HSPA data for less than €5 per day is a great deal!

Mobile broadband roaming is insanely expensive. Using my AT&T iPhone overseas costs $20,000 per gigabyte, and that’s not a typo or a joke. So I always pick up a local 3G data SIM for my Huawei E585 mobile hotspot when traveling. Here’s documentation of my experience with T-Mobile in the Netherlands this week.

The Best Wireless Internet Overseas

First, it is absolutely essential to purchase an unlocked 3G mobile hotspot or hotspot-capable mobile phone if you plan to do much international travel. American mobile phones can occasionally be unlocked, but AT&T is notoriously reluctant to allow foreign SIMs to be used in their iPhones. And frequency differences can affect the ability of American devices to work in Europe, South America, and Asia.

You basically have two choices:

1. Do some research and locate a device to purchase when you land that can be easily unlocked. I picked the Huawei E585 from Three in the UK, though that device is no longer available.
2. Purchase an unlocked device before leaving. eBay is a great source of such devices, though you run the risk that it might not work when you need it most. But then you can always fall back on option 1.

Whatever you do, don’t plan to use your US device overseas. Most aren’t unlocked, so they won’t accept any SIM card but your own. And many won’t work with the high-speed 3G data frequencies in use outside the USA, so you’ll be limited to 2G speed.

There are also some rental services that will mail you a local “MiFi” or hotspot, but these often cost far more than just buying a device and a local SIM card!

3G Data Options in the Netherlands

This is the SIM card you want for T-Mobile's Netherlands data deal

There are a number of mobile phone operators in the Netherlands, but KPN, T-Mobile, Telfort, and Vodafone are the most popular. Of these, only T-Mobile offers an “unlimited” pre-paid data option, though all my Dutch friends recommended Vodafone for their superior coverage.

I considered Vodafone’s €14.99 prepaid 1 GB smartphone SIM but decided instead on T-Mobile’s option. The T-Mobile Laptop PrePaid SIM offering. At €0.30 per MB does not look cheap, but there’s a daily maximum charge of €4.50, which is very reasonable for travelers. Since I would only need access for three days, this was the cheaper option.

Buying the T-Mobile Laptop PrePaid SIM

You might also be interested in my experience with Wireless Internet Access in the UK

There are many T-Mobile outlets in the Netherlands, but the first store I visited (MediaMarkt in Utrecht) was out of stock. So I headed to the “high street” T-Mobile company store on Lange Elisabethstraat. After waiting a surprisingly long time, the salesman was able to sell me a Laptop PrePaid SIM for the advertised price of €9.95, which includes “€10 usage credit” (more about that in a moment).

I had previously looked up the local APN specifications for my hotspot, so I was ready to go. I inserted the SIM, entered the PIN through the E585′s web interface, and was up and running (for the moment!) The salesman discussed how to recharge the account (through SMS or in the store) and sent me on my way.

Here are the APN details when using a prepaid SIM with T-Mobile Netherlands:

• APN: Internet
• Username: tmobile
• Password: tmobile

Performance of the T-Mobile network in Utrecht was acceptable – a bit slow inside the Café-Restaurant Olivier, but almost 2 Mbps down and .5 Mbps up past the train station. And the UK Huawei E585 was 100% compatible with the T-Mobile NL frequencies, including HSPA speed.

Zero Account Balance and No Connectivity

After a short period of usage, I was surprised when every page I visited redirected to a T-Mobile portal. Something was not right. I located the proper page to view account credit and was shocked to see a balance of €0.04 – I had used up the entire account value already!

I was unable to call T-Mobile NL’s prepaid support phone number using my American mobile phone, and could not locate an online service guide in their (Dutch-only) web site (which was still accessible). I searched through the documentation and located an offer of €7.50 for registering the SIM online, along with a URL that worked.

After registering, the T-Mobile site showed €7.54 credit, so I timidly tried accessing a web site. Suddenly everything was working again! My credit steadily dropped until it hit €5.50, where it stayed even through a Speedtest.net session. I was back in business!

It turns out that the SIM does not come with €10 as advertised. It comes with €2.50 and an offer for an additional €7.50 after registering! See the problem? I used up all the credit before hitting the €4.50 daily max because I had not registered the card!

