Inside View

Struggling with Mobile Data Limits

Screenshot from @topgold's Nokia Lumia 925.

THERE SHOULD BE NO reason that I need to use more than 2 GB of data each month with my mobile phone because I know what apps are the most data-intensive. I overshot my data limit this month because I tethered my laptop for an hour and I watched more than two hours of HD YouTube videos this month.

I needed tethering for a few simple laptop tasks and failed to kill both Windows Updates and an automatic Camtasia download. Those two things resulted in a 380 MB payload within a 20 minute period and that pushed me through my monthly mobile data limit. More importantly, it means my monthly O2 bill sits comfortably above €140, double the amount I normally budget for my account. Telefonica Ireland benefits directly.

I'm confident that my Nokia Lumia won't try to pull any more data over the air because I have set up Data Sense to automatically throttle the phone's over the air data usage once I reach 85% of my account limit. The screenshot on this blog post shows what happened when I removed the software switch and permitted normal email services to run with five different accounts on my phone.

Car Hacking with Boston Brakes and More

@topgold grabbed the Michael Hastings shot from AboveTopSecret.

WHILE LIVING IN GERMANY, I drove slowly by several high-speed Autobahn accidents involving mangled Mercedes Benz cars. It was unusual to see one explode at high speed and burn like Thermite (as Michael Hastings' car appears) so I'm deeply intrigued by the theory of a car hacking incident.

Former Marine Gordon Duff has shared information about the “Boston Brakes” technique, in which “drive by wire” cars like the Mercedes in the shot, can be manipulated remotely to simulate an out-of-control accident. [1]

I set up a news alert to follow this story and got some very interesting scenarios from Richard Clarke, the former U.S. National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism. [2] Clarke confirms intelligence services have successfully tested the “drive by wire” concept. [3] I've used Audioboo to talk about the on-board diagnostic unit and how it's possible to hack one to control a new car.

OBD USB TV

Discovering How Much Streaming Uses on Mobile

Screenshot of unsuccessful wifi connectivity at work.

BECAUSE I DEPEND UPON wifi connectivity on my work laptop, I have discovered how much over-the-air data connectivity actually costs. That's because my work laptop doesn't connect to the campus wifi node and I'm tethering from my personal O2 account to compensate.

For a week, I used my Hauwei E586 Mifi as my wifi service but the combination of serving YouTube, BBC iPlayer and RTE Jr streams at home along with my normal daytime browsing means I use an average of 1.32 GB of O2 data every day. We have 30 GB of data on a reasonably priced O2-Ireland account and don't want to run up more than the contracted data services.

I've resorted to turning off all the two tablets in the house at night and ensuring the smartphones have Wifi shut down at night as well because they were updating software, downloading the Guardian and getting email syncs when we didn't need them. Along the way, I've learned how data-hungry video streaming services really are.

No Internet Access with Three Mifi

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel having problems with the Three Mifi at left.

I THINK MY WINDOWS laptop has a dodgy internet adapter inside because I'm having headaches with my Three Ireland Mifi internet connection lately.

I'm blogging this problem because I know several wifi experts read my musings. Here is my plan.

1. I have restarted the E586 router several times, waited for it to boot up and connect to my laptop. Unlike my O2 E586, it shows "connected" most of the time.

2. I have deleted the applicable network profile on my W7 laptop.

3. I have uninstalled the wireless adapter driver and discovered some remnants of a T-Link adapter tha might be causing issues.

All Mifi Are Not Created Equal

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | Photo of my Huawei E586 Mifi  

FOR THE PAST TWO years, Mifi has impressed me with its versatility. However, I've also learned to appreciate the limitations of the little portable wifi dongles.

When I attend industry events throughout Ireland, people with devices set to snoop for open wifi nodes often know I'm in the vicinity because I have two E586 Mifi dongles offering free internet access to anyone within 20 square metres of my Bihn bag where the dongle rests. One E586 has the SSID Topgold running with a Three Ireland SIM and the other shows up as Bern-ie powered by O2-Ireland. I get appreciative glances because my devices are often more resilient than venue wifi. However, I also know they misbehave and need to be reset occasionally, just as I expect to reboot my normal wireless router.

