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We test by Ross Tester iBurst Mobile Broadband We looked at Unwired a year ago. Now we look at the opposition! H aving now obtained a reasonable amount of experience with Unwired’s wireless broadband offering, we were given the opportunity to test their opposition recently. iBurst sent us one of their “mobile” broadband modems to evaluate. They call it a Personal Broadband Access Card. iBurst actually have two types of wireless broadband modem. The first is designed for fixed systems, not too dissimilar to that offered by Unwired (however, they are certainly not interchangeable as they use different technologies and frequencies – iBurst is on 1.9GHz where Unwired is on 3.5GHz). However, the one which made us sit up and take note was something that Unwired don’t offer – a model designed for laptops and notebooks, claimed to not only offer a completely mobile system but one which could actually be used when mobile – according to iBurst at speeds in excess of 100km/h! The laptop/notebook modem takes the form of a PC-card (once called PCMCIA) which simply slides into a type-2 PC card slot. There is nothing else to connect. Also on this section are a pair of LEDs – one shows power while the The iBurst mobile modem fitted to the PC slot of an IBM notebook. You can have a notebook with both iBurst and WiFi as they are on different frequencies. other (with an antenna logo) shows signal strength with different LED colours showing good (green), marginal (orange) and poor/non-existent (red). Our experience was that you really had to have a green to have any real reliability. But we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves. Finally, there is an integral antenna. I’ll have a little more to say about this later as well! Installation One of iBurst’s selling points is its quick and easy installation. “Under three minutes”, they claim. Was it? Yes . . . and no! Installation certainly took a very short time – run This page: the iBurst coverage maps (l-r) for Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane. Sydney is fairly well covered, except for great slabs of the north, northern beaches, and outer west. Unwired has a better coverage of Sydney but iBurst also covers other cities where Unwired has yet to start. 22  Silicon Chip siliconchip.com.au The iBurst mobile (laptop/notebook) PC-card modem. The folded-down antenna is hidden along the back. the software, plug in the card when requested, then log on. Except that I couldn’t log on, which sort of made the whole experience just a bit less than satisfactory. When we looked at Unwired, we made the comment that the Northern Beaches of Sydney (while it is God’s country!) is still a telecommunications backwater. And unfortunately, that’s where the SILICON CHIP offices are (as are most of the staff). Depending on where you are, television signals range from good to virtually non-existent. FM radio suffers from multipath and other interference. Even good ol’ AM radio can be plagued by noise and poor signal strength. ADSL is Similarly, here’s the current coverage of the Gold Coast (above) and Melbourne. iBurst admit they have a long way to go – but they’re working on it! siliconchip.com.au often unavailable due to the distances between telephone exchanges and customers – and cable hasn’t quite made it to many areas. All this around 15-20km from the coat hanger! And so it is with iBurst. According to the red areas (good signal) on their coverage map (published elsewhere in this feature), they look after Sydney city, the north shore, eastern suburbs and a good part of the west pretty well. But check out the Northern Beaches: most of it is green – meaning no go (actually it means “planned”, as in sometime in the future. It’s been that way since iBurst was introduced last year!). However, one particular area is all red – Collaroy Plateau. For those who don’t know Sydney, this is an elevated area with good line-of-sight in most directions, including the City. So most of my initial testing was done sitting in a carpark on Collaroy Plateau. Unfortunately I don’t have a car charger for my notebook so this necessitated several trips home to charge the battery. The first time I installed iBurst everything went perfectly, except for one minor detail: it didn’t work at all. “No signal” it said. “No modem”, it said. I tried reseating the modem, just in case – but no go. After an hour or so, I gave up in frustration (actually the battery gave up!) OK, what next? I was loathe to ring iBurst because I’m a technical person and I should be able to follow simple instructions, right? So I tried again. Still no go. Could it be a software problem? I decided to un-install the software from my notebook and re-install it. This time I did it in the carpark where there should be plenty of signal – and lo and behold, it did install properly – and worked. And from go to whoa, it did take about three minutes. Why didn’t it work the first time? Dunno! Put it down to the vagaries of computers! (I’m not going to admit it might have been the nut on the keyboard, am I?) The test The iBurst control panel tells you quite a bit of useful information, such as whether you are connected or not, the relative signal strength, packets sent and received, and so on. It’s a useful addition to the red/orange/green signal strength LED on the modem itself. Our test modem came direct from iBurst (actually, their PR company) so I didn’t have the hand-holding that you would get with, say, Dick Smith Electronics or one of their other “channel partners” (don’t you just love the buzz words? No? Neither do I!) At the suggestion of the PR company, I logged onto another iBurst distributor, Chilli Internet Solutions (www.chilli. net.au.) Their website contains a significantly better coverage “map” than does iBurst itself – you enter the required location (down to street name and number) and it will tell you whether iBurst is available at that particular spot – complete with hi-definition maps. It was here that I found out that NOT all of Collaroy Plateau is covered. I also found that an area, which the iBurst map suggested was not covered, was! But there was something else I had completely overlooked. I had simply plugged the iBurst modem into the PC slot, as the instructions suggested. But then I noticed a couple of photos on the Chilli site showed a little vertical antenna. “Bugger!” I thought “the PR company has forgotten to send me the antenna”. But then real close examination showed that it was integral with the modem and just required unclipping and turning through 90°. Talk about embarrassing! Armed with this information, I went driving (remember, iBurst mobile is guaranteed to be just that, mobile). With my trusty notebook on the front seat, I logged on to a site with free streaming video (OK, I admit it – Big Brother Live Cam! Of course, this was for purely scientific research purposes). All I can say is – it worked. Anywhere that the Chilli site suggested I September 2005  23 Chilli Laptop Modem Speed Download Limit 512/128k 300MB 1Mb/345k 500MB 1Mb/345k 1GB 1Mb/345k 3GB 1Mb/345k 10GB Monthly Price $49.95 $64.95 $99.95 $129.95 $199.95 Chilli Desktop Modem Speed Download Limit 256/64k 200MB 256/64k 400MB 512/128k 400MB 512/128k 1GB 1MB/345k 1GB 1MB/345k 3GB 1MB/345k 10GB Monthly Price $29.95 $34.95 $44.95 $59.95 $64.95 $79.95 $189.95 Chilli’s current iBurst plans for both the laptop modem we featured here or the desktop modem. There’s also a once-only contract charge ranging from $66 to $129 and if you exceed your download limit, you either pay extra or have it “shaped”. could get signal, the streaming video didn’t miss a beat. Signal strength stayed up in the 60+ area. I cannot confirm the 100km/h claim – there’s nowhere I can legally drive that fast in the local coverage area. I had already checked out iBurst at my own place – absolutely nothing (no surprise there). Next I drove down from the high plateau into an area which should have been non-existent, according to iBurst, and patchy, according to Chilli. That’s exactly what it was – patchy. Most of the time it was pretty good but there were places where the signal did momentarily drop out – but usually it reconnected pretty quickly. There were places where I didn’t expect signal – and got it. And there were places, outside the acknowledged coverage area, where connection disappeared completely, as expected. Remember, this test was being done at what would have been called “deep fringe” in TV signal parlance. You’d expect to need a good antenna system to get any signal – but this thing is just a tiny (53mm) whip antenna on a modem in a laptop on a car seat – hardly the best reception environment. I have read all the testimonials from very happy and satisfied iBurst/Chilli customers, about how well it works in the inner city, west, north shore, et al. Fine – all of those areas should be wall-to-wall. I’d be disappointed if it didn’t work there after all the claims made. But for it to work as well as it did at the very edges of expected signal – and even beyond – I have to say I am impressed with its performance. How much? For this sort of flexibility, it’s not unreasonable that you would have to be prepared to spend a little more than your typical ADSL/Cable (ie wired) system. iBurst/Chilli maintain that it’s about the same – that’s advertising talk for both prices starting with a dollar sign. First of all, the modem itself: the mobile version we tried will set you back $299. As we mentioned before, there is a fixed version (but still wireless, along the lines of Unwired) for $199.00. There is also an “activation charge” which, depending on the length of contract you take out, ranges from $66 (12 months) to $129 (no contract). We looked at the Chilli website to find plan prices – plans from other providers are pretty much identical (in fact, many on-sell Chilli plans). We’ve shown the Chilli plans for both fixed and mobile. As you can see, they aren’t as cheap as most broadband (ADSL/Cable) plans available these days. In fact, their top-of-the-line mobile plan, 1Mbs download, 345Kbs upload, 10GB download limit before shaping or excess charges, is a not inconsiderable $199.95 per month. To counter this, iBurst claim that their speed is maintained at a much higher level than ADSL/cable and are even promising speeds of 2Mbs next year and 8Mbs by 2008. That’s fast! Summary Is iBurst for you? If you have a laptop/notebook and don’t want to be tied to a wired modem, obviously. It really is convenient. Even if you have a desktop PC and don’t want to (or cannot) connect to ADSL or cable AND you’re in the coverage area, iBurst could be the answer. One feature/benefit iBurst point out is that with this system, you can get rid of your fixed telephone and make all your calls VoIP calls. The thirty bucks or so a month that the phone rental costs you could be put into a better broadband plan. With the VoIP offerings available these days, that too makes perfect sense, especially if you’re one of Australia’s more “mobile” population. You could even use a mobile phone for incoming calls and iBurst+VoIP for very low-cost outgoing calls. Gives you something to think about! And finally, a plea, albeit a selfish/ parochial one: please, Mr (or is it Ms?) iBurst. Can you PLEASE do something about coverage on the Northern SC Beaches? Reader Feedback on “Unleashing Unwired” I have some feedback for you on the “Unleasing Unwired” article that featured in the July 2005 issue. Firstly, I would like to congratulate Ross Tester on an informative article. I would like to let everyone know that there is a diagnostic program available from Navini, the people who design and manufacture the infrastructure that Unwired uses. Navdiag gives you a whole hoard of information, such as received signal strength, SNR, which antenna currently in use, distance to current base station in meters, 24  Silicon Chip amongst many other parameters. Anyway the software is available for download at:- http://www.navini.com/downloads/ Support/navdiag_windows.exe Note that if you are behind a router or firewall, you will need to directly attach a PC to the Unwired modem to run this software. There is a ‘hidden’ advanced mode that is available in the software which gives far more detailed infomation on the status of the modem. Press Ctrl+Shift+F10 to activate this feature. One thing I really like is the fact that it reports the current BTS id number. (BTS is Navini-speak for Unwired base station) For instance, I can see that the BTS I connect to is number 200352. You can then go over to www.ozunwired. com where there is a list that tells you which BTS id is which base station. I hope you guys find this utility as useful as I have in tinkering with external antennas on Unwired. Kind Regards, Matt Robert VK2TVK siliconchip.com.au