[Gllug] sony ericsson mobiles & linux

[James McGuigan]

Richard Jones wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 02, 2006 at 11:35:09PM +0800, Richard Cohen wrote:
> 
>> And as a bonus, tomorrow evening I shall be collecting a free (loaned) 3G phone 
>> as part of the 6-month free 3G trial being run by PCCW, the somewhat-dominant 
>> telco, who recently bought a mobile company and are now planning to roll out 3G 
>> under their own brand.
> 
> 
> FWIW, PCCW have recently rolled out a wireless broadband service in the UK, under 
> the brand name "now".
> 
> http://www.mynow.co.uk/
> 
> It's London only at present, and not exactly cheap.  You also need a base station 
> (think WiMax) so it's not very mobile either.
> 
> Rich.

I've recently signed up with them (I live on a boat so don't have a physical phone line).

They give a 1mb connection for £18/month (or £10 for 250kbps), though my download
speeds do seem closer to 250kbps. than 1mbps. You either pay £30 connection or sign up
for a year.

Latency is a not great, ping times to google.com are around 250ms - 300ms

They provide you with a router sized wireless "modem". Its not a router, it requires
PPPoE software to connect (make sure you apt-get install pppoe pppoeconf before
losing your other connectivity - its pre-installed as a base package on Ubuntu).. If
you want to connect more than one machine or connect your PDA, then you will need to
setup a router, or use ipchains.

The modem takes either an ethernet cable (direct or via a LAN) or a usb cable, and
also requires a 240v mains power supply (it consumes 8W of power). Its a shame that
it can't run off the power from a USB port for roaming laptop use (though to be
honest I haven't actually tested this fact) - but thinking about it, this would be a
fairly killer feature - take your own hotspot with you.

The modem has a simple web interface with no real config options. It has a fixed IP
of 192.168.1.1 - though you don't need to be on the same subnet to do PPPoE over it
(just to view the web interface)

The connection/modem can be a little temperamental,, it will occasionally disconnect
and then not get a stable reconnection for the next 30 minutes or so. The best
troubleshooting tip is the pull the power on the modem, plug it back in and wait a
minute or two to let it reconnect. They have been claiming technical problems on
this, so I'll see if it improves.

They do block port 25 both ways, I've requested an unblock but they request had to be
sent to the technical department (1st level support support at mynow,.co..uk is fairly
clueless, 2nd level support 2ndline @ mynow.co.uk is a little better but even they
can't do the unblocking themselves). In short this means you cannot connect to an
SMTP server other than their own smtp.mynow.co.uk

I haven't tried roaming with this device, though it should work anywhere within their
network. Currently this means London, though they claim to be planning a nationwide
roll-out.

Their fair use policy states 15gb a month is fair use., a little on the low side for
my tastes (30bg to 50gb would have been more to my liking) but not its not unliveable
with (have to be more careful with what I download on via P2P)

All in all when it works it does work and its not too bad (though you can lose 15-30
minutes trying to get a connection when its decided not to work) and having a
disconnect can make it a little unreliable if you plan on ssh'ing back home from a
remote location. They would not be my first choice for an ISP, though for somebody on
the move, or (like me) without a land line, it is considerably better (well at least
cheaper) than GPRS via the mobile phone companies. (IIRC the t-mobile unlimited GPRS
plan is £60 per month, but with a 1gb fair use policy [not exactly my definition of
unlimited]).

I have heard there is a new network being setup, (by others) though not in action
just yet, called Thames Online (from Greenwich to Westminster -
thamesmeshhopper.com), I don't have much info on the network, but I've been told they
plan to launch in a couple of weeks.

FWIW, it just disconnected on me between the time I connected to check my email and
when I had finsihed typing this and clicked send. Had to connect. Luckly it
reconnected fairly quickly after pulling the power and reseting the device.

-- 
Rules are written for those who lack the ability to truly reason,
But for those who can, rules become nothing more than guidelines,
And live their lives governed not by rules but by reason.
     - James McGuigan

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