I am writing on this subject because of an interesting occurence tonight. For weeks now, despite having the correct settings for data on the Zain network on my Sony Ericsson T650i, I have been unable to browse the internet.

I have an MTN SIM in my Nokia E90 Communicator for my mobile office needs.
But because of MTN’s present bout of epilepsy on its data services, I popped my Zain SIM in place of MTN in the E90, and surprise - I’m browsing smooth and easy on the Zain GPRS network on the Nokia!

Actually, it is not quite a surprise to me. Over the years, it has been my observation that by default Nokia phones handle mobile internet better than phones from most other manufacturers.

Does it matter what make of phone you use?

MTN roaming subscribers will be able to travel to any of the four countries with their regular SIM card and make calls at the local tarriffs of whichever country they are in per time. The service inludes SMS “and other value-added services that they enjoy on their home networks”. It is not clear at the moment whether this will include mobile data e.g. GPRS, EDGE and 3G.

Most 3G handsets are set to ‘Dual Mode’ by default. This means that the phone switches between the regular 2G network and the 3G network depending on the conditions on ground.

For some reason, Glomobile 3G internet access is pretty unstable when your phone is set to Dual Mode. Glo 3G internet works much better when you set your phone to 3G or UMTS mode alone.

How to do this? In your Nokia phone menu, go to: Settings -> Phone -> Network -> Network Mode. Select ‘UMTS’ or ‘3G’. These tags and the menu layout vary from across different manufacturers, so you may need to consult your manual.

Barring other circumstances, once set to UMTS or 3G only, you’ll enjoy a more stable Glo 3G internet connection.

One of the new features (actually not so new) is the re-introduction of skins, as obtained back in v3. I have never liked the bright red skin, and I immediately changed the skin to silver (my favourite Opera Mini skin) on my device.

This beta is also faster, as Opera has set up a new server to spread out more of the load. Though I haven’t tested it, Opera says certain phones will now be able to play video files in the browser.

Get full details, or simply point your phone’s browser to mini.opera.com/beta to download the beta version of Opera Mini 4.2.

I used the device extensively for about 3 months, and I can say that it is a well-rounded device - and at a very good price too. There is little to fault with the i780. It is a business device that gets the job done.

If you do not fancy the optical trackpad (that controls an on-screen mouse), you’ve got the option of stylus plus touchscreen. Both work very well. But I must say that the trackpad is well implemented and I used it extensively, such that I hardly ever used the stylus in 3 months of my possession of the device.

Quick Specifications

Operating System: Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.0 Professional
Size and Weight: 115.9 x 61.3 x 12.9 mm. 120 gm
Display: TFT touchscreen. 65, 000 colors. 320 x 320 pixels
Data: GPRS, EDGE, 3G, HSDPA (3.6 Mbps)
Camera: 2 MP, 1600×1200 pixels. Video recording
Memory: 150mb + microSD slot (none in retail box)
Connectivity: USB. Bluetooth
Text Input: QWERTY keyboard. Optical trackpad
Mesaging: SMS, MMS, EMail, Instant Messaging
Web Browser: Opera Mobile 8.65, Pocket Explorer
Others: Wi-Fi. Video call with secondary VGA videocall camera. Spare battery and External battery charger

MobiNaija Rating: 4/5

Our first impression of the MTN 3G network was good. On several occassions and at different locations we experienced out-of-this-world speeds. I mean, we were clocking steady speeds of 600kbps to 1.2mbps. Steady. We said to ourselves that MTN 3G was a data heaven.

OK. Fast forward three months after the launch of these bundle packages, and we have a diferent story. All of sudden our once stable and fast network has developed epilepsy. MTN 3G is in urgent need of medical attention.

One example of their epileptic network happened over a period of one week. Dayo, a member of the team noticed that he could not connect to the 3G network at Ajao road in the Surulere area of Lagos. Moving to another location less than 1km away, he found that he could get a 3G connection. Thinking that this must be a coincidence, he did this the next day and experienced the same thing. This scenario has persisted for more than a week now.

We have received a steadilly streaming report from other subscribers of the disappointment that MTN 3G platform is fast becoming.

At the office yesterday, we did a firmware update of a Nokia series 60 device this morning, and got speeds of between 66 kbps and 300kbps. The download of the 76.6mb update took about 3 hours!

Can MTN please do something about their capacity and service delivery? This is no longer 3.5G: what subscribers are beginning to experience now on the MTN network is 0.5G. That really does remind us of our days with Starcomms, Multilinks and Reltel (now ZOOMmobile).

Will it be fair to assess them so soon? It may not be a fair comparison since they dont have the customer base of the others (thousands versus millions) but I will give it a shot.

Before the entrance of Etisalat, I scored Glo the highest of all three (which is not that high anyway). I don’t have specific scores but was based on my assessment of response time, quality of response and courtesy.

Getting through to Customer care of all the three prior networks is a nightmare to say the least. I usually pray not to have any reason to need to contact them, but sometimes the inevitable occurs such as the over-scratching of poorly made recharge cards.

