While this 3G travel router from Aluratek (sent to me for review) does not have everything I’d want to see in a router–I’ll get into the shortcomings later–it has enough features and is stable enough that I’m recommending it. It’s a cross between your typical travel router and a MiFi–actually more like a Cradlepoint device. You have to provide the 3G or 4G dongle. The good news is you can use it with any provider you can get a USB dongle for, assuming the modem is on the compatibility list. A large list of modems is supported, so it’s pretty likely yours is.

Like the MiFi, it’s battery powered. Unlike the MiFi and similar routers, it charges with a wall wort. I asked the PR firm that sent me this router for review about charging over USB, this is not supported. It does allow you to use the device plugged in, though, which is handy.

The router comes with a setup disk for Windows, which being a Mac user I ignored. Of course, the router works with a Mac just fine (it speaks IP, after all), there were no instructions provided in the box for how to configure the router for a Mac. I was able to figure it out pretty easily, being someone quite familiar with networking.

As I stated before, the router supports 3G/4G dongles from the major vendors. Unfortunately, unless you know the dial string and username/password from your 3G/4G provider, you will have a difficult time getting this working. Having done this numerous times on AT&T for various devices, I remembered the magic incantations needed (namely the APN to use, dial string, account and password). It would be nice if they provided the information for the most common providers or, better yet, let you choose from a menu in the firmware of known provider configurations.

The router itself can be used for making your 3G/4G dongle accessible from multiple computers (of course), but the device also has a LAN port. This LAN port can either be used to provide a wired host access to your 3G OR you can use it as a WAN port, allowing you to make a wired hotel connection wireless.

The router also has a removable battery, which means it can be used like a MiFi. The battery gets roughly 4 hours of battery life. I did not test that claim, but I did keep it in my bag for several weeks and didn’t bother to charge it. I used it periodically and did not run out of power during that time.

To field test this router, I took an AT&T 3G card I had, took out my SIM card from my iPhone and put it in. I used it in a few unusual places to test how well the device works. This includes: a Starbucks, a Virgin Mobile airplane (on the ground of course), a hotel room in the middle of Silicon Valley, and of course here at home. All of these places had their own WiFi that was suboptimal. (Starbucks usually has ok WiFi, but the day I tested this, it was particularly problematic)

I’m not sure if the router is to blame for this or not, but sometimes when I power on the router with the 3G dongle attached, it does not connect to the Internet properly. I find if I power cycle the router again and restart, the 3G connection comes up in roughly a minute. Once connected, I have relatively fast Internet through AT&T’s 3G network.

The router itself has fairly typical configuration options: DHCP Server (can set static DHCP reservations and/or disable), Port Forwarding (for allowing connections inbound on specific services to specific hosts), outbound packet, domain, and URL Filtering (manual), MAC-level filtering, Dynamic DNS support, routing (including support for RIPv1 and RIPv2), SNMP and even “scheduled rules” (rules enabled at specific times). The web interface is not terribly cluttered, provides context sensitive help, and is easy to use.

The router along with a short Ethernet cable is provided in a travel bag. It would be nice if the wall wort also fit into this bag. Either the wall wort needs to be a little smaller or the bag needs to be a little bigger. Bonus points if it can also fit a typical 3G dongle as well.

All in all, there’s a lot to like about this router. It provides an above-average set of functionality out-of-the-box. The documentation needs to be better for non-Windows users and they need to provide information on how to configure the router to work with different 3G networks. If you can get past those hurdles, it’s a good deal at ~$80 on amazon.com.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Cisco Tries to Make Wi-Fi Drop-Dead Easy (technologizer.com)
• iPad Hits a Bump: Wi-Fi Woes Point to Apple Bug (readwriteweb.com)
• Netflix Reviewed: The iPad’s First “Killer App?” (gigaom.com)
• Franklin Wireless intros U600 WiMAX modem, R526 and R536 mobile routers (engadget.com)
• Sprint 4G: going into Overdrive (blogs.chron.com)

Related Posts

• Why Troubleshooting VoIP Issues is Hard
• Frankenrouters and Rethinking the WDS Mesh
• Power Is Hard to Find in ORD
• A SatNav From the 1920s!
• Darla Mack Giving Away a Nokia N76!

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

The Apple iPhone: As much as I have liked the Nokia phones over the years, thanks to the breadth of applications on the iPhone, not to mention the iPhone’s multimedia capabilities, the iPhone has been a welcome travel companion. TripIt and iXpenseIt have become absolutely indispensable applications while traveling.

Portable iPhone Battery Charger: Written about this in the past, of course, but it bares mentioning again, especially when using the iPhone in airplane mode on a plane where they don’t provide a USB or power jack. It keeps my phone charged so that when I land, my iPhone and I are ready to go.

The Nokia E71: This comes in handy, particularly on those trips to Israel where I can’t use my iPhone as anything more than an iPod Touch thanks to AT&T’s roaming rates being so expensive. Prior to my purchasing an iPhone, the Nokia E71 was my primary phone and it is still quite capable in a pinch. It is also a failsafe in case I completely drain the battery in the iPhone

MaxRoam: One thing I have to admit missing from my days at Nokia was not having to worry about my mobile phone charges when traveling abroad. 500 – 1000 EUR phone bills were not all that uncommon for travelers abroad. Even though I was a responsible chap and asked how one might reduce that cost while abroad, I was often told “not to worry” by managers. Meanwhile, Check Point has a different opinion about these things, so I carry a MaxRoam SIM in that Nokia E71 to keep the roaming costs a bit more reasonable. That and I get a local SIM card if I’m going to be someplace more than a few days.

