Orange 3g data card software

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We began the download, and stopped it once it was clear it would take 13 minutes. A couple of frames dropped and the player did occasionally stall, but the video was eminently watchable.

The audio quality was faultless. Orange The video downloaded with no problems in the same kind of time you'd experience over a corporate wired broadband connection -- with little or no disruption. Vodafone This was the point where the Vodafone card, which had been performing very well, lost some ground. It failed to get the video working, and the card became stuck on a constant green light -- rather than a flashing light showing a healthy connection.

The laptop speakers broadcast a regular buzzing noise -- and long experience with the Vodafone card has taught us that this indicated the card is struggling. All we got were occasional repeated snatches of Ballmer saying "OK one more time". The O2 software showed that we were getting occasional bursts of throughput, but no consistent connection. Scenario 4: The College Arms, Wokingham Road, Reading Mobile working is demanding, so road warriors need to be able to keep connected at their pit stops.

T-Mobile We tried the Wi-Fi connection in the pub. Although the software said it was connected, the browser didn't want to know, so we turned our attention to the Cajun chicken and pint of Kronenburg. We also used the updated Vodafone software to look for Wi-Fi hot spots in Reading. It found five -- but unfortunately not the pub in question.

Vodafone's hot-spot directory doesn't provide a map of each site, just the address. So users in an unfamiliar town would have to get their 3G or GPRS running in order to use an Internet map service and locate a hot spot. To authenticate to the hot spot we needed to answer an automatically placed call on the mobile registered to the account.

Unfortunately the level of background noise in the pub meant that we couldn't hear the instructions given by the machine on the other end the first time it called. Second time, with the mobile's volume up full and a finger in the other ear, we had more luck. But we couldn't get a VPN connection running. Scenario 5: On the train from Reading to London Paddington This was the point when the limitations of 3G became obvious…. T-Mobile T-Mobile said it had a 3G connection as the train stood in the station, but this quickly dropped to GPRS as we pulled out before disappearing altogether.

Orange The Orange card refused to give a connection for the first half of the journey, but perked up at Slough with a 31Kbps link. It wouldn't say whether we were on 3G or GPRS, but was soon reduced to staggering along at just bytes per second. Vodafone 3G as we got on, but very quickly the client software admitted it was "acquiring" a network connection.

Once it jumped back to 3G we enjoyed a surge of bandwidth, over Kbps, but the connection stopped as we tried the download from Scenario 2 again. It stuck on a miserly 6Kbps for many minutes, before suddenly climbing back to 80 to Kbps. The full download took 11 minutes. Attempts to get a VPN running were fruitless -- suggesting the connection was so slow that the initial handshakes timed out.

Instant messenging worked fine most of the way. Occasionally the software would alert us that we were in range of a Wi-Fi hot spot accessible through our subscription. But we never managed to get a connection -- doubtless because by the time we'd clicked connect the access point was a couple of miles back down the track.

Scenario 6: Paddington Station The number of pastry shops at Paddington station is surpassed only by the number of Wi-Fi hot spots T-Mobile Offers in its 3G data card package access to its network of Wi-Fi hotspots, which now number almost a thousand including all the main London stations. The software discovered and connected to the Paddington Wi-Fi hotspot without incident. The O2 software pulled a trick that we recognised from our earlier review of the T-Mobile software, and refused to acknowledge that the Toshiba had Wi-Fi.

After uninstalling the Wi-Fi driver, and letting the hardware wizard in the control panel reinstall it we persuaded the O2 card that the Tosh really did have Wi-Fi, and we were then able to discover the hot spots.

Vodafone The client software detected the presence of an "unsupported hot spot" -- i. We had no trouble connecting to the hot spot directly -- indicating Vodafone's client software doesn't interfere with a laptop's other connectivity tools. Our tests show that the current products and services aren't there yet.

Things should improve over the next few years as 3G network rollouts continue -- especially near major routes like the M4 corridor and the train lines into London. Manufacturers and developers must also improve products and services to avoid the kind of technical glitches we experienced with Orange's software -- but all 3G data services currently have something of the first generation about them.

Is 3G a must-have for today's laptop user?