Stephen’s Stance

The T-Mobile NL Laptop PrePaid SIM card is a great choice for use with an unlocked MiFi device like the Huawei E585. But make sure to set up the APN first, and register the card online immediately to get the full €10 credit!

Update: One warning if you go with T-Mobile NL: Top up your card in the store with all the credit you will need! Although you can buy T-Mobile NL credit in convenience stores, you cannot actually use this credit without an NL bank account. I wasted €10 this way and never could get the credit applied. Purchase all the credit you will need (€4.50 per day) in the T-Mobile store. Also, the daily max is per calendar day, not per 24-hour period. So you lose your “unlimited” status at midnight.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Wireless Internet Access During My Trip To The Netherlands
This post was categorized as Deals, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

What does this logo really mean? It depends on the product...

Consumers and businesses love wireless networking, but the latest version of 802.11 “Wi-Fi” will leave many scratching their heads. With a confusing array of optional features, most of which are disabled by default for compatibility, today’s 802.11n products will not deliver the performance gains promised by vendors and expected by consumers. Let’s take a look at the key components of “Wi-Fi n” and consider what is included and what is not.

A Little Wireless History

Also see Jennifer Huber’s post, The History of Wireless Part One

802.11n is the fifth major revision to the 802.11 wireless Ethernet spec marketed popularly as Wi-Fi. I have been interested and involved since the very start, implementing a dead-end Raylink FHSS 802.11 network in the 1990′s, and skipping 5 GHz 802.11a before deploying 2.4 GHz 802.11b and faster 802.11g networks. Today, I use a mix of 802.11b and new 802.11n devices in both the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands.

Each of these upgrades saw a major performance boost, and each also saw broader adoption by consumers and businesses. Basic 802.11 was a revelation in mobility in the 1990′s but 2 Mb/s couldn’t support real work. After its ratification in 1999, many corporations deployed 802.11a at 5 GHz to avoid the crowded 2.4 GHz band and boost theoretical performance all they way to 54 Mb/s. At the same time, consumers began snapping up standardized 802.11b “Wi-Fi” devices, despite the crowded confines of the 2.4 GHz band and mediocre 11 Mb/s performance.

Introduced mid-decade, 802.11g would become the catalyst for a wireless networking revolution. It matched 802.11a with 54 Mb/s peak performance but was compatible with 802.11b in the 2.4 GHz band. And “wireless g” was widely implemented from consumer and business devices to public hotspots. Home deployment of mixed 802.11b/g access points is common, with an easy majority of broadband Internet subscribers sharing their connection as I do, using a single Wi-Fi router.

But my home office network is nowhere near as advanced as the corporate wireless LANs that are the workplaces of my friends from Wireless Field Day. Most are rapidly adopting 802.11n and deploying its performance-enhancing features. They use “mesh” access points for mobility and deploy wireless controllers to coordinate the network. And they sniff the airwaves for interference and rogue devices.

Four Key Enhancements in 802.11n

802.11n was designed to unify the Wi-Fi world and bring new levels of performance. It includes both 2.4 and 5 GHz radio spectrum as well as multi-stream “MIMO” radio capability, wider channels, and frame aggregation. 802.11n is even backward-compatible with 802.11 a, b, and g networks.

802.11n is a package of enhancements, most of which are optional

The 802.11n specification adds the following four key areas of improvement:

1. Frames and symbols are tuned for better performance. This includes aggregation, which reduces the overhead of data transmission by combining multiple MAC Service Data Units (MSDUs) or MAC Protocol Data Units (MPDUs). Another optional enhancement is a shorter guard interval between symbols.
2. Some 802.11g devices included multiple antennas, but true multi-antenna and multi-radio MIMO capability is new in 802.11n. “Wi-Fi n” can combine multiple data streams in the same channel to double, triple or even quadruple throughput using spatial division multiplexing (SDM), but most devices use just one or two radios, blunting the performance benefit. Space-time block coding (STBC) is another option to improve MIMO performance.
3. 802.11n is compatible with both the 2.4 GHz band common to consumer Wi-Fi devices and the 5 GHz 802.11a band. When operating at higher frequency, “wireless n” has more channels to choose from and will experience less interference from Bluetooth, portable phones, baby monitors, and other scourges of the 2.4 GHz range. But many 802.11n devices do not operate by default at 5 GHz, and some lack this capability entirely.
4. 802.11n can also use wide 40 MHz slices of spectrum, doubling performance but potentially interfering with previous 802.11 devices that used just 20 MHz at a time. This potential for incompatibility has greatly restricted implementation of this feature in the 2.4 GHz band, and such devices are required to support coexistence mechanisms. A new “green-field mode” is optional for high-throughput (HT) networks.

