virginmedia....

I moved this last weekend from Holland Park (London - W11) to Belsize Park (London - NW3), and asked virginmedia to move my cable box and cable modem. The original order was indicated no problem as both sides were wired.

Woke up to no service in the old flat, expected, no big deal. Disconnected everything and brought it to the new house. Connected it, no go. Called and was told needed new gear - I protested as (a) pain in the arse for me; (b) costs them money. In truth don't care about (b) personally but care a lot about (a).

Knew that the electronics were the same but they simply would not listen to me. Went out and picked up a 3-3G USB dongle for email access for the few days..

Gave virgin my work address to send the gear to but of course when I got home on Monday and Tuesday had the UPS slip there saying they tried to deliver. ARGHGHGHGHGHG. Called Wednesday am and confirmed they had 3 boxes for me. Re-routed to the UPS depo, which is thankfully only 10 minutes away.

Get to the UPS station, pick up the 3 boxes:
Box 1: cables
Box 2: another set of cables, exact same as 1
Box 3: cables (same as 1&2), wireless router, cable modem and cable box

So 3 sets of cables which I didn't need as I had from the old house. A cable modem and cable box that were IDENTICAL to what I had. I then had to call them to GIVE THEM the serial numbers/mac addresses of the units. I'm sure if I had used the old ones they would have worked.

I really don't understand as I've now got an extra cable modem, cable tv box, wireless router and 4 sets of wires - AND - it took me 5 extra days to get up and running...

Waste of my time and their money. Did I say I don't understand? They really wasted their £££s on this one

iPhone and the Blackberry

As I've posted in the past I've wanted a iPhone but given international travel could not justify one. When I started my current position, which has `something` to do with mobile, decided it was time to try out the iPhone full time and give up the Blackberry.

I've had the blackberry since the early days, well before there was a phone and it looked like an over sized pager (am I dating myself with that reference?). Marina will tell you I'm more than addicted, but it is a great tool for keeping up on email.

So for the last 6 weeks I've been using the iPhone exclusively for work email. It is good and bad.

Good: Unit is solid, screen is great, watching movies and listening to music/podcasts is great.
Bad: With the exception of personal email using the keyboard for email is - well - difficult. Battery life is fine if you charge mid day.

I've ordered a blackberry for corporate email, I've tried. I need email to work quickly, be on the unit at all times for the bus, train, plane (yea, real push is coming...), have quick cut/paste, fast and accurate typing (look at some of my recent twitters to see my typos).

That said, I will not be getting rid of my iPhone if I can help it. It's too good for everything else. Granted, I will end up carrying 3 units on a regular basis (n95, iPhone and 8800), along with a smattering of others for testing as well as the occasional US mobile (bberry 8820). But I don't think I'm normal.

On a side note, after ~10 years I'll be getting rid of my US-646 mobile soon. I'm still using the 8820 (see other post a few months back) but only when it is on wifi for free calls. I've dropped all data and moved calling to the bare minimum along with the wifi calling option. Once my family is in London I'll cancel it completely. For all the gripes, I've had a good run with the US T-Mobile folks, but I live in the -44- country code now.

Frequent International Travel - Telco

I've been shuffling back and forth between London and Connecticut for the last 6 months. I've manged to do this with out killing myself on roaming charges. The worst I've had it in excess charges was the first month I was in London prior to getting wifi in my flat - that month it was 'only' $50 in charges that month for calls. Given $0.99/minute ...

For communicating with Marina and the kids Skype has been the savior. Video chat works well and can use from either my office, flat or hotel room. We have since expanded this to include both grandparents. This probably saves the majority of what I'd have spent otherwise.

I do have a UK based nokia n95 mobile phone, which works for those people that have the number and do not mind the international costs.

Since not everyone has skype, and I've had the same US 646 mobile number since 2000 (1999?). Given my shuffling back and forth I do not yet want to give up a US mobile. As a lot of people have that number and I don't want to yet make people change. I've thought about either a skype or gizmo5 call in number and have that forward to a PC, but that does require being near a wifi connection at all times.

As my wife will also confirm I'm somewhat 'attached' to my blackberry. I've got to have that working on both sides of the Atlantic with out excess data rates.

In looking around at options, I discovered that I could get a US based Blackberry on either T-Mobile or Verizon with 'unlimited' international data roaming. I had the Verizon world phone in a prior life so knew that worked. My personal mobile has been on T-Mobile so I let that be. The cost for this is $29.98/month for base enterprise blackberry with a $19.99/month add on for the international roaming. For both carriers this is hard to find, but in my case it is an add on option in my.t-mobile.com

Given I'd had $25/day roaming costs in the past this was a clear no-brainer. Note: I did look and I do not see any UK carriers that have the same type of roaming, but if people know of any let me know as I'll likely have to change at some point in time.

This solved one issue, but still had the issue of voice calls. Turns out US T-Mobile has something called Unlimited Hotspot Calling which is a $9.99/month add on to my mobile bill. This uses the same technology as their T-Mobile @home for doing the voice over ip, but works on any of the wifi enabled phones.

This turns out is the real solution as my Blackberry 8820 unit is a wifi enabled unit with UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access). When the unit is in the range of a wifi connection it knows about, like in the office or at home, the unit switches off EDGE/GPRS to UMA. It also switches, in my case, from the roaming mobile network to the normal 'T-Mobile' network as if I am in the states. At this point in time all data and call activity does not cost me anything.

I simply check the status when someone calls - if it says UMA - I am free to talk with no concerns I am about to go broke.

I've looked and besides the US T-Mobile network, I can not seem to find any providers in the UK that have the same type of setup. My Nokia unit in theory will do wifi calls, but with out the UMA settings it does not work. In my case perhaps this is due to my carrier, there is some hint on Orange.co.uk they might have it - dunno. If someone does please let me know as I do have the similar problem in reverse when I take my UK number to the US.

In the end this solved a bunch of issues for me, including what to do in the US when I'm in places with low cell coverage (including my house at times). The wifi option solves that in US or UK.

My remaining gripes on all this:
1. I'd really like a iphone - but can not deal with the roaming costs internationally.
2. When I'm just normal roaming in the UK I'm at GPRS speeds instead of EDGE. Has to be something with the UK networks by choice, when my unit hits France it is in EDGE out of the gate.

What I really want moving forward:
1. More carriers using UMA and more wifi devices
2. Google Voice - WHY or WHY can I not forward to an international number? I'll pay the international calling rate you charge me for making calls through the system.

Some might say that T-Mobile does not have the same coverage as AT&T or Verizon. Look, that may be true, but in truth it usually works where I need it to. Has worked a lot better than an old nextel I had. I'm not normal as also tend to carry multiple units on different carriers, but still, t-mobile has been my primary phone for years.