swag of txts and pxts and 250MB of data. It costs $80 / month. I'm also part of a family group so usage covered by that doesn't count toward my plan. The result is I get to the end of the month having used virtually no minutes, txts or pxts...but way over my data quota. That has been OK up to now because I've benefited from a promo allowing me to use up to 3GB of data each month. I certainly got used to using 3G data whenever I wanted to. The future didn't look too bright after the promo. I keep finding new ways to blow the roof off my cap.

Friday night, Telecom did some maintenance at the Birkdale exchange and managed to plug my DSL connection into the wrong interface, ending my Internet access for several days. I set my other android phone up so our PCs and other devices could tether to it via wifi and access the Net.

That blew my data quota for the month in a single day. I needed a viable alternative.

The Smart 80 plan won't let me buy more data at any price other than 10 cents / MB once I over my quota. That's $100/Gb. Too dear. Instead, I checked out the Vodafone web site. For $79 / month we could get 3GB of data and another 3GB for only $10 more. I didn't realise at that point an entirely separate SIM chip was involved. It arrived today. I put it my other HTC Magic and it didn't work. After some fiddling around and a call to Vodafone, we worked out the 'live.vodafone.com' didn't work, but 'direct.vodafone.com' worked perfectly. The result is an effective 3GB + 250MB per month, plus a swag of minutes, txts and pxts. For an extra $10 I get another 3GB. Any other formulation would see that amount of 3G data costing me almost $700 / month. Instead it's $168.

Dear, but a lot better than $700!

Comparing 3G network speeds: Vodafone vs Telecom XT

Here is how it went down at my house. I'm in the Beach Haven North area of what will soon be the North Shore area of a united Auckland. I have NO IDEA where the nearest cell tower is for these two carriers. They are anonymously strewn up and down the nearby streets.

I used the "Xtremelabs Speedtest" app three times in succession, with a two minute break between each test. I did not restart the app or the phone. The battery had plenty of power. The phone is an HTC Magic running the "as-sold" version of Android. I sat in the same place and held the phone the same way for all tests.

The sample is small and proves nothing about either network, except perhaps 3G speeds are pretty good, though variable. Telecom does seem to be consistently "half-speed" on the upward leg. I saw the same thing last night when I was doing speed tests. That may be a function of distance to the nearest tower. I'm assuming it's easier for the phone to "hear" the tower than it is for the tower to "hear" the phone.

The Vodafone tests were done between 20:11 and 20:18 and the Vodafone results were as follows:

1. Max down: 1229.0Kbps / Avg down: 1152.1Kbps
   Max up: 273.8Kbps / Avg up: 273.6Kbps
   
   
2. Max down: 806.1Kbps / Avg down: 795.4Kbps
   Max up: 294.8Kbps / Avg up: 255.6Kbps
   
   
3. Max down: 885.7Kbps / Avg down: 804.9Kbps
   Max up: 310.3Kbps / Avg up: 309.2Kbps
   

Telecom XT network tests were between 20:26 and 20:32. Here are the Telecom XT results.

1. Max down: 1455.5Kbps / Avg down: 1447.2Kbps
   Max up: 139.2Kbps / Avg up: 156.6Kbps
   
   
2. Max down: 1360.1Kbps / Avg down: 1212.3Kbps
   Max up: 150.7Kbps / Avg up: 142.5Kbps
   
   
3. Max down: 885.4Kbps / Avg down: 580.4Kbps
   Max up: 154.9Kbps / Avg up: 113.6Kbps
   
   

Do your own tests....if nothing else, it's fun. :-)

Mobile Brain Fart Aftermath

On Friday morning last week I left my mobile phone in the toilet of a McDonalds in Matamata. Realising what I had done, I was back in there looking for it within a few minutes, but it had gone. I think a young boy who went in not long after me probably nabbed it.