It is difficult to be all things to all people, so the standards bodies made many of the advanced features of 802.11n optional. This means that many “wireless n” products do not support performance-enhanzing features like multi-streaming and 5 GHz operation. In fact, many popular devices offer little more than basic 802.11n compatibility.

Even more troubling, most consumer-grade access points disable the features they do support in the name of compatibility. Buy a brand-new “Wi-Fi n” router and it probably won’t use the 5 GHz band or 40 MHz channels, and is unlikely to contain more than two radios for MIMO and SDM to exploit. Both the device and access point must support each feature to reach maximum performance.

The Current State of 802.11n

802.11n MIMO capability is specified in "axb:c" notation, as seen here

Today, many 802.11n access points support both 2.4 and 5 GHz, sometimes with a single radio but often with two. Some also include two or three antennas and can support two or three spatial streams. Properly configured, these access points can reach 300 Mb/s in throughput, but are often limited to 72 Mb/s in their out-of-box state. Many vendors specify a default configuration with 20 MHz channels and 2.4 GHz for compatibility with “wireless g” devices.

Some consumer access points (and most business ones) can be configured for full 802.11n performance in the 5 GHz band while at the same time maintaining an 802.11b/g network at 2.4 GHz. These are known as “concurrent” or “simultaneous”, as opposed to “selectable” dual-band products that only support one or the other frequency range. These offer the best of both worlds, pushing Wireless-N performance without sacrificing “wireless g” clients. But this requires the expense of multiple radios and more-complicated software.

Client devices are flexible and limited at the same time. Cost, space, and power constraints mean many devices do not support 5 GHz frequencies and multiple spatial streams. But those that do will often “fall forward” to improve performance when paired with an appropriate access point.

The latest MacBook Pro, for example, includes a 3×3:3 radio and can hit 450 Mb/s if a capable access point is available. But most PCs and tablets have just one or two radios, and some are restricted to 2.4 GHz as well. Mobile devices like my own iPhone 4 and Eye-Fi camera card are severely limited, with 802.11n included mainly for compatibility rather than performance. The iPhone 4 and Eye-Fi card are 2.4 GHz-only and 1×1:1, the iPad 2 is 2.4 or 5 GHz but still 1×1:1, and the AirPort Express I use is dual-band 2×2:2.

Stephen’s Stance

Buyers of 802.11n wireless network equipment should not assume they will see a great benefit right out of the box. Most will have to enable by hand a high-performance configuration including wide channels and 5 GHz operation. And some client devices may never reach the levels of performance expected by consumers due to hardware limitations.

It is disappointing that enhanced performance is disabled by default. But perhaps this will change as 802.11n-compatible client devices become more common.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Not All 802.11n Networks Are Alike
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, Features, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

I'd love to be greeted by this scene on April 1!

I love April Fools day. Like Halloween, it gives us all a chance to take ourselves a little less seriously and just have some fun. And the best April Fools pranks are those that point out real limitations in our thinking and mindset. That’s always been my April 1 goal: Why not combine Wi-Fi and PoE? And doesn’t the “giant iPod Touch” sound like a hoax?

I’ll be cataloging my favorite April Fools pranks from this year on this page. Check back as I update it!

