While I might be on the road, I do have rather better communications abilities these days. I have signed up for T-Mobile’s Web ‘n’ Walk service, which is a pay-as-you-go wireless broadband system. As with anything, it has good points and bad points. Here’s a brief survey of my experiences so far.

Good

• I can connect from anywhere there is a T-Mobile mobile phone signal – no need to find a Starbucks
• The price is $8/day, and only when I use it – much cheaper than most UK access
• The connection speed is fine for what I want to do
• The software and hardware worked perfectly straight out of the box

Bad

• No Linux driver, so I can’t use it on the Asus
• Idiot “You may only install this on one computer” license (it needs the hardware, you can’t use it on more than one machine at once)
• It conflicts with the wi-fi management software on my laptop

The last point is the most irritating. I’m OK for now, because I can connect by wire when I’m at home, but I don’t want to have to uninstall the Web ‘n’ Walk software when I go to the US.

More reports will follow if anything else of interest turns up.

Update:

VERY BAD

There’s a nanny lock on the access. It won’t let you see sites that it deems unsuitable. You have to pay to get it taken off. And it won’t accept my credit card.

Also the connection isn’t good enough to support Skype.

Further Update:

The payment on the nanny lock thing appears to be a way of proving that you are over 18. They say they’ll pay the money back immediately once the transaction is accepted. But in that case why do they need to charge $4?

It was an Amex card that they wouldn’t accept. They didn’t say why. Given how unprofessional the web pages about getting the nanny lock taken off were, I wasn’t going to trust them with any other card. Amex, I know from good experience, will protect me.

Anyway, I got the nanny lock taken off by calling their customer support and listening while the embarrassed guy on the other end of the phone read me a ton of legalese about how they’d sue my ass off if I was lying about being over 18. From what I can gather, the Web ‘n’ Walk system uses much fo the same software as their web-enabled mobile phones, and they are terrified of being sued because someone’s kid saw a naked boobie on their phone. Britain being such a ridiculous nanny state, I have some sympathy with them.

I can now report that the connection is OK when it works (except for Skype) but a pain in the but when it doesn’t. Which is to say it can be unreliable, probably due tot heir having insufficient capacity to serve the load. Trying to log in during the evening may not be a good idea.