In my experience, my fastest Mifi service (using 3Ireland) also returns the most errors in DNS look-up. That means the Mifi cannot find the name server so the web page I need to use returns blank with the DNS error message. I cannot get a result by refreshing the web page--I have to disconnect my laptop from the Mifi dongle and reconnect it.

In other cases, both my O2 and 3Ireland Mifi dongles cause errors when connected to apps on my handsets. I can often work around those errors by selecting a different Mifi option.

In all cases, I've been able to correct data problems by resetting the individual E586 dongles by turning them off and then back on.

Celebrating Eight Years of Mobile Wifi

Bernie Goldbach in Dublin | Photo snapped in London 

I REMEMBER GETTING A LOT of slagging for carrying a brick for a phone because most of the critics didn't understand the phone's wifi and keyboard let it replace my laptop.

Today, it's hard to get a smartphone without a wifi antenna inside. I use my Lumia's wifi to make Skype calls to mobile phones in other countries for as little as two euro cents a minute. I use Viber on iOS to ring people for free. And yet I still pay nearly 80 year a month for my mobile phone service so the wifi hasn't actually reduced my phone bills.

When I first started carrying a Wifi phone (the Nokia 9500), I wondered about the viability of 3G in the age of inexpensive Wi-Fi connectivity. Why use the over-the-air network if you could do everything for free via Wifi? Then I saw the issues.

Huawei E585 Three Mifi Speed

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | Speedtest in a bunker  

I HAVE JUMPED over to Three.ie for my main Over The Air data connectivity for two reasons: faster data and cheaper data.

I snapped the accompanying Speedtest while in a granite bunker near the Rock of Cashel. The location (in an old abbey surrounded by very thick granite walls) is one of the worst places I can find to test high speed over the air service. In this case, my two-year-old (very unrealiable) Hauwei E585 dongle delivered 3G service fast enough to run 10 browser tabs while downloading 35 MB of audio. When using my O2 SIM in the same location, I lost 3G service.

I've a lot of respect now for how Three.ie has used the service fee it received under the National Broadband Scheme. It appears a lot of the Exchequer's money went towards the erection of mobile data masts in farmland where people living in rurual areas can get broadband over the air. That's a good thing.

And even better, it's serving me 60 GB of data for EUR 30 a month.

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Bernie Goldbach curates links about wifi.

Extending Wifi Around Immersion Barriers

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | My photo of the adapter 

OUR TP-LINK TL-WN722N wireless high gain USB adapter allows me to connect my Dell M2400 laptop to an O2 Hotshot two floors away. And the adapter's 4dBi antenna swivels so I can point it directly at the Hotshot's location.

Our tall house has a tall immersion heater three metres away from the O2 Huawei E586 Hotshot. With just the on-board laptop antenna, our concrete floors and copper heater interfered with wifi connectivity. The TP-Link solved all those issues.

The size of this USB component may surprise some readers, as will its cost ($11) and value for money. It uses Align 1-stream technology based on the 802.11n standard. The TL-WN722N provides a better wireless signal than existing wireless 802.11g technology. And its  detachable antenna can remarkably boost your signal range and speed. The TP-Link TL-WN722N gives me remarkably good Google Hangouts with one-bar HSDPA signal strength.

Fried SIM in a Dongle

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | Photo of my Hotshot 

AFTER GIVING TOP MARKS to my O2 Hotshot, the thing died on me today. Actually, the helpful O2 people suggested me its SIM failed.

But after calling around, I discovered that since I signed a new contract with O2-Ireland, I relinquished legacy data services that were permitting me to use up to 50 GB a month over-the-air without being capped. Now I'm capped at 15 GB a month--meaning I can sneak 25 GB monthly across the O2 network every month without being throttled.

The Hotshot looks like the midnight shot I snapped in this blog post. I need a PAYG data SIM or a data plan on another network to meet my monthly needs. I really don't want to pay more than EUR 30 for 50 GB of over-the-air data connectivity.

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Bernie Goldbach curates links about mobile.

Learning with my Always-On Hotshot

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | 339 words

I HAVE POWERED my blog for two consecutive months using just my my Huawei 585 dongle. And I've learned some things worth sharing about media monitoring, throughput limitations and running costs.