O2 USB broadband modem E160 - in white

O2 have unleashed a Pay-as-you-go mobile broadband dongle on the UK, with some pricing that is going to cause consternation amongst other Operators:

By launching its USB modem at £29.99, O2 is following up its commitment to offer its customers great products with clear pricing and no strings attached.

Pay & Go mobile broadband customers will also benefit from O2’s new coverage checker and 50-day Happiness Guarantee. Since these new customer-focused measures were launched in November, O2 has seen a considerable drop in the number of returned USB modems, showing that simple, honest advice has led to consumers being better informed at the time of purchase.

O2 Mobile Broadband Pay & Go offers users a fast and easy way to access the internet at home and on the move, without the need for long-term contracts. Customers will be able to access download speeds of up to 3.6Mbps and will have unlimited access to over 6,000 Wi-Fi hotspots across the UK, through our partners at The Cloud.

O2 Mobile Broadband Pay & Go is available in a range of options starting at just £2 a day for 500MB, £7.50 a week for 1GB or £15 a month for 3GB depending on their needs, all with unlimited Wi-Fi access.

Available across the UK, the O2 Mobile Broadband Pay & Go service offers:

• 500MB, 1GB or 3GB download allowance
• Unlimited Wi-Fi access to over 6,000 hotspots in locations such as McDonalds and major airports (e.g. Heathrow, Gatwick)
• No minimum term contract
• 50 Day Happiness Guarantee 1
• 24/7 support from a UK Call Centre
• Plug and play for easy set-up
• Fast wireless access to the internet on the move 2

Customers can purchase O2 Mobile Broadband Pay & Go in any O2 retail store, by going to the O2 Online store at www.o2.co.uk, through a number of our indirect partners such as Carphone Warehouse or by calling O2 customer service on 08705 214000.

Footnote: Unfortunately at this moment you can’t actually find the the PAYG mobile broadband offering on the O2 site - unless I’ve missed something REALLY obvious! However, I’m sure that will be sorted within the next couple of day

[Via: O2 mediacentre]

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1. Your last bastion of Internet Free peace is gone. Forever. You'll be forced to work on flights instead of valium napping or reading comic books, and your boss will expect you to be checking email. Time to plan a camping trip.
2. Total bandwidth is not as fast as Cable Modem, but it seems faster than slow DSL. (We were sharing 3.6Mbps down and 1.8Mbps up, which isn't bad at all, on this Virgin America test flight, and it felt this fast when benching.)
3. But bandwidth is shared between customers. Aircell's GoGo a 3GHz EVDO-Rev A related tech modded for ground to air, started crawling as soon as other passengers signed on. (I got a test result measuring 66kbps down at one point, but Ryan showed about a mbit down. )
4. You have to pay. Virgin America charges, for example $9.95 for flights under 3 hours, and $12.95 on flights over 3 hours.
5. You will still need to close your laptops and shut off your devices until you reach cruising altitude.
6. Most airlines, even those that are not blocking ports, are blocking known VOIP ports. For our sanity. Although I WAS able to initiate a really solid iChat video session, but they may filter this on real flights. (See Below, courtesy of Nick Bilton from the NYTimes.)
7. Although plenty of airlines will have Wi-Fi by the end of next year, I prefer Virgin America because they've got 110v AC power plugs in coach.
8. WiFi porn won't be blocked by Virgin America or American Airlines (according to a test earlier this week.) But blocking porn is silly — people can easily play porn on DVDs or predownloaded files, but people generally have refrained so there's no reason to think they'll do otherwise now.
9. Flights using Go Go service will be able to connect to a VPN.
10. You can file share with other computers on the 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi network. That's good for gaming, but also, make sure your firewall is up.

Most of this applies to Virgin and GoGo's set up, but since GoGo will be providing service for companies like Delta and AA and eventually more, much of this will apply to other airlines.

• The service is a shared high-power EV-DO Rev. A connection, at 3.6Mbps downstream and 1.8Mbps upstream.
• By April, 100% of Virgin America's flights will have GoGo service. Dayumn!
• So far I've been getting about 1Mbps down, and 200Kbps up -- pretty good considering that this is about as pinned as the system is going to get. There are only about 150 people on it right now, you know?
• Latency is between 200-500ms, sometimes higher. Reasonable latency, though.
  
• The system uses 802.11a/b/g, although it's an open AP (i.e. no encryption).
• Aircell intends to block voice and video chat to keep things less obnoxious for travelers. It's working in flight though -- people are doing iChat sessions. But part of this inaugural flight will have live YouTube streaming, so one should expect to have this cut off later.
• BitTorrent works! It's not crazy fast, but I'm peering with about 8 nodes. I wouldn't expect this to work when the service launches.
  