The phone was a "Vodafone 715" 3G wee thingy that had been serving me very well. It did Internet web browsing ($10 / MB - survivable for Gmail), SKY Mobile TV, MP3 playing and txting and could even make and receive phone calls. If you looked inside, you'd find that it was made by Huawei, in China. From what I could tell, it provided all the functionality of a more expensive phone at a fraction of the price. It also does video calls, but has the odd "feature" of the video camera being on the back of the phone...so whoever you call can see whatever is in front of you...not you.  If both of you turn your phones around to show yourself on camera, neither of you can see each other because the screen is now pointing away from you. Silly, really. I never make video calls anyway. 

The replacement cost $149 (on sale) at DSE in Levin. The "Sim Swap" to move my (blocked earlier in the day) existing number to the new phone cost $20. I was impressed. Based on recent experience in Canada, a new, similar, phone there - full price - plus number swap, would have cost a LOT more than that....Last year, the *cheapest* phone (not tied to a contract) I could find from any provider was C$199 + 14% PST/GST. Bell Canada did have a Nokia 1100 for $99, but after waiting for it on order for two weeks was told by the retailer that they weren't actually supposed to be selling those. Moments like that let you know there isn't really enough competition. 
On Friday, DSE had phones for NZ$59 including taxes. Canadians would be wetting their pants that is SO cheap at about C$43. Less than a quarter of what they have to pay. 

The Vodafone 715 isn't well supported on the Vodafone web site (error 404 on links is common) or via the 777 customer line, but the phone itself is fairly straightforward. If you're looking for a good, CHEAP 3G phone, this one is hard to beat. You just have to get used to the idea this Vodafone-branded phone won't be supported as well as Nokia or other brands. For example, the list of phones they support configs for doesn't include this one and when you try to access the help for "not listed"....you get Error 404. Also, none of the Vodafone-branded phones are listed on their "approved" list of handsets. 

Gaping holes in marketing and support aside, a Vodafone 715 3G handset is a good phone and cheap to replace when you forget it somewhere. 
Like I did. 

UPDATE: Why CNN is gone from Sky Mobile TV

Here is the response I got to my query as to why CNN was removed from Sky Mobile TV:

Hello Steve,

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately as with any channel that we have, whether it is via SKY decoders or SKY Mobile TV, the continuation is dependent on the viewership numbers. CNN did not prove to be very popular on SKY Mobile TV which is why it has been removed.

Regards
(customer service person)

(Looks like sport, soft porn, reality TV, cartoons and celeb gossip rule the day on Sky Mobile TV. I'll remain unsubscribed.)

They took my CNN away......

Vodafone and Sky Mobile TV

I have been using Sky Mobile TV on Vodafone for the past several months. It's one of the Vodafone Live! offerings. For $2.50 / week, you get access to a number of Sky channels on your 3G phone. The ONLY reason I added it to my service was to watch CNN. I have NO interest in reality TV on MTV, cartoons on Cartoon Network, or Hollywood gossip on E! or the various sports and soft porn that compose the rest of the Sky Mobile TV offerings. The Prime news bulletin from the previous day isn't compelling by itself.

CNN was the big draw for me. Not that it's that great. The time to useful information ratio was at the low end of the scale, but it was useful to listen to on the headset and pull the phone out of the pocket for a look if anything interesting came up. I would have much preferred BBC World to CNN-I.

Today when I tried to watch CNN, I found it was gone. Hmmm. I called 777 to find out if this was a glitch. As often happens, the person answering the phone at first didn't understand what I was talking about. Then she went away for ages to find out and came back with: "I'm sorry, Sir. If it's no longer on the menu, it must be gone."

At time of writing, the Vodafone web site still includes CNN as one of the listed channels. I've sent a note asking them to confirm the fate of CNN. Without it, the Sky Mobile service is rendered uninteresting to me and I won't be continuing the subscription to it.

Zimbabwe

Looks like the gloves are coming off. The Mugabe push-back, backed by the police, appears to now be underway. Sad to see Mugabe living down to our lowest expectations of him.