• Wireless Fun
  • Jennifer Huber takes on the proliferation of ugly wireless access points Making Wireless Sexy – HourglassAire
  • Narrowcom To Unveil Wi-FiBASE-T (by yours truly!)
  • Aerohive…Now with Rainbows – what a clever and well-made video!
  • Airesham Redefines Wireless Convergence – a really silly wireless networking spoof by Lee H. Badman
• Enterprise Storage FTW!
  • From Storage Newsletter: NetApp to Acquire EMC for $9.5 Bilion
  • Seagate triples up heads/platter ratio
  • SNW to Offer Free Access to Press Room, Embrace Social Media, MORE!
• Networking What?
  • Cisco and Brocade working together on interoperable TRILL products
  • Alternative to IPv6 in the Works
  • VMware’s vSphere 5 vStorage API for Token Ring Integration:
    • FCoTR To Take Over The World (Howard Marks)
    • vSphere 5 To Include vStorage API for Token Ring Integration (Me)
    • Storage Vendors Announce FCoTR and VATRI Support (Scott Boss)
• Enterprise IT Funnies
  • From Debian, the Canterbury Project
  • From VMware comes Cloud City
• In the Workplace
  • Computer Training for Moms
  • @Chyldofthebit upgraded his co-worker’s computer
• Around the Internets
  • Nokia Microsoft deal falls through as Nokia merges with Google
  • Robert Novak outdid himself with GoDaddy announces new PKoIP protocol, innovates tying panties in knots over the Internet
  • CloudEra MapIncrease
  • Livedrive announces industry leading, game changing technology for online backup and data storage
  • Google brings us Gmail Motion, the Voice-alyzer, and is hiring 32,000 WPM typists as autocompleters
  • Google Inadvertently Classifies Google Places As A “Content Farm” And Removes From Search Index
• More Fun
  • PLAYMOBIL(TM) Apple Store Playset
  • Okay, We Give Up (from Scientific American)
  • Officially Official: 420-HP BMW M3 Pickup hauls ass, nearly 1,000 pounds
  • Introducing the NWC Royale Membership
  • iPad colocation from MacMiniColo
  • Kodak Relationshiffft
  • B&H Double Takes
  • The best new iPhone/Android app: GreyScale
  • Introducing Starbucks Mobile Pour
  • Deals For Hipsters
  • A 3D monocle from Toshiba

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | April Fools 2011 Roundup
This post was categorized as Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

• A special video message for NerdBlurt and #HDSday folks …
• Evolving vs. Arriving
• Cisco’s CleanAir vs the Atheros vendors
• MetaGeek – Gestalt IT Wireless Tech Field Day
• Hands on with the Metageek Wi-Spy DBx

Subscribe to my Google Reader feed or follow me on Twitter to see these in real-time.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, March 25, 2011
This post was categorized as Everything. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

• Revolution Wi-Fi: Wireless Tech Field Day – Day 1 Quick Recap
• NetApp and Engenio – Part 2 – A Hypothesis
• Verizon Clarifies iPad Activation Fes – NYTimes.com

Subscribe to my Google Reader feed or follow me on Twitter to see these in real-time.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, March 18, 2011
This post was categorized as Everything. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

• My writing:
  • How Will Thunderbolt Affect Enterprise Storage?
  • Introducing Storage for Virtual Environments (From My Seminar)
• Other great stuff:
  • 1394, DMA, and BitLocker
  • Open-FCoE: Will Software Initiators Win Again?
  • NetApp’s Purchase of Engenio
  • VMware View Client for iPad Released
  • VMware’s Consolidated Backup (VCB) & User Requirements
  • The Ultimate In-N-Out Secret Menu (and Super Secret Menu!) Survival Guide
  • Why I Am Dropping Android Phones And Moving To iPhone
  • HP Networking – Part 2(More vision…)
  • Content-Type: joke; genre=bar/packet
  • Gestalt IT Tech Field Day – The First Ever Wireless #TechFieldDay
  • Site Survey Rigs

Subscribe to my Google Reader feed or follow me on Twitter to see these in real-time.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, March 11, 2011
This post was categorized as Everything. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

