Archive News
New mobile amongst the fastest in the world
Date Published: 12-Nov-2009
Galway now has some of the fastest mobile broadband you can get in the world. It will be spread to the rest of the country over the coming year, but Meteor has chosen us as the first place to experience their new high-speed service – twice as fast as any previously available.
Why? Maybe they just like us. But my guess is that Galway is a good size. (Microcosmopolitan, as it were.)
They have some of the new high-speed masts up and working in Dublin and Cork too, but coverage there is far from complete. Dublin’s too big, Cork is too insanely hilly, Galway. . . is just right. They can already provide coverage to the entire city centre and some of the suburbs.
So the modem you need to receive it – or dongle, to use the technical term (seriously) – is on sale here exclusively. Right now you can receive mobile broadband at speeds that put most fixed-line services to shame. That’s the theory, let’s test it.
Sitting in Eyre Square – well, O’Connell’s pub in Eyre Square. . . – I’m currently getting between four and five, even six Megabits per second. At the press launch earlier we were getting 10 Mbps or so – but then there was a phone mast right outside the window. (Actually now I notice I have a direct line of sight from here to the mast on the post office, but maybe Meteor don’t have an aerial on that one.)
Obviously speeds are going to vary depending on your location, and I will be testing it at various points around the city in the coming week. But even at this rate, it’s faster than almost all – if not all – fixed-line broadband available. Remember, this is the tested speed I’m actually getting, not what they’re claiming I "can" get.
What’s so good about such high speeds? Well it’s lovely to be able to watch videos on YouTube without them stuttering, yeah, but that doesn’t matter much to me. What matters is that this is now becoming fast and effective enough to really take the place of fixed-line. Six months ago I decided to cancel my ADSL (the technology that sends broadband over the phone lines) and go mobile-only.
In doing so I obviously saved money over having both, but I lost out on speed. With this service though I can get speeds as good as I used to – better in fact. What’s more, pricing is also becoming keen.
This had been my main criticism of Meteor, but now they’ve restructured their rates to go head-to-head with the 3 network, previously the lowest. It will be interesting to see how 3, O2 and Vodafone respond.
Competition is now intense in mobile broadband, whereas for ADSL it ranges from poor to effectively non-existent. The reason almost goes without saying: Eircom owns all the phone lines. They are under no obligation to upgrade the infrastructure, and they were under no pressure to – until now. Unless they change their attitude, Eircom will find that it has suddenly gone from being the monopolistic controller of the nation’s telecoms infrastructure to the owner of a lot of useless old copper wire.
The nice irony is, of course, that Meteor is part of the Eircom empire. Downfall it seems comes from within.