[MissionMan]

There are two things that are certain in life, Death and Taxes...they should have added the fact that Telstra was or always would be expensive to that. And so begins my review of the Telstra NextG 7.2 express card modem and Telstra's service.

In this day and age, sure there are plenty of alternatives, but in reality, if you want the best coverage money can buy, (and in Telstra's case, that involves a lot of money) then you have no real choice. 3's coverage is limited at best, Optus is about as reliable as Vista, and Vodafone use Optus...not exactly an appealing selection of choices and about the same as trying to select the windows laptop, because at the end of the day, no matter what you pick, you're stick stuck with windows.

I spend a fair amount of time at different sites. Sure I can access email with my iphone, but when it comes to the ability to review, change and respond to emails with documents, there is no substitute for a laptop irrespective of what app you get. Sure I could have waited for tethering in the upcoming OS 3.0, but in reality, i like having a separate modem on a laptop so I don't have issues with it disconnecting if I have to leave the room to take a business call.

Modem Cost and Quality 5/10

First off, the cost of the modem should probably only be $150 instead of the $300 they try screw you for, but this is Telstra, the same one who screws every customer whilst providing B grade after sales service on the best network infrastructure. What they should really be saying is "Here is a modem, we sell it for $300, it really should sell for $150 but we increase the price by $150 so we can give you $200 discount so we can still make $100 while selling you bandwidth at overinflated pricing.

The modem came with an aerial which seems to work well, although unplugging the aerial is a bitch. It gets stuck like a rabid dog with lockjaw and pulling it apart makes you feel like you're about to break the modem. At least I know the signal won't be broken easily, but I'm keeping my warrany slip in case this thing does a chk chk boom. I got the express card option which works well, seems decent quality, has some aerial tolerance issues but overall isn't bad. For macbook pro users I would advice getting the express card option, it seems better overall than the USB one and its nice being able to keep your USB ports free if you need them.

On a serious down note, I don't know who designed the aerial but giving me a crappy sticky velcro thing to connect it to my unibody macbook pro is not going to happen. Maybe you, Mr designer, have some crappy plastic dell that you don't mind sticking shit to, but there aint no chance I am going to stick this thing to my beautiful macbook pro. I'd rather drink turpentine and piss on a brush fire. My next plan of action will be to design a method of hooking the aerial onto the laptop screen area with some padding and no stick things, but that will come later. Big face palm to the designer of this.

Purchasing process - 7/10

Walk into a Telstra store, fork out $300 for the modem, go back home, register it and they give you back X amount depending on the contract you take. In my case, the $30/1GB contract reduced the cost to $100. I'll give it 7/10 because the processing of paying up front and reclaiming is just more annoying than its worth, particularly given the fact that you have to complete a rebate form. It just seems simpler to do it automatically in the registration process. its added complexity to a process that should be simple.

Setup and Installation Process 9/10

This came as a surprise. Other than an initial "insert your simcard" problem I got when I first plugged it in (the sim card wasn't properly inserted into the modem out the box), the whole process was, well, surprisingly easy and un-telstralike. The step by step guide was intuitive, supported OSX, and actually made the process relatively painless. Telstra had already placed a large stick on the modem stating "Install software before inserting modem" so even that part was fool proof. Best of all, Telstra didn't try completely retelstranise my entire laptop. After my experiences with Telstra's telstranising of phones, I was half expecting to switch on my laptop to a OSX Telstra Login screen, Telstra desktop, 200 Telstra apps that replaced all my standard apps with Telstra alternatives including Telstra Office, Telstra iWork, Telstra iLife, Telstra Creative Suite CS4, and to have it automatically delete my itunes and replace it with a bigpond alternative. I opened a browser and Telstra hadn't even added bookmarks to their bigpond services to my Safari. *shock* I'm still not 100% trusting of whats happened here, so maybe their are still filtering my web usage to check what sites I use and then they'll do a sneaky telstranising when you least expect it.

Where they lose points is on the sim card issue (half a point) and the fact that I had to register a brand new bigpond address, even though I had an existing one through my home broadband connection. I now have two bigpond addresses, both of which are forwarded to my .mac account. They really should allow existing customer to use the same mail addy after logging in to prove its theirs, its not that hard.

Signal 10/10

Yeah, Telstra do have the best signal, its part of the "we screw you because you required 1st rate coverage). I've yet to find an area without 3G, including some trips I took to far North Queensland, in fact, I've found 3G signal in Aboriginal areas where I don't even think they have electricity, or at least we didn't.

Speed 9/10

There are faster ways to do things, but this is pretty bloody quick so I can't really complain too much about it.

After sales service 5/10

I haven't had to use it much, but where I have, its involves stupid voice prompt systems, you know, the whole "please say a word for service you are looking for" crap which works, but is annoying, extremely slow in getting where you want, and when you eventually get there, the people don't know what the hell to do anyway. If you happen to get to the wrong place, you'll be holding for another half an hour while it takes you through 10 more voice prompts and 20 minutes of holding for a service center that is grossly understaffed.

