Affordable Mobile Broadband on the go with Three

During my short stay in the US, at least as far as I recall, most public places offered free Wi-Fi access. It is a commodity. In the land of high price/low value, I found to my astonishment that even Starbucks (who pioneered free Wi-Fi in their shops in the States) is charging £5 for local Wi-Fi access, which is outrageously expensive. Some independent cafes offer free Wi-Fi such as the excellent Tuttis in Holborn but they are a rarity. The alternative is to use pay-as-you-go services such as The Cloud but not all the places I go to use it as their Wi-Fi provider and I wouldn’t want to pay for a service I could not access everywhere (prices start from a hefty £4.50 per hour on pay-as-you go or £10 a month for subscription).

If you are a business nomad, you would want to consider Three’s mobile broadband offer. I am testing it courtesy of the folks at 3MobileBuzz.

The first SIM I received was faulty but I got it replaced quickly. This is my second experience with their call centre and I must say that once again they did a great job: professional and courteous. So dealing with it wasn’t the hassle I anticipated.

Setting-up your connection is pretty easy, at least on a Mac:
- Insert the SIM card in the USB modem. You only need to do that once.
- Plug-in the dongle
- When it mounts, click on the “Mobile Connect” application.
- Click on “Connect”.

That’s it, you are online.

Connection speed varies a lot. My very first test was at my school in Baker Street. The connection was unfortunately too slow to check-out my emails. I did subsequent trials at various locations around London and the speed was good enough to check emails and surf the web. I plan to try a Skype video call this weekend, which would be the ultimate deal clincher for me.

Three has a special offer and retail their USB modem from £49.99. On contract plans, you get 1GB allowance for £10, 3GB for £15 and 7GB for £25. This is similar to the 2 other companies offering mobile broadband in the UK: Vodafone is also charging £15 for 3GB allowance so is T-Mobile. The latter has an “unlimited data” plan, which is in fact a 10GB allowance for £35 a month. Telecom plans are notoriously difficult to compare as companies have all incentives to make it look like it is different from their competitors so I am going to ask a few questions to my contacts there so I could work out where the real value is in the market.

In the meantime, I will make the most of the sunshine with some outdoor blogging.

The triumph of form over substance: Boris Johnson wins London

Prepare to turn the clock back as London enters 4 years of stagnation. What is Boris' policy on transport apart from bringing back the routemasters? (Tories like to romanticize the past). What is his policy on housing apart from hating any building taller than St Paul's? I could go on for ages. People forgot how bad London was before Ken, they are going to get a taste of it pretty soon.

How Europe can shape the global system?

Good article about the end of the "unipolar" world doctrine as preached by the neocons (which is also the end of American influence) and how Europe could carve itself a role in today's multipolar world. Anecdotally, European standards are the reference in manufacturing processes across a wide range of goods in Asia. Financial Times

On a totally unrelated topic, I am testing Three's new mobile broadband offer and will report on it very shortly.

SYSTEM NO LONGER WORKS, CONFIRMS UNITED NATIONS

All explained in the Daily Mash:

"We're planting crops for fuel instead of food in order to make it cheaper to drive to the shops where we then buy food that is much more expensive because we've planted crops for fuel instead of food."(...) "Meanwhile, the banks are borrowing money from taxpayers so that they can then lend the same money back to the taxpayers at a higher rate of interest than they borrowed it from them in the first place."

It is so funnily true that it is sad.

The world 50 best restaurants, where is Asia?

Published by Restaurant magazine, The San Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants is recognized around the world as the most credible indicator of the best places to eat on Earth.

In 2008, Spanish El Bulli is number one again, The UK's Fat Duck back to number 2, French Pierre Gagnaire is number 3.

I mapped the top 50 per countries only to find out that there are no restaurants listed in Asia. I can't believe that there are no kitchen in Hong Kong, Shanghai or Tokyo that serve better food than in Hakkasan or Nobu (just to mention 2 "asian fusion" restaurants listed in the UK).

A decade of web design

"The web looks very different today than it did 10 years ago." By usability guru Jakob Nielsen.

The terminal 5 song (swan song?)

Fantastic!

Hey this is my 500th post!

I shall celebrate by sharing this great song from Hot Chip. No hidden meaning here, I just like it. Thanks for reading!

Muxtape: a simple way to create and share mp3 mixtapes

http://muxtape.com/

Funny: how products differ between packaging and reality

An iPhone for £78 (US$150)

That is 99 euros to you and only available from T-Mobile in Germany. O2 confirmed that it had no immediate intention to cut prices.

The secret strategy behind viral videos on Youtube

My friend Val flagged this article on Techcrunch US: The secret strategy behind viral video, written by the co-founder of Comotion, a viral marketing agency. This post apparently broke the record of the most commented post. It reveals some trade secrets on how to make a video popular on Youtube (and similar video sharing sites). Good read. The comments are interesting too as the article broke many "cluetrain manifesto's naive beliefs": internet users may have a bigger voice now but it is still corporations that are writing most of the script.

Technology of tomorrow, soon available in London

Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia, Richard Branson, Virgin, Carly Fiorina, ex HP and Steve Wozniak, ex Apple will gather at the Royal Albert Hall on the 3oth of September to talk about how we consume, use and apply technology in our lives and in business.

The event's website hosts a few video interviews. I might attend. These are the topics I am interested to hear about:

• What are the strategic challenges in delivering new products or services to market?
  
• How does a CEO manage through technological change?
  
• How does the right leadership strategy influence the fostering of innovation in your people?
• What new technologies are likely to shape the consumer technology market, and how will social lifestyles evolve as a result of these technologies?
  
• Are we expecting to see greater network bandwidth, if so, how will that affect feature rich application software?
  
• What does mobile computing look like in the next 5 years from the PDA/Mobile to PC computing?
  
• What does Web 3.0 look like in terms of using the cloud (internet) to do more computing?
  
• How will social and business networking technologies evolve on the web?
  
• What new web-based applications can we expect to see in the next 5 years?
  

The Daily Mash

I discovered The Daily Mash too late... yet it almost beats the Onion on the satirical laughing scale. I'll have to make up by trolling through their archives.

You can opt-out of Facebook but you can never leave

Alex Pell writes on how Facebook makes it so difficult to resign from its services.

The way out? "To delete your details permanently you must first unearth the anonymous-looking customer service form that is hidden away at tinyurl.com/2xv52v. (...) When completing this form tell Facebook in both the subject and the message fields that you wish to have your account deleted. To check if this has been done properly either create a fake Facebook account or ask a friend to search for your details a few days later."

French ruling party taking a beating at local elections

From the Times. I think that while many French voters were put off by the President' showbiz approach to government, the majority just understood what he meant by "change"... As this election results shows, the French do not have an appetite for reforming their system yet. This could dampen the government's initiatives and push the country back into its well worn cycle of "immobilisme". Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose!

Have you heard of eco-tourism? Help me test a new business idea and win...

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This survey takes 5 minutes to complete only and you will stand the chance to win a $50 Amazon voucher.

Thank you for your help, and good luck with the draw.

Misery makes Britons happy, says US writer

"Former New York Times journalist Eric Weiner claims Brits are never happier than when at their most miserable."
The Telegraph

Warner music declares war on Apple with £5 iPod album

Warner: £5, Apple: £7.99. Price war! It is about time...

Daily Mail

Note2be, teachers rating website lost court case

A French tribunal condemned Note2be (see my previous post) to remove all personal and identifying informations regarding teachers. The website can still rate schools but not individuals. The site owner are appealing the ruling.

This could apply to any website ratings individuals (plumbers, accountants, consultants...).

French article in Liberation.