• My writing
  • First up, a battery charger? La Crosse BC-700 Review: A Battery Charger That Does Not Suck
  • I urge you to See W. Curtis Preston’s Backup Central Live!
  • I was looking for The Best Network Card For VMware ESX Home Lab Machines
  • From my Network Computing blog: Unified Storage: What Is It Good For?
  • I was amazed to see the result of my HP Photosmart printer series: The Power of Negative Publicity
• Other great links
  • Chris Evans wrote a solid piece for Datamation: Virtualization and Storage: Overview, Vendor Solutions
  • Matt Simmons talks about dealing with storage: I’m here to shard data and chew bubblegum…
  • Alex Popescu’s 5 Approaches to Scalable Storage Solutions led to Jeff Darcy’s Introduction to Distributed Filesystems
  • Xangati talks Field Day: Running Comprehensive and Deep at Tech Field Day #5
  • And then there’s Wireless Field Day, courtesy of Andrew von Nagy: Shamrockin’ the Wireless Industry
  • Greg Ferro continues spreading the word on FCoTR: Presenting Silvano Gai With FCoTR Button
  • Howard Marks takes up the topic of specialized hard disk drives: Yes, Virginia, RAID Drives Are Different
  • Howard was spurred by Simon Gallagher, among others: Home Labbers beware of using Western Digital SATA HDDs with a RAID Controller
  • The continuing saga of Google Chrome and H.264 takes a weird turn: Microsoft adds H.264 support to Google Chrome
  • Simon Long fights the good fight, presenting solid technical info: VMware View Desktops: IDE or SCSI? BusLogic, LSI Logic or PVSCSI?
  • A key topic in storage is the balance between performance and capacity, as noted by Xiotech: Performance and Capacity Tradeoffs and the Rise of a New Class of Storage
  • An amusing infographic: The United States of Shame (CHART)
  • Kevin Houston takes on Cisco UCS: What Cisco Has to Do to Win the Blade Server Market
  • Finally, Jeremy Gaddis is back with Bypassing the Internet Kill Switch

Subscribe to my Google Reader feed or follow me on Twitter to see these in real-time.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, February 4, 2011
This post was categorized as Enterprise storage, Personal, Terabyte home, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

This post is part of my series focused on the MacBook Pro.

• Don’t Be Jealous Of The New MacBook Pros!
• Upgraded! 320 GB in a MacBook Pro!
• SanDisk ExpressCard Flash Media Adapter: Nifty MacBook Pro Accessory!
• How I Get 7 Hours of MacBook Pro Battery Life
• Panic! Green Light and MacBook Pro Keyboard is Half Dead!
• Low-Power USB Ports Haunt My MacBook Pro

Card Slot In Card Slot

Apple has equipped the MacBook Pro line with an integrated ExpressCard slot since the very first post-PowerBook model back in 2006. This new expansion card form factor has never been as popular as PCMCIA/CardBus was on the laptops of the early part of the decade. So, for mid-2009, Apple decided to drop the slot altogether for all models but the massive 17″ MacBook Pro. In its place is an SD card slot, popular with the digital camera set.

Part of the blame lies in the increasing integration of features in modern machines: Users no longer need the slot to add a network adapter, Wi-Fi, audio, or optical drive since they’re all built in! Another huge factor is USB 2.0: It’s fast enough for just about any remaining peripheral.

There are only three urgent uses for an ExpressCard slot in a modern laptop:

1. Adding 3G wireless networking capability to systems (like Apple’s) that lack built-in 3G cards. Of course, many folks choose a USB 3G modem, and I’m in love with my Cradlepoint 3G wireless router.
2. Adding a second video adapter and external monitor. Modern MacBooks work great out of the box with two monitors, though, if you count the built-in LCD! And the new USB video adapters seem to work fairly well, too.
3. Adding more high-speed ports like e-SATA or FireWire 800. Although the MacBook Pro has two USB 2.0 ports, both are compromised in terms of speed or power. All of the new Pro models (even the new 13″) now include FireWire 800, but e-SATA is still AWOL.

The ExpressCard flash media adapter snaps in place and is flush with the edge of the MacBook Pro - very clean!

I didn’t need any of these features with my MacBook Pro: My Sprint 3G card is connected to the Cradlepoint router, I am happy to use the built-in LCD for multi-monitor desktop use, and I don’t need more FireWire or e-SATA storage. But, as I noted back in October, I did find a great use for the ExpressCard slot: An SD media card reader! That’s right: My now-old Mac features the exact same function that Apple just added!

I love having the convenience of an SD slot when it comes to importing photos from my Canon PowerShot cameras: It’s quick, the cards open right up in iPhoto, and I don’t have to carry any cables with me. Adding an SD card reader was cheap and easy, too! Amazon sells the exact same Sandisk SDAD109A11 adapter I bought for around $40. They’ve also got a Sonnet SD adapter (which I haven’t tried) for under $30!