Skype: Assuming I have a good Internet connection, Skype is a lifesaver, especially for making reasonable calls to the US while I am abroad. Actually, the calls are included in the ~$30/year Skype North America plan, making it an excellent value.

Monster Outlets To Go: Given the relative lack of plugs I have found in hotel rooms, having a power strip with me has proven to be a wise investment. Abroad, it is even better because I can make more efficient use of the relatively scarce plug adapters. The Outlets To Go by Monster has been fantastic. It’s compact, the plug lights up when connected to power, and it’s relatively inexpensive. Can’t ask for much more than that.

iPass: As much as I’ve used (and loved) Boingo in the past, I have had numerous issues with their software on the iPhone and on the Mac. Also, I frequently find their “mobile” software doesn’t allow me to log into hotspots I use frequently. Enter iPass, who has been at this remote access game longer. They still provide dialup Internet access on the road, but also provide Internet access through a number of other mechanisms, including many of the same WiFi hotspots Boingo does. Their iPhone app works pretty well.  More options is good, and when providing reliable remote access solutions, experience counts.

A Travel Router: Because one never knows exactly what kind of broadband connectivity one will find at a hotel, and I have multiple devices that might need to use that Internet access, a travel router has a place in my bag. I can plug it into the hotel Ethernet and make it WiFi so my laptop and my mobile phones can connect to it. I currently use a first-generation WTR54GS from Linksys, which I have flashed with the flexible DD-WRT firmware.

The EVERYMAN Headset: Yes, with Skype, one needs a quality headset for an optimal experience. The EVERYMAN delivers in terms of cost and compactness in my travel bag. Yes, they gave me a review unit a few months ago, but at $23 shipped to my door, I’d happily buy another one!

An Extra Change of Clothes: One thing I learned from a professional services guy I worked with early in my career is that you never know when you will get stuck someplace on the road. Flights get canceled or severely delayed. Any number of accidents can happen involving your clothing, as well. As a result, I always–even on short trips–bring an extra change of clothes with me. I have never had to use them, thankfully, but it’s nice to know they’re there if I need them.

An Extra Bag: Yes, I actually pack an extra bag in my carryon. It’s one of those nylon “recyclable” bags you might get at a grocery store. This particular one folds up nicely with a velcro flap to keep it a nice, tidy bundle. However, if I end up picking up a few extra things on my travels, having a way to carry that stuff home is important.

Comments

• 21 October 2009, SuzanneC writes: Another item that you and your readers might want to consider for your "Travel Tool Box" is a new up-and-coming VoIP service called www.friendcaller.com, a browser-based P2P VoIP application based on the Java platform. I'm representing FriendCaller, and we've gotten some great feedback from travelers who like having the ability to talk with their friends back home, for free, via their Web browsers through the FriendCaller platform. Not only do they find it simple to use, but it also saves a lot of money on calling plans. FriendCaller just released its new iPhone/iPod app, FriendCaller 3 Pro, which enables users to send a CallMe link from their iPhone/iPod to anyone on the Internet, and they can talk for free, over WiFi, to their friends.

Related Posts

• How Do You Deal with the Time Zone Warp?
• Corporate Policies
• Liquids Allowed In Carryons Again–With Some Restrictions
• The joy of travelling
• Bound to my Computer

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

Psiloc Cuts Prices during the Summer: During the summer, you can 1 S60 3rd edition application from Psiloc and get a second one at half off. If you buy an app for an older Nokia-type phone or a UIQ device, buy your apps for 5.99 EUR (or just under 9 USD). Psiloc has a lot of great apps. I’ve personally purchased Psiloc Connect for the N95 8GB and been very happy with it.

David Blaine‘s Street Magic: See A Card app for iPhone: For $1.99, you too can amaze your friends and perform one of David Blaine’s famous card tricks using your iPhone, or so the press release goes. But let’s be honest: it’s more impressive with an actual deck of cards than it is with an iPhone app. I guess I’ll have to try it once my iPhone comes off backorder.

Your Streelights Bring You WiFi: Duratel has a very clever solution: hide those unsightly antennas for mobile phones and WiFi inside the light poles. Have to say I like this, if only to shut the NIMBYs up. Now if only AT&T would deploy a few of these in my neighborhood.

Spy On Your Employees/Spouses With FlexiSpy: It’s available for a lot of phones, including Nokia, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, and iPhone. I’ll just let you read the site and decide if you think it’s a good idea. Whether it is legal or not is another thing entirely.

Park Your Number With NumberGarage: If you’re moving out of an area and you don’t want to lose that number, a service like NumberGarage is helpful. You can essentially port the number to them. For a nominal fee, they will keep the number alive for you. The PARK service just parks the number, the FORWARD service will forward calls to your number to a different one. It’s a clever service, but their PARK service needs to announce a forwarding number, just like your phone company does when they move your service to a different location.