• GoGo has a built-in traffic shaper that keeps an eye out for those using more traffic than others. If you're consuming too much, it'll scale you back (although no one has a hard cap). If you're the only one on GoGo (say, on a red-eye at 4am) then you can go crazy, you won't be scaled back. Still, I'm sitting next to my old pal Brian Lam from Giz, and I'd wager the two of us are somehow taking up about 80% of the plane's bandwidth.
  
• Virgin America isn't filtering content, so feel free to cast a glance over your shoulder and engage your browser's private mode.

Filed under: Transportation, Wireless

On Virgin America's inaugural GoGo WiFi flight: this post published from 35,000 feet originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The last time we saw Asus P565 was way back in September. And since then, nothing in the phone has changed except its official status. Asus quietly announced the fastest PDA phone, P565 which sports a Marvell Tavor 800MHz processor. Other exciting features of the phone are its 2.8-inch screen with VGA resolution, 3.6MBps HSDPA and its slick 3D UI Glide. To make the offering more exciting, Asus has also integrated Wi-Fi, GPS antenna and a 3-megapixel camera with autofocus. Asus P565 seems to mimic Blackberry Bold somehow with its glossy face while the rear is graced by the black synthetic leather.

No word on the release or the pricing of the phone.

Specifications:

Networks: HSDPA 3.6Mbps, UMTS 2100, EDGE/GPRS/GSM 900/1800/1900, Class 10
Operating System: Microsoft Windows® Mobile 6.1™ Professional
Color: Black
Form factor: Bar type
Dimensions: 102 mm x 60.5 mm x 16 mm
Weight: 120 g (with battery)
Standby Time: 250-300 hrs with 3G and 200-250 hrs with 2G
Talk Time: 3 hrs with 3G and 4 hrs with 2G
Display: 2.8″ TFT, 65K-color Touchscreen, VGA (480 x 640 pixels)
Processor: Marvell TavorP 800 MHz
Memory: 256 MB Flash + 128 MB DDR SDRAM
Expansion Slot: MicroSD with SDHC support
Connectivity: WLAN 802.11b+g , USB v1.1(FS), Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
WAP Browser: HTTP / WAP 1.2.1/2.0
Messaging: SMS / MMS / Email / MSN / Push E-mail
Battery: 1300 mAh Li-Ion
GPS: SiRF Star III with InstantFix

Applications: Word (editor), Excel (editor), PowerPoint (viewer), Windows® Live, MSN, Voice Commander and Push Email (Exchange Server), Anytime Launcher, ASUS Today, EziMusic, EziPhoto, Business Card Recognition and PDF viewer.

Multimedia and Entertainment

Camera: 3 M Pixel Auto Focus (Main)
300 K Pixel for Video Telephony (Sub)
Video: Record:MPEG4@QVGA 24fps / H.263@QCIF 24fps
Playback:MPEG4@QVGA 30fps / H.263@QCIF 30fps
Audio/Video Streaming
Picture Format: JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP
Audio Format: MP3, WMA, 3GP, AAC, and AAC+
Ringtone: MP3 / MIDI
JAVA: J2ME (CLDC 1.1 + MIDP2.0)

Press Release

ASUS today introduced the ASUS P565, a business PDA phone that boasts an 800 MHz processor - the fastest in the world at the time of this announcement. Featuring ASUS’ latest touch-driven user interface—Glide—the stylish, leather-accented P565 delivers graphics and system performance beyond anything else on the market at present, posting Vsbenchmark scores almost two times that of competing products in its class. This enables the P565 to glide through resource-intensive tasks effortlessly and to handle heavy multitasking exceptionally well—making it ideal for businesspeople who demand uncompromising performance and maximum speed from their productivity tools. Rounding off its impressive feature set is a 2.8" touchscreen running at a high resolution of 480 x 640 pixels, delivering an unprecedented degree of clarity that does wonders for both personal photographs and spreadsheets.

Gliding to New Heights of Productivity
The ASUS P565 is geared toward the business community. The coupling of an 800 MHz processor and Glide—an innovative touch-responsive user interface exclusive to select ASUS PDA phones—makes for a powerful, productivity-boosting combination. The fast processor renders the P565 particularly amenable to multitasking, while Glide enables users to switch between tasks rapidly with their fingertips. The P565 also comes with a potent suite of business-oriented features and software, including push mail, business card recognition and Microsoft Office Mobile. Other useful applications such as Anytime Launcher and Multi-Home enable users to view their calendars, the times of local and visiting cities, weather reports, online news and much more—all with an intuitive tap, slide or flick of their fingers.

