Telecomms: November 2007 Archives

Yesterday my Nokia 6310i was retired from active service. My requirements have moved on from wanting a phone that had triband and txt messaging with a good battery life to the following:

- Good Battery Life
- Wi-Fi
- 3G
- VOIP
- Access to work calendars
- Newsfeeds
- MP3 player

The 02 coverage where I live is very poor. I have coverage at our kitchen window but none at the Kitchen table. After much research and coffee chats with my colleagues I decided to buy the nokia e65 and switch to the three network.

So far my impressions are good. The phone is a communications swiss army knife and is quiet small. I don't think it would be the best ever unit for writing emails as the screen is quiet small but the battery life seems good.

The 3G network is so so if I get the TI Wi-fi connection working it will make a considerable difference. I need to get my hands on a 2GB sd micro and download a few more useful apps to really exploit its potential.

The phone comes preloaded with Skype, Facebook, Ebay etc 100 Mb of 3G data cost 6 euros per month which is good value.

I just had an interesting conversation with Gary in the Carphone warehouse head office in Dublin. He finally shed some light on the availability of Skype for 3 bill pay customers.

Bill pay customers can download a Skype app from the planet 3 service for their phone e.g a Nokia N73. It does require 3G coverage and you will be charged for data traffic. 3 offer 100Mb of data a month for 5.99.

Nov 23rd Update - Having read the install instructions for Skype it appears that a customer has to buy a X-series silver package for 14 euros per month approx to use the Skype service. This doesn't seem to make marketing sense to me and is something I will be taking up with three.