Related articles by Zemanta

• David Blaine now douching up your iPhone (mobilecrunch.com)
• I Ordered an iPhone, or Why Hell Froze Over Today (phoneboy.com)
• How sweet it is: Apple’s new iPhone a tasty update (thestar.com)
• David Blaine Brings His Magic to the iPhone, Fails to Disappear (geardiary.com)
• Thwarted Techno Lust (warrenellis.com)

Related Posts

• Inbox Liquidation, Part 49
• Inbox Liquidation, Part 56: A Mobile Phone Bonanza!
• My Battle with Email
• Something happened to GMail!
• Inbox Liquidation, Part 53

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

FreeConferencing.com Launches: Until they do something to equalize inter-carrier compensation between most civilized parts of the United States and rural locations, services like FreeConferenceCall.com and now FreeConferencing.com will continue to exist and be profitable. By hosting these services in, say, rural Iowa, they actually make a small amount of money per minute on incoming calls. Anyway, FreeConferencing.com is a way to do a one-to-many call, complete with a web-based console to manage the call.

Vonage Trying To Act Like Mobile Phone Carriers: Vonage, the VoIP landline replacement service provider that refuses to die, is now offering a deal where you can sign up and not pay for equipment, shipping, or activation. The catch? You have to sign a two year agreement complete with early termination fees that are, according to my calculations, worse than a mobile phone contract.

iPopperz Fashion Earphones: Personally not my thing, but these are relatively inexpensive, in-ear haedphones with a number of styles, colors, and whatnot. I would consider buying the black, green, and black pair. One cool thing: they sell replacement earpads. Granted, there is a huge amount of markup there, but it’s the first time I’ve seen them available.

Bad Experience on DeFi Mobile: I briefly wrote about DeFi Mobile in October. Wasn’t sure how well the service was going to be when it went live, but someone forwarded me some correspondence to and from the company related to their experience. In short: it was bad voice quality and improper CallerID. Anyone have a good experience with DeFi Mobile?

Qwest Offering Free WiFi Nationwide: If you happen to live in an area where Qwest is your local exchange carrier and you get high speed Internet from them, now you can take it with you–sort of. Qwest has signed a deal with AT&T to provide Qwest customers free WiFi at 17,000 AT&T operated WiFi hotspots. Personally, I think it’s worth $9.95 a month for Boingo, which offers WiFi at AT&T locations and a whole bunch more!

Comments

• 23 May 2009, Andy Abramson writes: Re: DeFi Mobile---are they around? It has been months since I even heard about them. Re: Vonage--I'm at least liking the fact that the new management team is trying to be different and newer. re: Qwest-They have to wish they had been bought. I still think someone, likely Verizon gobbles them up at some point, but do they ever need a mobile play. re: Free Conference Calling---My prediction-Skype wipes that market up in a few years. The paid stuff ends up at COL (Citrix OnLine) which was HighDefConferencing.com, a former client.
• 24 May 2009, spg writes: when DeFi first came out I inquired about whether i could really call any phone in any country or if it was a fancy way of wording 'VOIP cals to any country' and i specifically picked a couple desitinations i know to be super expensive. they replied with a 'quote' from the marketing dept. and nothing specific to the destinations i asked about. all aditional inquires via email went unanswered and my forum posts asking questions were never posted. i notice that the forum is 100% positive posts now; so they obvoisely moderate out all else. more recently i have noticed they have a list of countries taht can not be called; this list grows almost every day. for me the one amazing thing about this service was the unlimited calls to any country. that made this an interesting service to be used from a single location for 'cost savings on otherwise expensive international calls' that i believe has a much bigger market than the limited number of people who would use it from public WiFi spots. of course with a growing list of countries that can not be called that attraction is disappearing.
• 24 May 2009, spg writes: i just checked the website and the list of unsported countries has now been replaced with a short list of supported countries.
• 29 May 2009, Matt writes: I had no idea Qwest was still around. They were my provider when I lived in Montana.
• 12 June 2009, jiya bingo live free writes: For me the one amazing thing about this service was the unlimited calls to any country.that made this an interesting service to be used from a single location.

Related Posts

• My Battle with Email
• Sometimes nothin’ can be a real cool hand
• Struggling With Inbox Zero on Gmail
• Inbox Liquidation, Part 49
• Something happened to GMail!

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

I would expect someone like Andy Abramson to be excited about his client, Truphone, getting an application on the Apple iPod Touch that makes it possible to make VoIP calls over WiFi. Eventually, according to MarketWatch, you’ll be able to receive calls as well, though I’m not sure how that will work given Apple doesn’t allow background apps on their iPhone and iPod Touch.

However, when I look at it in the bigger picture, I go “meh.” It’s not exciting to me. Turning something that isn’t a phone into a phone is old hat. That’s been a reality on the Nokia N800/N810 for a while thanks to Skype. I’m sure you can think of other examples of this as well.

I don’t see a lot of “average” people go through the trouble of downloading the Truphone app from Apple’s App Store, getting the necessary microphone adapter from Apple, and using this to make calls versus some other method. No doubt some people will do it–perhaps people aided by geeks like me, perhaps not.

Most of the people I know can barely use their mobile phone. Anything more complicated than making a call, receiving a call, and perhaps using the camera requires assistance from someone like me. I helped my wife’s aunt over Thanksgiving with her LG Dare, never having seen the phone before.

Now granted, not everyone has an iPhone, or an iPod Touch. Apple does make it dirt simple to get apps onto the handset. I’m sure the smart guys at Truphone guys have also done a brilliant job of making this application dirt simple to use, much like they’ve done on the Nokia handsets.

I am struggling to see the market for this. It might seem like there is with 300 Million applications downloaded from Apple’s App Store. However, what percentage of Apple’s iPhone/iPod Touch user base have actually downloaded an application and installed it? How many Apple iPhone and iPod Touch users are actively using third party apps on their devices? My gut says not nearly as many as people are thinking.