I Have The Power!

Massive battery life is another solid addition to the mid-2009 MacBook Pro line. Apple integrates a huge battery right into the laptop, and reports indicate it really does deliver 7 or 8 hours of runtime. This is the first laptop I can think of without an easily replaceable battery, and follows Apple’s similar moves with the iPod and iPhone lines. Expect this to be copied by other manufacturers in the future!

My secret to long (battery) life and happiness!

Although my MacBook Pro lasts three to four hours on a charge, I purchased a second battery from the Apple store to help me work on the go. This has proven an excellent investment, and I have come to rely on battery power more than I thought I would. I have spent entire trans-Atlantic flights with the computer up and running, and have touched 8 hours of run time with two fully-charged batteries. Although extra batteries are not cheap (Amazon lists mine at $120), they’re much less expensive than they used to be!

If you do decide to get an extra battery for your older MacBook, here are some tips:

1. Get the original equipment Apple battery, not a third-party workalike. I’ve always had bad luck with off-brand batteries, and they’re not that much cheaper.
2. Download a copy of SmartSleep, the awesome and free sleep/hibernate utility. I have mine set to hibernate below 5% charge so I can swap batteries without losing data.
3. If you don’t want to wait for hibernation, just leave the Mac plugged in when you swap batteries. You can do this while it’s running or while it’s plugged in but asleep.

Sure, the cool unibody case and faster performance is tempting. But I’m still pretty happy with my good old MacBook Pro!

Note: Some of these links include affiliate codes that help pay for this blog. For example, buying an Amazon Kindle with this link sends a few bucks my way! But I don't write this blog to make money, and am happy to link to sites and stores that don't pay anything. I like Amazon and buy tons from them, but you're free to buy whatever and wherever you want.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | Don’t Be Jealous Of The New MacBook Pros!
This post was categorized as Apple. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

IT infrastructure is following consumer technology out of the data center glass house and into the wide world

Dave Hitz over at NetApp poses a very interesting question: What is the ten-year trend in information technology that we are currently building to? He supplies these historical examples:

• 1982-1992: A computer on every (business) desk
• 1990s: Networking all those computers

He then goes on to suggest three ten-year trends that we might currently be living through:

1. Cloud/Outsourced Computing
2. Server Virtualization
3. Flash Memory

Although I agree on the importance of these three to enterprise IT, I don’t think they’ll be seen as the megatrends of this decade in hindsight. I suggest that, more than anything, we are witnessing a wholesale shift from information tied to place/device to information mobility. Cloud computing, server virtualization, and even flash memory are all contributors to this massive trend, along with the user-side trends of the post-PDA mobile phone, 3G data, social web services, and connected home.

What Is Mobility?

The meaning of mobility, to me, is expansive. It doesn’t just refer to taking a copy of your data with you, ubiquitous connectivity, or portable devices. Mobility is a new paradigm of computing.

• Your data no longer “sits” in one place – your data lives out there in the network!
• Your applications no longer “live” on this device or that – your applications live out there in the network!
• Your productivity environment no longer requires a particular piece of hardware – you expect to be productive everywhere on every device!

This doesn’t sound strange to the modern Internet user. We have completely accepted the role of Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Wikipedia and the rest in our personal lives. Just as they did in the early days of the PC, business people have transitioned these concepts into the professional world – witness Salesforce and LinkedIn! In all cases, we have endorsed the idea that certain types of information want to live in the cloud because it makes them better!

Once you’ve used these services, old-fashioned email, contact management, encyclopedias, maps, and the rest seem incredibly limiting. A GPS system that can’t update its maps seems antiquated, and we want it to have real-time traffic data, too. An iPod that needs to be physically connected to a PC to add music or applications is simply unacceptable. Time- and place-shifting technologies like TiVo To Go, over-the-air podcast downloads, and Slingboxes reset our expectations about availability and choice of entertainment, but they are mere symptoms of our changing perceptions. We want mobility of data, applications, and platforms, and we are getting it.

Consider two truly revolutionary platforms: the iPhone and the netbook. In both cases, we knowingly accept limitations in the name of portability, knowing that the cloud will give us what we can’t hold in our hands. These devices are limited in ways that would seem inconceivable just a few years ago: Apple has locked their platform up tighter than any in history, and netbooks are too small, underpowered, and cheap in all senses of the word. But we love them because they get us where we want to go, which is up and out!