Unprecedented Clarity with High-resolution Touchscreen
The ASUS P565 is equipped with a 2.8" VGA (480 by 640 pixels) high-resolution touchscreen that delivers unprecedented clarity and brilliance. Photographs look crisper and more true-to-life, while minute details in business documents, such as the individual cells in spreadsheets, are reproduced much more clearly—reducing eye fatigue over periods of prolonged use.

Air of Bespoke Exclusivity
The ASUS P565 is designed to leave a deep and lasting impression. Its battery lid is lined with black synthetic leather, commanding instant respect and attention. The leather contrasts nicely with the P565’s modern, high-gloss face, and lends the phone a natural tactility and evocative appeal that elevates it far above other phones on the market.

About Glide
Glide is a revolutionary touch-responsive user interface that enables users to perform a variety of navigational actions—such as selecting, zooming, scrolling and flipping—easily through simple flicks of their fingers. Incorporated into Glide are also applications that enable users to access a wide range of functions such as looking up the latest news, checking the weather forecast, viewing photo slideshows and listening to music within a few finger taps. These applications, dubbed Multi-Home, Anytime Launcher, EziPhoto, and EziMusic, give the expression "the world at your fingertips" a whole new meaning. For more information on Glide, visit http://event.asus.com/mobile/glide/.

Specifications

Posted by: John

I know most of you are waiting for the brand new Asus P565 smartphone. Good news is that this Windows Mobile 6.1-powered handset has been unveiled to the market. The phone is powered by 800MHz Marvell processor, a 2.8 inch VGA LCD display, Glide technology, 256MB flash memory, 128MB SDRAM, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR connectivity, 3MP camera with autofocus and microSD/SDHC memory card slot. The Asus P565 also supports HSDPA 3.6Mbps and UMTS 2100, EDGE/GPRS/GSM 900/1800/1900 connectivity. The Asus P565 Smartphone has the dimension of 102mm x 60.5mm x 16mm and weights at only 120 grams. No word on pricing or the release date at this time. [Akihabara via Upcoming Cell Phones]

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Folks waiting for the Asus P565 need not hold their breath any longer, as this Windows Mobile 6.1-powered handset is finally unveiled to the masses. Time to take a look at the specifications and drool over it :-

• 800MHz Marvell processor
• 2.8" VGA LCD display
• Glide technology
• HSDPA 3.6Mbps support
• UMTS 2100, EDGE/GPRS/GSM 900/1800/1900 connectivity
• 256MB flash memory
• 128MB SDRAM
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR connectivity
• 3 megapixel camera with autofocus
• microSD/SDHC memory card slot

Add a comment | From: Asus P565 Unveiled | Visit Ubergizmo | Good deals

Here is the unique USB 2.0 flash drive from JT that is currently available in 4GB and 8GB storage capacities. Measuring 57mm x 18mm x 8mm and weighing 12grams, the device comes with a built-in mircoSDHC card reader (up to 8GB), and supports reading speed over 6Mbps (writing speed over 3Mbps), and plug and play. It is also compatible with Window 2000/XP/Vista, Mac OS 9.1 or above. Available in red, blue and orange, the 4GB model retails for $22 and the 8GB for $33. [Brando]

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Of course, the thing with these numbers is that they are largely coverage/user dependent – if you don’t got good coverage, or you are in a busy cell, I shouldn’t expect anything like these numbers. In fact, reading some of the comments from 3 Mobile Broadband users, they seem to suggest that the uplink rates (which are usually less than downlink, but should still be respectable) are actually throttled to a very low number- which isn’t really what the messaging of this announcement is trying to convey.

Right now there seems to be a bit of a backlash against any sort of advertised ‘possible speeds’, and also toward the ‘unlimited usage’ policies that always have a caveat of ‘within fair use limits!’ in small print.

Overall, I think there might have to be a paradigm shift soon where Operators focus on quality – both in the sense of network capacity, but also of customer care – rather than the maximum theoretical speeds of a given service

[Via: The Register]

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• Telstra activates 7.2Mbps HSDPA; It’s good to be in Australia these days
• Apple announces O2 as UK iPhone carrier - just like we expected
• Ewan sums up what’s holding back the mobile internet revolution
• GSMA: Mobile broadband to hit 100Mbps actual speeds before landlines