The other niggling question is: of the people that download Truphone’s iPod Touch application, how many will turn into paying users instead of just using the free features of the application?

I would love to be wrong and have this be a mainstream game changer. I’d love to see more people using VoIP, but I’m having trouble seeing how this vision will work. Can anyone help clarify it for me?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Turning the iPod Touch into a phone
• Truphone enables WiFi phone calls on iPod Touch
• Truphone Turns iPod touch Into iPhone
• Truphone for iPod Touch: Accessing Skype Contacts and Social Media
• Did You Know Your iPod Touch is a Phone?
• Your Own Free iPhone Via An iPod Touch?
• Wireless turns iPod into a phone

Comments

• 8 December 2008, Lifeatmost writes: Me ? I'm waiting for Nokia N97. Unless Apple releasing HSDPA iPhone with qwerty keyboard...

Related Posts

• Win an iPod Touch By Making A 5 Minute Phone Call
• Skype, Truphone, and Boingo: It’s All Related
• Rumors New iPod Touch Won’t Be Huge For Teens, VoIP
• Apple iPhone Now $399
• Seasons Greetings from TruPhone

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

The first thing I noticed when I opened my package was how small the box is compared to even the N96 I received not too long ago. It’s about half the size. Inside the box, pretty much everything inside that wasn’t shrinkwrapped was cardboard instead of plastic, making the packaging a lot more recyclable. Very green, even if the inside of my box is mostly black

Inside the box, I got the phone, battery, 2.5mm stereo headphones–more on that in a minute–power adapter, micro USB cable, manual, CD. Pretty much everything I expect to come with the phone, though the matching wrist strap and carry case were nice bonuses.

I had seen and even handled some pre-release versions of this handset, but they are never as good as the production units. This one felt wonderful. Solid construction, not too big. The keys are crammed together, but it’s pretty easy to push the right ones.

Power On

Powering on the phone for the first time, I was greeted with the usual questions for a Nokia: region, date, and time. It’d be nice if it could read it from the SIM card and set the time according to the GSM network, but it wasn’t any worse than other Nokia devices I’ve used.

New Active Standby

The Active Standby screen looked a bit different. There were links for setting up email and Internet calling (VoIP), a new indicator for text messages, one for voicemail (allowing me to set up which voicemail # to use), and a new icon I haven’t seen before, which you can see in the upper right corner of this screenshot:

This is the vaunted “profile switch” icon. Click it, and your theme and Active Standby screen change. The above screenshot was my “work” profile, here is my “home” profile:

Note you can display different email inboxes on the two different Active Standby screens, however I have it disabled on both my profiles. You can disable (or enable) the display of many things on the two profiles. You can also have different applications available in the different profiles, but I chose to have the same in both.

When you navigate to the envelope on the bottom, which indicates the number of unread texts I’ve got, you get a curious little menu:

Email

Email works as it does on every other Nokia S60 device, though the process for setting up your account has improved quite a bit. Enter your email address and password, and it magically figures out what the rest of the important settings should be. It won’t work in all cases, but for the major services, it should work.

If you want corporate email, and your company as an ActiveSync (Microsoft Exchange) server, you are going to need to download Mail for Exchange. It is easy to find in Download! > Applications. The setup on this application has improved substantially over the years, though it does ues the standard Nokia S60 mail client, for better or worse.

Nseries Features on the E71

What I especially appreciate about the E71 is that many of the features I’ve long enjoyed in the Nseries devices are finally included on an Eseries device. For example, Podcasting is included. The music player understands podcasts and properly resumes when you’ve stopped a podcast in the middle of playing. The camera application looks exactly like it does on my Nseries devices. Even Share Online 3.0 is included!

I was also surprised to find the phone has an FM radio. Like the Nseries devices, it requires wired headphones to be plugged in for the antenna. It works the same way. Internet Radio isn’t included, but is easy to download in the Download! app under Applications. With it, one can listen to any number of Internet-streaming radio stations.

One other nice feature: A2DP. It’s supported and works with any A2DP-compliant set.

The Power of Access Point Groups

One other important feature that the phone has, but requires the (free) download of Birdstep SmartConnect from the Download! app: the ability to use Access Point groups. What this allows you to do is combine both 3G/EDGE and WiFi access points into a single “group.” This group can be specified wherever any access point can be specified. The app will try, in order, each access point listed, using the best one.

If for some reason, when you access the “group” access point, you get an error about not being licensed, follow the steps in this thread on Nokia Support Discussions.

One other thing of note with SmartConnect: it appears as a GPRS access point instead of as a WiFi access point, which is how Psiloc Connect operates. The upshot of this is that it will allow apps that insist on sticking with a 3G/EDGE access point like Jaiku can actually be used over WiFi! In the case of Jaiku specifically, you must do the initial configuration with the proper 3G/EDGE access point, then switch over to the virtual access point. Works lovely!

The Battery

This dainty little package includes a massive 1500 mAh battery, meaning even with 3G enabled, the phone might actually last the day. Battery life depends on a number of factors, including usage patterns and your location relative to the network, so I can’t guarantee that it will last the day for you. More testing is needed for sure.

I find that SmartConnect improves my battery life since I spent a lot of time in WiFi range. WiFi takes a bit less battery than 3G does and I have less concerns about the backhaul situation on my home WiFi

The Bad and Ugly

All is not perfect in the E71. The camera, while a respectable 3.2 megapixels, is not the sharpest tool in the shed. I’ve been spoiled by the N95 and N96, which both have much better cameras. While the extra “features” in the camera app will help somewhat, I’m better off carrying the N95 8GB or N96 with me for any semi-serious photo opportunities.