Mobility and Enterprise IT

The concept of mobile data, applications, and devices is just as applicable to enterprise IT infrastructure as it is to personal technology. Some enterprise data must be kept close to the vest, especially where privacy laws and litigation concerns are applicable. But there is certainly a vast pool of corporate data that wants to be out working in the field! Setting this data free is the enterprise equivalent of the mobility megatrend!

Cloud computing is hype. Server virtualization is hype. Flash storage is hype. XaaS is hype. Web 2.0 is hype. But once the cloud of hype passes, we will be left with solid technologies to enable mobility and transform corporate computing. Why should corporate email have to punch through your firewall? Why should the intranet be limited to internal or VPN users? Why can’t customers interact with a (limited/controlled) set of your corporate records? Salesforce showed us that roaming users (sales teams) need greater access than most IT staff were ready to build. What if we applied the same ideas to other data types?

Many companies are already doing this. Microsoft offers a variety of internal/external services for their customers through Live (see Connect, for example). Many companies are using mail and productivity applications in the cloud from Google, MessageOne, and Zimbra. Backup and archiving as a service to mobile users is widespread (see Iron Mountain Connected and Mozy). And more and more corporate PR relies on blogs, twitter, and social networking sites. Corporate security and legal types are worried about data “escaping” from the eggshell of control they exert, but this cat is out of the bag. Enterprise IT will never be the same!

It comes down to a single core question that IT folks ought to have been asking themselves all along: What should be held internally and what should be let loose? We already “outsource” many non-core corporate functions. Sometimes we do this for cost reasons. But the most effective outsourcing decision is when a third party will do a better job, offering levels of expertise or service that an internal group could never realistically reach. We already buy enterprise software to leverage outside development (remember, this was not always the case!), so why not also buy enterprise services? Corporate-grade outsourced email, groupware, sales automation, and the like is not only more robust and less expensive than internal systems, they enable a disconnected, mobile workforce.

Today, I Was Angry

I bought a new album from Amazon, but I forgot to sync my iPhone with my laptop, so it was sitting at home when I wanted to listen to it in the car. Then I couldn’t find a colleague’s phone number because he moved to a new company and my address book didn’t automatically update. And I couldn’t review a presentation because I needed a special account to access a corporate document system behind a firewall.

These little accomplishments would have seemed like miracles just a few years ago: I remember the joy I felt ten years ago when I could read a web page offline on my Palm Pilot using AvantGo; I was amazed when I first fired up 802.11a wireless networking and could work anywhere in the office; I was gleeful to be able to take 5 GB of music with me on the train. But all this is past. Today, I want to access my portable data and work anywhere. We are in the midst of a revolution in the mobility and ubiquity of computing.

See my posts on Gestalt IT for similar enterprise IT infrastructure commentary

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | Ten-Year Trend: Mobility
This post was categorized as Apple, Computer History, Enterprise storage, Everything, Personal, Terabyte home, Virtual Storage. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Sprint USB EV-DO + Cradlepoint personal hotspot = sweet!

Goodbye, AT&T 3G! After a year of hoping coverage would improve, I finally jumped ship from AT&T’s 3G network and moved my mobile wireless broadband service to Sprint. I grabbed a refurbished USB EV-DO device and signed up through a no-contract reseller and couldn’t be happier with the service so far. And I picked up a Cradlepoint router at the same time, giving me a portable Wi-Fi hotspot so any device I have (or a friend has) can get online at broadband speed from anywhere. Awesome!

So, yeah, my headline is a little misleading. But it’s true – rather than buy a 3G iPhone in my 3G-starved hometown, I decided to kill all of my mobile connectivity woes at once, including stepping up to 3G speeds on the iPhone. Read on for details about what was wrong with AT&T Laptop Connect, why I selected Sprint, the Cradlepoint PHS300 router, and how to get all of this with no contract.