I have only gotten through to Glo’s 121 once during the day and that was after close to 50 dials. All the other times I have gotten through were in the middle of the night! After I finally got through each time, I was placed on hold for an average of 15 minutes. Quality of response has been fair but I remember when once I called to inquire about an ad in the papers & customer care said they knew nothing about it. But courtesy was pretty good.

I started off with Glo because simply put, I have never gotten through to MTN on 180 & Zain on 111. After dialling 180 and pressing the number to put me through to CC, the connection fails. Same goes for 111 on Zain.

Back to Etisalat, dialling 200 was a breeze. Got through on my first dial and was put through to the Customer Care representative in an average of 3 minutes 30 seconds on the 3 occasions I called.

Responses were good but mainly from the textbook and were details I already knew from their website. I made an enquiry about some products on their website and the representative was kind enough to tell me she didnt know and made an effort to get the information from a supervisor. She was profuse in her apologies when the information was not available and politely asked me to call back at a later time.

On the whole, it might be a bit too early but I rate Etisalat high on their Customer Care services with Glo second and MTN & Zain vying for the abysmal bottom spot.

1. Screen Size: The larger the screen, the better your browsing experience is likely to be.

2. Text Input: Phones with a full QWERTY keyboard or a touchscreen generally make for a better internet browsing experience. That does not mean, however, that you cannot browse on phones with a regular mobile keypad.

3. Data capability: These days, the lowest data capability your phone must have is GPRS. If it has EDGE; even better. If it has 3G (UMTS); awesome.

4. Browser: The standard phone browser these days is WAP 2.0 or XHTML. Do not bother with WAP 1.1 and WAP 1.2 phones, as those are largely obsolete. WAP 2.0/XHTML browsers allow you to browse both WAP pages and non-complex web pages, while the others mentioned limit you to WAP pages.

5. Java (J2ME): By all means, make sure that you get a phone that has good Java functionality. Why? So that regardless of the capabilities of your phone’s in-built browser, you can always fall back on Opera Mini if and where necesarry. Opera Mini can be a lifesaver in many ways - in the areas of speed and cost-reduction (if you are paying by the byte) especially.

Before then, the WAP traffic statistics for our very own flagship site then showed a steady stream of mobile devices accessing the site. I also mentioned mobile-friendly sites like: Esato and Nairaland.

That was two (2) years ago. Has anything changed? Are Nigerians still browsing on their mobile devices? Are Nigerians putting out mobile content on the internet?

Yes; Nigerians are still browsing via mobiles, even more so. With faster mobile connections (EDGE, 3G, and 3.5G), and lower costs, the trend is improving.

Opera’s State Of the Mobile Web Report says, which tracks the usage of Opera Mini (the famous java browser for mobile devices), indicates that traffic from Nigeria is up 1690% since January, 2008. Hello.

WAP Review also reports in the article, Explosion in African Mobile Browsing, that its site’s mobile web traffic from Nigeria was up by 91% for Octiber compared with July. The WAP Review story also provides statistics and information from other sources, and they all speak the same thing: the mobile web is fast gaining ground in Nigeria.

The other question, are Nigerians putting out content for mobile access, is a little more difficult to answer. Yes; there are a few more mobile-friendly sites of Nigerian origin. But the growth in this area is almost insignificant. There are still very few Nigerian mobile sites or mobile-friendly Nigerian sites. However, with enlightenment, this is likely to change.

For example, the Smirnoff Company is currently running a promo in Nigeria, and one of the channels they are utilising is mobile marketing, by placing banner ads on choice Nigerian mobile-friendly sites. That decision was the product of a clear understanding of the trends in the mobile market in Nigeria. They know that Nigerians are browsing via mobiles, but there were very few Nigerian mobile-friendly sites to pick from.

Does your business have a mobile-friendly website, or is still missing out on the huge potentials of the mobile internet market? Are you taking advantage of mobile devices and technology in order to stay connected when out and about? The anytime, anywhere revolution is here.

It started innocently years ago with one or two individuals stumbling on a loophole in the settings of one or more GSM networks and simply riding on that to enjoy the free internet connection those loopholes afforded. Thereafter, it developed into a deliberate and elaborate hunt for those loopholes, and today it is a massive industry. Just take a trip to Nairaland.com to have a glimpse of how widespread and deep this phenomenom has become.

It seems that the “bounty hunters” find a new loophole as soon as an existing one is blocked by any of the operators concerned. When challenged, bounty hunters point to “high internet tariffs” or the “injustice of operators” as justification for their actions. I will leave that subject between them and the network operators.

However, I cannot help but wonder how unproductive the attitude of many of the free browsing addicts is. One would have though that having access to free internet usage would encourage subscribers to take advantage of the internet’s huge resources for self development. But most seem to just waste the priviledge on downloads, instant messaging, social networking and personal mails. While I am sure that there would exist a few sensible users who are putting the free access to purposes of self, academic and economic development, by and large much of the free browing is often valueless activity.

Years of free browsing, and very little to show for it. Shame, for a country in need of much development.