The headset jack is Nokia’s non-standard 2.5mm jack and it’s on the right side. While a wired headset is included in the package, it makes finding replacements a bit harder. Personally, I’ve opted out of using a wired headset and went straight for Stereo Bluetooth. It’s nice to see they corrected the headset jack in the cheaper cousin, the E63.

Speaking of Bluetooth, I see various and sundry issues with A2DP. The headset I use from Insignia seems to get confused between “headset” and “headphones” mode when left for an extended period of time. I have to shut the bluetooth off on the phone, wait a few seconds, then enable it again. It seems to recover after that.

The GPS in the phone doesn’t seem to work as well as the N96 or even the N95 8GB does, both of which seem to work indoors to a certain extent. The E71 doesn’t appear to work in my house well enough to get a lock.

While the keyboard is small and usable, the “chr” key gets used a lot more on the E71. This is because a lot of punctuation that existed on the E61i and E61 are no longer available on the main keyboard. The main things I am missing are the parenthesis, but there are many other keys as well. Take a look at the E61i keyboard versus the E71 keyboard:

The main reason you’d want the parethesis: smileys. They’re a little harder to do on the E71.

The Verdict

For the moment, the E71 is my primary phone. It’s nice to have a QWERTY device that’s not too big and brings along a lot of Nseries features for the ride. However, the lack of a decent camera means I’m often carrying a second device with me.

Related Posts

• SightSpeed Video Mail Demo
• The Nokia E66 and E71 Are Finally Announced!
• Why I Still Love the Nokia E71
• More on Click-to-Call
• Best Quote on Blogging

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

Image of boingo

A couple years ago, I found out they were putting WiFi on the ferries in Washington State. Being as I rarely take the ferries around here, it’s not something I’ve been tracking all that closely. However, I do appreciate how useful it would be to have–particularly on that hour-long Bremerton to Seattle run

The entire fleet of ferries and ferry terminals does not have WiFi yet, but it’s certainly expanded from when I heard about it a couple of years ago. 11 Washington State Ferries terminals and 15 Ferries offer WiFi service today.

And now, those floating WiFi hotspots are owned by the folks at Boingo. Boingo has announced they’re taking over WiFi on the ferries from Parsons Transportation Group. The most immediate thing that customers will notice, aside from the new splash page, is the price will go down to $21.95/mo from the $29.95/mo it originally was. In addition, customers will be able to use WiFi at all of Boingo’s locations throughout the U.S. and Canada for that price, not just the ferries. If you have a supported mobile phone, you can use Boingo Mobile for only $7.95/mo!

Seems like a win-win for everyone involved. Passengers get a better deal, more access, and their WiFi is now managed by people that actually know how to do it. What’s not to like?

Comments

• 17 November 2008, VoIP Watch: WiFi on The Water In Washington via Boingo writes: [...] Last week it was airports being added by Boingo. This week they've added ferries and ferry terminals in Washington State. [...]
• 22 November 2008, Voip Blog writes: Last week it was airports being added by Boingo.This week they've added ferries and ferry terminals in Washington State.As PhoneBoy points out, the costs have been lowered and subscribers immediately gain access to the entire Boingo network around the globe. The official announcement is here while the maven of all things WiFi, Glenn Fleishman weighs in

Related Posts

• WiFi On The Ferries in Seattle
• QuickLinks 20 November 2006
• Isn’t This Taxation Without Representation?
• A Tale Of Two Boingo Experiences: San Jose Versus Seattle
• Free Boingo WiFi This Weekend

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

However, the handset still has a 320×240 color screen, 3G data (at UMTS speeds of 384k/s), WiFi, an awesome keyboard, and the ability to easily switch between home and work profiles. And it has something the Nokia E71 doesn’t have: a bog-standard 3.5mm headset jack on the top of the handset!

The price is certainly right on this handset: 199 EUR before taxes and subsidies. Three variants are being produced to account for the different 3G frequencies around the world, including for the North American market, i.e. for use on AT&T and Rogers. No word on whether or not we’ll see this device taken by a carrier, but this device could easily become under $50 with a two year contract!

Related Posts

• All Out War in the VoIP Industry
• Some People Want Phones To Be Just Phones
• Nokia Announces IP2450 Intrusion Prevention With Sourcefire
• Nokia’s Latest AdSense Buy
• Nokia IP1280: Dealing Deep Layer Enterprise Security Threats Another Blow

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

Normally, I would not be buying–or necessarily wanting–a phone like the Nokia 6301. I am quite firmly a smartphone user. The Nokia 6301 is most certainly not a smartphone, but if you want the free calls over WiFi, this is one of the handful of phones T-Mobile sells that permits you to use the Hotspot @Home service.

The technology behind T-Mobile @Home is called UMA. I won’t get into it in detail here, but in short, it allows seamless transitions between your home WiFi and the mobile phone network. I cover UMA in a little more detail on phoneboy.com.

Now, onto the phone hardware. It’s a pretty run of the mill S40 5th Edition FP1 device. Has the usual assortment of keys on the front, power button on the top, volume control on the right side, a 2.5mm headset jack, power, and a not-very accessible USB port. On mine, I basically have to take the back cover off in order to be able to get the port cover off.

