Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 03 December 2007 16:58
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 2
Although Intel spurned the inclusion of a Nokia 3.5G HSPA chipset in
future Centrino notebook platforms in favour of Wi-Fi and, in the
future, WiMAX wireless solutions, notebook vendors have been busily
adding 3G and 3.5G data modules anyway.
Wi-Fi is a standard feature of all notebook computers today, usually alongside a Bluetooth module, giving consumers access to the Internet through Wi-Fi hotspots in the home, the office, out and about and through a Bluetooth or USB connected 3G phone.
Although Wi-Fi works well, when you’re connected to your own secure network, successfully getting access in other locations either means connecting to an insecure network, paying to connect to a secure or insecure network or sometimes not having access at all.
Connecting via your 3G or 3.5G mobile phone certainly works very well, but at the expense of your phone’s battery life, leading many consumers to purchase what is nowadays a wireless 3.5G broadband modem that almost always has the ability to connect to 2.5G GPRS and EDGE networks where no 3G or 3.5G network is available.
These are available either as PCMCIA cards, ExpressCards or small USB connected devices. But the logical alternative to any kind of external add-on device is an internal add-on device, giving users a SIM card socket to pop a 3.5G SIM into.
This has been happening across the world. In Australia, HP, Dell, Lenovo and Toshiba are companies that offer notebooks with 3.5G data modules built-in. Most vendors seem to be offering Vodafone’s 3.5G service which works in most capital cities and other selected metropolitan areas to deliver a good 3.5G service at 550kbps to 1.5Mbps.
Now one notebook vendor, Dell, has decided to make Telstra’s Bigpond Wireless Next G broadband service (3.5G) available to consumers as a built-in option across 13 notebook models in their range.
As Next-G offers offers a true 3.5G service to 98.9% of Australia’s population, it’s a much better choice for those who travel, especially into areas normally serviced only by 2G or CDMA voice services and GPRS or EVDO data speeds which are much slower than 3.5G speeds, although as is well known, comes at a much higher cost than most competing wireless broadband offerings.
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