Overall value for money 5/10

It does the job but is grossly overpriced compared to competitors and the rest of the world but I'm just stuck using it because there are no real alternatives if you want reliable 3G anywhere in the country.

Total rating is about 6.5/10 (no scientific calculation, thats a thumbsuck for me)


The modem


The crappy aerial supplied standard with a velcro connection option


Makeshift better aerial connector which doesn't require physically sticking things to my laptop

[Dux]

Can I request one more 'out of ten' rating -

How sore is your arsehole after using Telstra's 3G service?

Ta.

[MissionMan]

Originally Posted by Dux

Can I request one more 'out of ten' rating -

How sore is your arsehole after using Telstra's 3G service?

Ta.

Yup, but you could argue, having a sore arsehole whilst using Telstra's 3G is better than not having any network coverage as some of the recent optus iphone users can attest to...

...but yes, it is sore, although they have a 50% off special which has made the pain a little easier to come to terms with...consider it like lube

[Lutze]

I hope asking about why you're not waiting for iPhone Tethering and using cheaper connection where you can is something you've got an answer for?

I should add... telstra are the only network we use at my work and we have sites as remote as Groote Eylandt.

[MissionMan]

Originally Posted by Lutze

I hope asking about why you're not waiting for iPhone Tethering and using cheaper connection where you can is something you've got an answer for?

What? There tethering in OS3??

Nah, just kidding, I knew its coming, but the answer is in my review

"Sure I could have waited for tethering in the upcoming OS 3.0, but in reality, i like having a separate modem on a laptop so I don't have issues with it disconnecting if I have to leave the room to take a business call."

My major issue is that when I work at customers, I often have to walk away from my desk for business calls for extended time periods, that would cause disconnections on the tethering which I can't afford all the time due to network connections, vpn's etc.

[Lutze]

Originally Posted by MissionMan

What? There tethering in OS3??

Nah, just kidding, I knew its coming, but the answer is in my review

"Sure I could have waited for tethering in the upcoming OS 3.0, but in reality, i like having a separate modem on a laptop so I don't have issues with it disconnecting if I have to leave the room to take a business call."

My major issue is that when I work at customers, I often have to walk away from my desk for business calls for extended time periods, that would cause disconnections on the tethering which I can't afford all the time due to network connections, vpn's etc.

Fair play. I admit to just scanning the post, simply because I deal with these 3g cards every single day. And the newest ones have the software that's required to install is embedded in the card.

[MissionMan]

No problem. It was a valid question given the upcoming release.

I would also have concerns on the multitasking ability of the iphone. I.e. the ability to maintain a connection when a call comes in but that wasn't a make or break decision for me, its just a concern after previous experiences with tethered modems.

I see the point about the software, it has a built in microSD card/reader so why not just put the software in there.

[Exocet]

3's coverage is limited at best, Optus is about as reliable as Vista, and Vodafone use Optus...

I'm not posting to nitpick here, but Optus and Voda share wireless infrastructure. The backhaul and core is separate - Voda isn't nearly as oversold as Optus is. Aside from that the review is very good and pretty much on the money as for what I would expect from Telstra. Cheers!

[stefan]

Just how well does it actually work WITHOUT the antenna?

[MissionMan]

I actually haven't had to use it since I first got it and tried it, so the standard signal seems pretty good. I suspect I may only need the antenna when it comes to trying to get signal in suspect areas. I'll be going to a fairly remote area in august so I should have plenty of feedback by then.

[Cybix]

Been looking around MT for some info on 3G wireless stuffs, found this thread.

my wife has this telstra expresscard in her junk work HP notebook. I love your comment in the orig post about the velcro sticky thing that comes with the card. I applied this to the lid of her junk HP laptop, so she can use the external antenna. lol.

To be honest, she's not needed the antenna yet. the reception seems great with the card on it's own. Sierra Wirless make good sh1t yo.

I'm wondering what the technical info on the antenna is, is it 5dB ? I wonder.

I hope to test/review the Sierra Wireless Apex 880 very soon (usb dongle modem)

[MissionMan]

Originally Posted by Cybix

Been looking around MT for some info on 3G wireless stuffs, found this thread.

my wife has this telstra expresscard in her junk work HP notebook. I love your comment in the orig post about the velcro sticky thing that comes with the card. I applied this to the lid of her junk HP laptop, so she can use the external antenna. lol.

To be honest, she's not needed the antenna yet. the reception seems great with the card on it's own. Sierra Wirless make good sh1t yo.

I'm wondering what the technical info on the antenna is, is it 5dB ? I wonder.

I hope to test/review the Sierra Wireless Apex 880 very soon (usb dongle modem)

I haven't need the antenna either yet but I suspect I will on my trip to NQLD in August because I'll be going to remote areas.

This is a decent looking wireless aerial which seems to have a better attachment although its only 2dBi



From the looks of a website I found, the standard antenna is 3dBi.



This is a 5dBi antennam which looks nice and seems to at least be able to clip anywhere.

[Cybix]

i found some absolute killer antenna's on ebay from some tasmania dude. he hand makes them. big yagi bastards, like 12dB + you need a pole or something to mount it on. hahaha insane.