Once you take the battery cover off, you can also access the MicroSD slot. The device comes with a 512mb MicroSD card that you can load with music or use to store pictures taken with the 2 megapixel camera.

Unfortunately, I have been spoiled by the two variants of the N95 that I currently have as well as the older N73 and the newly arrived N96, which I will cover later. The 2 megapixel camera on the Nokia 6301 certainly won’t win any awards, but it takes servicable pictures, as shown on my Share on Ovi account. The one feature the Nokia 6301 camera DOES have is the ability to take pictures in landscape mode, giving you a 960×1280 picture. You have to manually put it in that mode, but it’s a nice touch that it has that feature.

The phone has an Active Standby screen like my Nokia smartphones have, but it is disabled by default. Once it is enabled, you can have a number of icons display along the top–you can choose as many as you want among the pre-selected choices. There’s also sections for Music/Radio, Calendar/Notes and more. You can even customize in which of these sections–if any–these will show.

The features are nice, but the real test for this phone is the sound quality–particularly over WiFi. I called someone today and talked with them for an hour on my Nokia 6301 using my home WiFi. They had no idea I was on a mobile phone, much less over WiFi. The audio quality–for both of us–was that good.

I also tested the phone handoff between WiFi and GSM. I started a call with 800-555-TELL (a.k.a TellMe) and played the blackjack with the lovely Sean Connery impersonated voice. The call didn’t miss a beat, though there was an audible “thunk” when the call handed off.

I tried the web browser, which is a fairly basic XHTML/WAP browser. It’s functional, but it’s not the Webkit-based browser that’s on my Nseries devices. Of course, when you’re not in WiFi range, you really don’t want to be web browsing much since the phone only supports GPRS on T-Mobile’s US network–not even EDGE.

One note about the WiFi on this phone: it is only provided for use with the T-Mobile @Home service, or whatever UMA service provider you buy the phone from. It will not work independently of UMA. The good news is that while you’re in range of a configured WiFi access point, the data transfer is much faster.

One downside to S40 devices is that contact and calendar sync are a little more of a challenge. T-Mobile has a (presumably subscription) service where you can sync your stuff to the cloud. Since I have no interest in that, I set up PC Suite on my work computer and am syncing my calendar and contacts over Bluetooth. The phone also, surprisingly, has Nokia’s “Phone switch” application, which makes it possible to sync information between phones.

All in all, the phone is not a bad little device. It’s probably something I’ll carry alongside something more functional and with an AT&T SIM, but for a voice-centric device, it does the job.

Comments

• 4 October 2008, T-Mobile @Home and UMA: It Works writes: [...] While it’s been kind of a rough week workwise, with the announcement of Nokia selling off the Security Appliance business, I did get a couple of new phones to play with: The Nokia N96, which I will review later, and the Nokia 6301. The latter phone came as part of signing up for the T-Mobile @Home service. You can read my review of the Nokia 6301 over on Joy of Gadgets. [...]

Related Posts

• T-Mobile @Home and UMA: It Works
• Tokibots: Cute, Practical
• The Nokia N96
• I truly am PhoneBoy
• Nokia IP290 and Nokia IP690 Announced

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

Mobivox Unveils Voice-Activated Mobile Services Platform: This is primarily geared at service providers. While I think their platform is good, as it contains thinks like voice-activated dialing and call control, group calling, and voice-to-SMS, and voice-to-email messaging, I think the challenge is going to be getting carriers to adopt. You can read more from them on the Mobivox|PL blog.

Alltel Bringing Customers NuTsie: If you want to spend $4.99 a month or $19.99 a year to listen to items from your iTunes library from your Alltel handset, and you happen to have one of the 10 handsets Alltel supports this on, get thee to the Alltel Shop on the handset and buy it.

Into High School Sports? Check Out Locofan.net: Ted Wallingford helped to put together a social networking site for high school sports called LocoFan.net! This is about empowering the social discourse surrounding sports that makes prep athletics so much fun. Things like boosting, smack talking, Saturday-morning quarterbacking, and of course, media sharing. Not personally a high school ports fan, but maybe when my kids are old enough.

DeFi Mobile Offers Unlimited Calling over WiFi for $40/mo: This service provides unlimited calling as well as unlimited data on a number of commercial WiFi hotspots worldwid–yes, data you can use for other things. Seems a bit like a cross between Boingo and Truphone, but personally, I think Truphone and Boingo are a better deal.

Skype on Asterisk: Tom Keating did a long piece on the recent announcement about Skype being made available as a channel driver for Asterisk. In short, it allows you to both make and receive calls with Skype using an Asterisk server. Anything you can do with, say, an oubound SIP channel or an IP telephone extension can bow be done with Skype. It’s not going to be open-source, nor is it going to be free. It does open up some interesting opportunities.