AT&T Laptop (Dis)Connect

My mobile phone service has been in the AT&T network since before there was such a thing – my first “cell phone” was on Houston Cellular, which blobbed into Cingular and became AT&T. So when my employer purchased me a Dell laptop with an integrated HSDPA (AT&T 3G) WWAN solution, I was happy to sign up for AT&T Wireless’ Laptop Connect service. I must note that from the start I have been peeved that AT&T gives no benefit whatsoever to having both 3G data and mobile phone service on the same account.

At the time, I lived in Metro West Massachusetts, where 3G service was quickly spreading, and most of my travel happened to be within AT&T’s narrow map. This was certainly a good thing, because EDGE speed is almost unbearable for business productivity! I was surprised to note that the built-in 3G hardware and antenna was often actually worse than my mobile phone in terms of coverage, often losing 3G or dropping service altogether as I moved inside a building.

Then there were the inexplicable service failures – I would open up the laptop in an airport or hotel and it would refuse to connect entirely. A quick call to AT&T’s 611 service center would prod them to “send a signal” or something and all would be fine for a few days.

And as I traveled around the United States, AT&T’s poor 3G coverage became painfully obvious – I even had to pay the exorbitant rates charged for hotel Wi-Fi on a number of occasions, the very thing I was trying to avoid! I finally got fed up on a recent trip to San Jose when neither AT&T 3G nor any pay-for-Wi-Fi service was available in the heart of Silicon Valley. AT&T could offer no help besides suggesting that I buy a new 3G modem (and sign up for 2 more years of service!) so their fate was sealed.

Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T

My research showed that Verizon and Sprint are way ahead of AT&T in terms of high-speed network coverage in the United States. I asked around and found lots of happy customers for both providers in all the areas I travel to, including positive comments about performance and network reach. Most comparisons have shown Sprint’s network to have something of a performance advantage, however, and their coverage is superior in Ohio, where I now reside.

All three wireless broadband have nearly identical service plans: One- to three-megabit speed for $60 (plus taxes and fees) per month. And all will give free USB, PCMCIA, or ExpressCard hardware for signing a 2-year contract. All have similar service initiation fees, which storefront resellers offered to eat for my business, signaling just how profitable these contracts must be!

Sprint almost lost me, though, because although Verizon and AT&T will prorate their early-termination fees, Sprint will not. But all three were willing (after some prodding) to give no-contract service if I bought the hardware outright, a decided change from AT&T’s stance when I signed up last year. Verizon and Sprint now also limit their plans to 5 gigabytes per month, which is more than I use.

Millenicom and 3GStore

Then I discovered Millenicom. A reseller of various broadband services, Millenicom sells access to Sprint’s EV-DO network for those who own their own hardware and is very popular with enthusiasts. Even though they raised their rates from $49 to $59 per month recently, they include all fees and taxes, a savings of $8.23 per month over the providers themselves. Service is pre-paid in full monthly increments and there is no cap on network access. So all I needed was a Sprint EV-DO device.

Enter 3GStore.com, a respected purveyor of all things EV-DO. They happened to have refurbished Novatel Wireless Ovation U720 Sprint USB EV-DO devices on special this month, and also happen to be a popular source for Cradlepoint routers. I whipped out the credit card, and in two days flat the FedEx truck delivered my new hardware. Even though it was Saturday, I decided to try to set up the device on Millenicom’s web site, and just a short time later found it activated and working. Two big thumbs up for Millenicom and 3GStore!

Cradlepoint’s Personal Hotspot

Although the U720 device works great on both PC and Mac, I fell for the idea of the Cradlepoint “personal hotspot” router. It is a little device (almost exactly the same size as my Maxtor OneTouch Mini portable hard drive) with a USB port for connecting to 3G modems like the U720. It functions like the NAT routers that are widely used to share home broadband connections with Wi-Fi devices, including my Tomato/Buffalo router and Apple’s AirPort line.

Cradlepoint makes a few of these devices, but I decided on the PHS300 model which includes a rechargeable battery pack for real mobile use. Fire it up in an airport, a hotel, or a conference room and have instant connectivity for any configured devices without even worrying about finding a power outlet! We’ll see what the future holds, but I’m psyched about the idea of firing up the router in my laptop bag for quick internet access for laptop and iPhone wherever I happen to be.

Check out Josh James’ similar experience with the Cradlepoint!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | My iPhone is on Sprint’s EV-DO Network (and So Are My PCs!)
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.