John Linton
We arrived in the UK early Tuesday morning (UK time) and picked up our rental car and drove to a small hotel in a small village 15 miles out of the North of London which I selected because it was in walking distance of a main line train station. Our need for this was that we had agreed to meet Annette's father for lunch (who was returning to Australia after a trip to see the remains of the Lancaster he flew in the Second World War which had recently been discovered) which was a brave thing to do after a 22 hour flight and the resultant jet lag.
The kind manager allowed us an early check in so after a shower and a change of clothes we walked to the station and caught a train to Oxford Street where all the various mobile companies have their major stores as I thought it would be a good idea to get the purchase of an HSPA service out of the way before the jet lag induced 'early shut down' cut in.
We go to Oxford Street in less than 40 minutes giving us plenty of time to get the service of my choice and still have a leisurely stroll to the restaurant we had arranged for lunch. I had made a list of my preferred services before leaving so this should have been a piece of cake.
Not going to work out that way.
I had made a preferred list of services before leaving Australia which were:
BT
Vodafone
O2
Three
T1 Mobile
All of these suppliers had major stores in Oxford Street which is London's major shopping district so I thought if I missed out on my first choice - no problem just a few minutes away were all the others. The problem was, and I admit I have no knowledge of mobile phone stores in Australia, that everyone I spoke to knew little/nothing about the HSPA services. After being "wait a minute I'll get an expert'ed" three times I gave up on BT only to have the same experience with Vodafone and O2 (I couldn't find Three).
So, last chance saloon, I found T1 Mobile and got a pleasant surprise. Someone who knew exactly what I wanted, had it in stock and was quite happy to install it on my notebook to prove how well it worked (which of course it should in central London). So he ripped open a packet and plugged a sim in to the dongle and the dongle in to a USB slot on my notebook and it configured itself in 20 - 30 seconds (no CD was needed) and a sub screen came up with all the technical details and one click connected it and a second click activated my browser. It connected at 3.6 mbps and I could download at 2.5 mbps (in Central London) so I paid my 100 pounds for the dongle and my 80 pounds for twenty days of 3 gb a day downloading and we walked, briskly up Bond Street, Down Piccadilly and up Swallow Street for a pleasant lunch with Annette's father at Bentley's.
On the train trip home I used the HSPA to do some email and some browsing and while it was noticably slower than at the store it was fine.
Back at the hotel the speed had dropped to 1.1 mbps and some times it dropped to below 100 kbps but we were in rural England in a 'valley' so I was not that concerned. At around 3 am in the morning the speed had increased back to 2.5 mbps so I suspect that 'saturation' and cell congestion is going to be a factor as I don't have any other explanation.
Early days but HSPA is working for me and we will head North in a few hours to the Derbyshire peak district which will be interesting to see.
At least my bet is alive for one more day!