Comments

• 3 October 2008, spg writes: they seem to indicate that there are no international long distance charges; and that landlines and cell phones anywhere in the world can be called. there is no price list. if this is true this is pretty amazing having nothing to do with the mobile aspect. anyone who simply makes a lot of calls to cell phones in for example any European country would be getting a very good deal being able to call unlimited for $40.00 per month. i looked and could not find any FUP. i will be following this one' something just does not seem to add up.
• 3 October 2008, spg writes: i was referring to DeFi Mobile in the above comment.
• 3 October 2008, PhoneBoy writes: I forget that terminating calls to mobile phones outside North America is insanely expensive and for no good reason. If DeFi Mobile does allow calls to mobile phones to be included in the $40/mo, then they are probably going to go out of business really fast. However, I suspect they don't allow this.
• 18 October 2008, spg writes: very interesting. i posted on questions on the defimobile forum. there was no reply to the forum post but i did receive an email from Nikki @ Defimobile, posted below: Satphoneguy, DeFi Global Access members enjoy unlimited global calling. This includes outbound calling to all countries and phone types. On Oct 16, 8:27 pm, Satphoneguy wrote: > > do i understand correctly that included are calls worldwide? does this > > include outbound calls to all countries and phone types or only that i > > can use the servicer anyplace in the world to call my home country? > > for example can i make unlimited calls from the USA to cell phone in > > europe? > > > > thanks in advance for clarification. i may give them a try; although i wish they offered the same price plan as an outbound SIP trunk. i can not possible see how they can offer calls to countries such as cuba that run several dollars per minute.

Related Posts

• My Battle with Email
• Sometimes nothin’ can be a real cool hand
• Struggling With Inbox Zero on Gmail
• Something happened to GMail!
• Clearing Inbox Debris

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

Boingo Mobile subscribers on all supported handsets enjoy unlimited usage for only $7.95, €5.95 or £3.95 per month, with no per-minute or per-megabyte fees, no contracts and no cancellation penalties. Hotspots all over the world are supported at this price. It’s a fantastic deal! You get 1 month free by signing up at http://mobile.boingo.com/se

Related Posts

• Boingo Taking Over WiFi on Washington State Ferries
• SIP Client for Symbian OS?
• Free Boingo WiFi This Weekend
• Nokia To Own Symbian, Then Set It Free
• What Did I Say About Consistent Networking on Symbian?

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

• Your neighbor(s) talking amongst themselves, or to you when you don’t want to talk
• Someone a few rows away brought a screaming child on the plane
• The noise from the engines

How about we ban these things while we’re at it? No? Why single out phone calls, then?

I think the flight attendants should offer free ear plugs to passengers who are affected by noise, or better yet, if you’re annoyed, plug yourself into a portable media device. Hard to be annoyed at things you can’t hear.

photo credit: trochim

Comments

• 28 August 2008, Dave writes: Do you fly much? I fly 2 or 3 times a week & I can guarantee that if one airline allows phones & the other doesn't, I'll be on the one that doesn't. It's a fact that far too many people don't comprehend that to speak to someone miles away by mobile phone doesn't mean you have to shout so they can hear you without the phone! :-) And yes, they should ban screaming kids as well - at least from business class.
• 28 August 2008, PhoneBoy writes: So if the airlines don't want us talking, why did they put Airfones on the airplanes in the first place? Because they can--and did charge metric assloads of money for the privilege. I used the Airfones a couple of times in it's heydey. One time, I tried the modem (it was "advertised" to work, but it didn't). Another time, I called my wife because we were delayed and I needed to tell her not to expect me until later. They can try and try to block VoIP, it's ultimately going to be futile. People will find ways around it. People will find other ways to be inconsiderate, VoIP or not. Airlines can't afford to turn anyone away, given the financial trouble they are in.
• 28 August 2008, Dave writes: They might have charged plenty, but I'll bet they lost plenty - I have flown literally thousands of times & the only time I have ever used it was on a flight from Nigeria to London to organise a new connecting flight to Singapore. Let's see - 500 phones sitting there unused per plane? You are right, airlines can't afford to turn people away and the vast majority of people don't want flying to be any more stressful than it is already, so they have a choice of turning away platinum frequent flyers or some jerk with no phone manners who probably flies once a year. Read the trade papers and gauge the opinion for yourself. The phones can easily block VOIP - turn the off switch every time some idiot starts shouting into his phone. Otherwise there is going to be a riot. It's bad enough now that as soon as the plane lands there are 10 people ringing their friends If you had mobile phone access on a flight these days wouldn't you SMS your wife to tell her you would be late instead of calling? I guess you also have a 60 second 'Macarena' ringtone for incoming sms messages anyway! :-)
• 28 August 2008, PhoneBoy writes: I'd call my wife on my mobile phone BEFORE WE GOT IN THE AIR. I actually keep my SMS tone disabled and my ring tone is very tasteful (i.e. not a 60 second version of the macarena). The problem is that the planes are giving out their Internet with WiFi. While you can block VoIP, clever people will figure out ways around these blocks. It's a cat and mouse game--one that Aircell will ultimately lose.

Related Posts

• German Courts Ban VoIP App on iPhone
• Texting and Driving About to be Illegal in WA State
• PhoneBoy’s Week That Was 1 June 2008
• This Week in PhoneBoy 12 August 2007
• A Truly Low-Cost Data Plan For Your Mobile

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

This probably won’t make a lot of sense without knowing what Aircell and Phweet are. Aircell is American Airlines new WiFi in the sky service that recently launched. The reported restrictions on this service are that VoIP applications are disallowed. Skype, interestingly enough, can be used without using the voice calling.

Phweet is Stuart Henshall and David Beckemeyer’s latest brainchild, making it possible for two (or more) people to set up a voice call using only your twitter credentials. No phone numbers needed. One of the ways you can connect into Phweet is through a flash widget provided by TringMe, which uses standard HTTP to communicate.

And therein lies the hole. Unlike with SIP-based solutions like SightSpeed, which reportedly failed after about 10 seconds, TringMe’s widget was able to bust through whatever Aircell is doing to block VoIP calls on the planes. The reason? The traffic looks like normal web traffic.

