Categories
3G Cell Phones Computers

Using 3G on my Laptop

I finally managed to get my HTC Hero to share the 3G connection with my MacBook Pro! In order to do that I used an app called PDANet that had to be installed on the phone and on my Mac, I would have preferred to do it with no additional apps but I needed to root my phone to do that.

Here’s the speed test of the connection:

I am currently using the connection to update my Mac and iPad and so far everything is going fine it should take 2 hours to download the 1GB update and for Lebanon that’s not bad!

Once all my devices are updated I’ll probably review iOS 5 and the new iCloud services.

Categories
3G Cell Phones Internet

Welcome to the UAE!

That’s how you are welcomed to Dubai! Let’s hope we have 4G by 2015!

Categories
3G Internet Lebanon

3G Speeds

The first thing I did when I got my 3G line is enter the speedtest.net application and test the speed of the connection. After those initial test whenever I accessed the app on 3G or even edge it showed me a “Network communication issues” error.

Testing WiFi speeds still worked properly but I couldn’t test 3G speeds in any region. I think alfa might be blocking the testing but I am not sure about it. The good news is that yesterday I finally managed to bypass the block by:

  • Connecting and finding a server to test on while on WiFi
  • Getting far enough from the router so that the mobile looses the WiFi signal (exiting the app to turn off WiFi kept resetting it)
  • Testing the connection on 3G.

The speeds I got from those test were pretty descent, I got speeds between 2 and 3 MB but with high latencies (>200ms).

So for now the 3G speeds are good, let’s just hope they manage to maintain a fast service when it is finally properly launched!

Categories
3G Internet Lebanon

Tested 3G video calls

Last Friday I got to test video calling with a friend in downtown Beirut. The 2 phones performing the calls were a Nokia C7 and a Nokia E72 both with alfa lines. I was happy to find that the call was successful and we were able to see each others and talk normally. The quality is similar to a crappy webcam picture but there was no lags or interruption so it wasn’t bad. I’ll try to perform a call to an MTC line soon but I’m not sure it would work. Did anyone else try video calls? Did you have a similar or a different experience?