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 Cell Phones Internet Lebanon

My first day using Alfa 3G in Lebanon

Today I started using the 3G service I got from Alfa, I won’t make a judgement on it yet since I was very busy and I barely managed to use it but the speeds were a little slow when I did test them. I did not use it for browsing yet and the only app I used was whatsapp so I didn’t see any improvement in this area.

I contacted customer support via mail today and they called me back, they were very helpful and I’ll make a post about that on another day.

Here’s a small list of results I got from the speedtests (using speedtest.net app for android)

  • Sin El Fil, 08h26, Down 119 kbps, Up 336 kbps, ping 131 ms
  • Sin El Fil, 09h15, Down 41kbps, Up 370 kbps, ping 211 ms
  • Sin El Fil, 09h15, Down 609kbps, Up 382 kbps, ping 211 ms
  • Naccache, 20h24, Down 311 kbps, Up 166 kbps, ping 329 ms

Reception in Sin El Fil is a little bad indoor (1-2 over 5) and good outside (3-5 over 5) but I managed to make good quality phone calls indoors and outdoors. In Naccache it’s good with a full reception outdoors and an indoor reception similar to the one I got outdoors in Sin El Fil.

I am currently using the connection to download app updates on my phone and they are downloading faster then usual so that’s a good sign! I got to go watch the latest episodes of How I met your mother and 2 and a half man now but I promise you I’ll keep updating you about the connection as I test it!

Categories
3G Cell Phones Internet Lebanon

Alfa 3G coverage map and other info

Here’s a scan of the flyer I got with my Alfa 3G line. In the second page you can see the different regions in Lebanon that will be covered by 3G in the testing phase.

Categories
Cell Phones Internet Lebanon

I got an Alfa 3G SIM card!

Today I attended the SMW Beirut event at the Mar Roukoz campus of USJ. During the event the minister of telecommunication launched the 3G service in Lebanon on a limited bases just for testing. At the end of the conference a draw was made to select 25 students from each mobile operator to test the service and I got lucky and received a SIM card from Alfa!. In total 4000 users will test it, 25% will be students and the others will be randomly selected from the population.

So for the next month I will be testing 3G in Lebanon and updating you guys here and on Twitter (@eliedh).

I have a 3GB data cap on the service and I according to the flyer I should expect speeds up to 21.1 Mbps.

The person distributing the SIM cards at the end of the conference told us that the 3G will start working tomorrow. I already placed the SIM card in an HTC Mozart phone (running windows phone 7). I got a 3G signal and I was able to call it from my other line but the internet did not work. I’ll try it later tonight on an HTC Hero (running android).

During this month I’ll try to test the connection on as many devices as I can and use as many services as I can.

Here’s a list of the devices I plan to test on (I have the devices marked in bold and can get quick access to the others):

  • HTC Hero
  • HTC Mozart
  • Nokia N8
  • Nokia C7
  • iPhone 3GS
  • iPhone 4
  • iPad 3G
  • LG Arena
  • LG GD900 Crystal
  • Sony Ericsson Z610
  • Nokia E72
  • Samsung Ace
  • Samsung Galaxy S
  • Samsung Galaxy S2
  • Samsung Wave

Note that I did not check if all the devices support the technology used by Alfa so I’ll check before testing each one. I’ll also try to use the tethering option on devices that support it. In addition to that I might get a USB dongle to test it on my Macbook pro and on my windows laptop.

The services I use on a daily basis on my mobile are the following: Whatsapp, Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook. During the testing period I’ll try to stream some videos to the mobile phones and perform a speed/ping test on every device/region. If I get the chance I will also try to place a Video call (but during the conference I heard that it does not work yet so I’m not sure about it).

I hope the service works correctly and that we can finally have decent internet in Lebanon, I’ll make sure to inform Alfa about any problem I might encounter since this is a testing period and hopefully 3G will be available to everyone soon.

If you have any suggestions or questions please share them in the comments.

Categories
Cell Phones Personal

My cell phones

I got my first phone when I was 15, a Nokia 3410, the phone was amazing at the time, it could download java games, had wap and could play polyphonic ringtones.

2 years later the phone stopped working, I wasn’t doing great in school back then so my parents didn’t want to get me a phone I would “like” so instead they got me a Nokia 2100, I hated this phone! my old one could do more stuff! this one didn’t even have wap!

I kept this phone for a couple of months and I later took my mum’s old phone when she replaced it with a new one, it was a Nokia 8310, it had wap (it even updated a few games from wap!) and could record short voice clips. It wasn’t great but it was better then the 2100!

The 8310 was my last Nokia, when I finally could get a new phone I got the Sony Ericsson K700i. It was my first mobile with a color screen, it had Bluetooth, Internet, Java Games, a Camera, Infrared, and 40 MBs of memory! I remember thinking that I would never need more then 40MBs when I got it! Back then in class, half the phones had bluetooth and the other half only had infrared so we used my phone every time someone wanted to transfer something from a phone that had bluetooth to a phone that only has infrared.

I later got a Sony Ericsson K750i, it had the same features but had a better camera.

My last Sony Ericsson was P1i, it was also my first smart-phone, it had Wi-Fi, a touch-screen, a 3.2MP cam and all the features of the previous phones.

My current, soon to be replaced, phone is an HTC Hero running a 2.1 version of the android OS. It’s a good phone but I am not sure I will be getting another android phone since you never know if the vendor is going to update it or not.

My next phone will probably be an IPhone(5?) or a (Nokia?)WM7 phone…

Categories
Cell Phones Weird

Seriously??

mobile phones outnumber toothbrushes two-to-one.

Source

Categories
Blogging Cell Phones Software

Testing posting from cell phone

I just installed the WordPress android application, it looks like it has all the needed features for quick blogging. I am going to test it in the next couple of days and review it here.

Categories
Cell Phones Computers Uncategorized

Microsoft – Nokia Deal, Exclusive Details and Pictures

Today Microsoft and Nokia will announce an agreement, people were guessing that this agreement involves Office on Nokia phones. I have exclusive information that contradict this guess. What Microsoft and Nokia will be announcing today is the start of Windows on Nokia phones. You will first see XP on the new Nokia Smartphone N97 (pictured bellow running XP) and other phones will follow.

Okay! I was just kidding! I just saw the Giant Demo N97 in virgin city mall stuck on this XP screen and here is the pic.

Nokia N97 running XP

Categories
Cell Phones Internet

Alfa and Web 2.0

Today i noticed a new section on Alfa’s website, a media corner. The media corner is basicly a list of links to Alfa’s pages on different Web 2.0 websites. The idea is very interesting! they currently have a Youtube page, a Twitter page and a Flickr one. The Twitter page is the most interesting one in my opinion, I checked it and they are posting information about updates and replying to user coments. I don’t have a twitter account yet and I don’t think I’ll open one any time soon but it’s nice to see Lebanese companies using web 2.0 to better reach out to customers!