In some sense, that’s correct. However, if you were to look at that HTTP traffic more closely, you can figure out that something doesn’t look right about that HTTP traffic. An HTTP proxy seems to thwart the TringMe widget. Forcing the traffic through a proxy–or looking for the “signature” of this TringMe widget–is all you need to be able to block thhis flash widget without impacting other widgets (e.g. YouTube, Hulu).

Of course, like porn finds its way around the filters, you can likely find ways around this blockage. That being said, voice traffic has a certain fingerprint that is hard to mask, even if you were to encrypt the traffic. I have no doubt that Aircell, if it so chooses, could make it very difficult for this traffic to get through. I wouldn’t count on this “hole” working for long.

Comments

• 22 August 2008, Andy’s Phweet Aircell call — Alec Saunders SquawkBox writes: [...] Aircell Isn’t Blocking all Forms of VoIP [...]
• 22 August 2008, VoIP Blogging writes: t work we tried a Flash based solution through Phweet (you use your Twitter account to sign in). Some related posts from Technorati and Google. [The PhoneBoy Blog]Aircell Isn’t Blocking all Forms of VoIP: Unlike with SIP-based solutions like SightSpeed, which reportedly failed after about 10 seconds, TringMe’s widget was able to bust through whatever Aircell is doing to block VoIP calls on the planes. The reason?
• 23 August 2008, links for 2008-08-23 | stuart henshall writes: [...] Aircell Isn’t Blocking all Forms of VoIP on One Phweet Conversation Over AirCell": made a big splash on Twitter (and throughout the blogosphere) when... [...]
• 25 August 2008, JimAtJaxtr writes: Perhaps they haven't moved to block that loophole yet because there aren't enough people using it yet to really impact revenue. Could be a cost thing that it's more costly to figure out how to fix it currently than to let the small number of people using that route do it. It'll be interesting to see what they do.
• 31 August 2008, Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com writes: blocking on planes and the associated ways of getting around said blocking. Long story short -- SIP was being blocked on American Airline flights but Flash widgets were not blocked. Andy Abramson has an original post on the matter and PhoneBoy hasthoughtson why airplane broadband providers can likely block anything thrown at them. Like I said a while back -- isn't it amazing how much effort airlines throw at stopping passengers from talking on phones when they don't get paid by the minute? I remember
• 6 November 2008, TringMe - In New and Blogs writes: [...] Aircell Isn’t Blocking all Forms of VoIP | Aug 22, 2008 [...]

Related Posts

• Let’s Ban Things Other Than VoIP on Planes
• Ken Camp Has A New Blog Home!
• How will they address data?
• This Week in PhoneBoy 7 October 2007
• PhoneBoy’s Thoughts on Net Neutrality

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

The theory is that the program uses the data connection on your mobile phone–which is hopefully 3G. That data connection is made available over WiFi as a regular access point to other WiFi-enabled devices. Sort of, at least on S60, as it is only able to use an AdHoc network type, not infrastructure. This limits you ability to use it with, say, a Nintendo DS or Sony PSP. However, it works great with computers.

JoikuSpot is also currently 40% off: 15 Euros instead of the normal 25! While that’s still a lot of clams in U.S. Pesos, it’s still a nice investment. Where else are you going to get a portable WiFi router for that price?

Comments

• 18 August 2008, Carnival of the Mobilists #137 | mobilejones writes: [...] from the S60 platform, Dameon D. Welch-Abernathy in”JoikuSpot Now on Windows Mobile” announces the use of JoikuSpot for turning Wi-Fi transceiver in a Win Mobile device into a [...]
• 18 August 2008, JaikuSpot Post Part of Carnival of Mobilists #137 at Joy of Gadgets writes: [...] « JoikuSpot Now on Windows Mobile [...]
• 24 October 2008, Recent Links Tagged With "windowsmobile" - JabberTags writes: [...] Podcast 244 - chit-chat about Windows Mobile news ... Saved by redravensonfire on Thu 23-10-2008 JoikuSpot Now on Windows Mobile Saved by kenji on Thu 23-10-2008 Windows Mobile 6.1 update for the Motorola Q9h for ATT Saved by [...]

Related Posts

• JaikuSpot Post Part of Carnival of Mobilists #137
• S60 Versus Windows Mobile: Exchange Email
• Mac OS X Safari on Windows!
• More Inbox Cruft
• Skyfire Going Public Beta

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

The main problem I had with the WTR54GS? The firmware. Linksys never bothered to update beyond the initial shipping version, and the firmware is crap. The router’s web interface was slow and frequently experienced weird glitches. A problem with nearly every Linksys router since they switched to using VxWorks instead of Linux.

The folks behind DD-WRT figured out how to liberate this device from a life of running VxWorks. I followed the rather convoluted steps for getting DD-WRT onto the router. One small hitch I ran into was that the referenced Sercomm utility crashes under XP. However, a quick Google search resulted in finding an update to Sercomm that would make it run under XP.

After about 10 minutes, the WTR54GS was running DD-WRT. The web interface worked and was nice and peppy. All the functionality of DD-WRT is now in my travel bag, ready to convert WiFi to Ethernet or vice-versa.

Now if only Linksys would drop this VxWorks crap, their current routers might not suck so bad.

Related Posts

• WTR45GS Finally Has Useful Firmware
• Kudos to Linksys for Finally Posting Firmware for VoIP devices!
• Nokia N800 and N95 Gets New Firmware
• La Fonera and MacOS
• My FON Router is Online

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a