Saturday, November 08, 2008
Guam FINALLY gets mobile WiFi
Anyone that spends at least 5 minutes talking tech to me knows that for years my major gripe has been the fact that Guam ISPs and wireless providers weren't making wireless broadband Internet access available. Having worked in telecom for a spell many moons ago, I realize that it's not easy - the infrastructure's expensive, the margins low, the volumes high.
I hated the fact that you could only get online at speeds that those of us in the digerati deem acceptable by being within a WiFi hotspot. Sadly, this was limited to only a few areas, many of which inconviniently placed. So you can imagine my joy when I reported how IT&E and DOCOMO Pacific (formerly Guamcell) have released their own 3G mobile broadband access, via EVDO and HSDPA, respectively.
At KUAM, we've been privvy to test both networks, and although I haven't personally used IT&E's WiFi, which works over USB mobile cards, I've been running DOCOMO's service on a BandLuxe WCDMA/HSDPA 3.5G ExpressCard (or as I like to call it, "PCMCIA Jr.").
I've heard spotty reviews of IT&E's coverage, being limited only to a few villages at the moment. I've roamed with the DOCOMO all over the place and not had problems with connectivity. As far as throughput goes, both services promise you 7.2Mbps, but I've not seen that type of speed yet (in fact, SpeedTest says my connection at home in Tumon is about 856K, which is 4x slower than my office LAN and about half the speed of a decent ISP account through a wireless router). YouTube clips, the litmus test for any sort of Internet connection, running slightly behind their download speed upon playback, making for the occasional chug. But for basic page browsing, it's snappy.
Bandwidth can be added, so I'm not worried if the plans don't exactly make you speed demons yet. I'm just glad someone finally went out on a limb and did it. And the crowd, mark my words, goes wild.
Now if someone would have the good sense to create a monthly plan that has upload speeds greater than 1Mbps, without those of us looking to do online gaming or host home servers without being forced to lease a T-1, this would rock. New York City has service that's 15Mbps down/5Mbps up for $150/month. Look into it.
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