We met up at Manx Telecom’s Headquarters nice and early where they had a a van all kitted out to take us around. They have 2 base stations set up for the trial, one around their HQ and one at their shop in Douglas. The base station in Douglas has a range that extends over the whole of the promenade, so the main component of the trail consisted of driving up and and down the prom making full use of the technology. The had a USB stick that took a Sim card that let them connect to the 4G network which was plugged into an in-car computer. It was also wired up to a Wifi router to provide a hotspot around the car.

So, what do I mean by saying the results were awesome? Well, we saw download speeds of 52Mb/s, uploads of 10Mb/s and a latency that puts my home ADSL to shame. We first started with some uploads and downloads just to see what we could get, followed by streaming HD on multiple devices while video conferencing. All this, while driving up and down the prom. Here are some photos from the the trial:

Here’s my take on this new technology. When 3G came around, we we promised streaming video on the move, we were promised video conferencing right from our phones and bunch of other stuff too. The problem with 3G was that it just doesn’t provide the bandwidth, or low latency required to make those thing happen. The iPlayer app insists that you’re on a Wifi connection to work, Skype is flaky over 3G and you really can’t run any video conferencing apps (like Facetime) over 3G. LTE will make all these things possible and finally deliver on these promises.

Some fun facts about LTE:

• LTE uses part of the spectrum previously used by analogue TV. Switching to Digital has made these available for other purposes.
• LTE uses lower frequencies that HSDPA. This allows it to penetrate thick Manx stone more easily that current mobile signals.
• The technical name for the standard is 3GPP LTE. The term 4G is really a marketing phrase, but understandable given the fact that LTE is an order of magnitude faster than currently deployed technology.
• The technology for LTE is available for deployment today, but pretty much all handsets in use in the Isle of Man won’t be able to use this standard. Future handsets are expected to have LTE built-in.
• Peak download rates for LTE approach 300 Mbit/s for 4×4 antennas, but the actual speed will depend on base station configuration and licensing restrictions on the width of spectrum available.
• The first publicly available implementation of LTE was deployed in Scandinavia in 2009

Want to learn more? You can read more about their plans on their press release

So, I’ll be playing with it over the next few days. Anyone have any tips?

I love the way different phone providers integrate on Android. Once I select a contact and choose to phone them, the phone just asks me whether I want to use the standard dialer or pick one of the installed clients.

The great thing about VOIP clients is that it doesn’t really matter where in the world you are. As long as you have a data connection (over 3G or Wifi) you can place your call, and a VOIP service like Voxofon will probably be loads cheaper than your standard phone provider. So, if you want to give it a try, grab your phone and head to Voxofon’s website. Download the appropriate client for your phone and give it a whirl. I guarantee that you’ll reconsider how you place your phone calls after you’ve tried VOIP.

And all hard disks have a life time. This lifetime is called MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) and is usually measures in hundred of thousands of hours. In fact, most modern disks can usually go quite a few years without an issue. But they don’t last forever. One day a disk will fail, and if you don’t have a backup, your goose could be well and truly cooked.

Luckily there are companies out there that can help you in a situation like this. They focus on the recovery of your data from disks that are no longer readable. One such company is called Data Clinic and they specialise predominantly in Data recovery services. They can recover data from hard disks which have been damaged by a variety of different scenarios. Your disk could have been damaged by firmware corruption or circuit board malfunction. Or it could have logical errors, or even been subjected to a head crash. Data Clinic will take your hard disk, investigate the cause of the failure in their labs, and then endeavour to recover as much data as possible.

It’s definitely a site you need to know about. You may not need it today, you may not need it tomorrow; but sooner or later one of your disks may fail with some critical data on it and you’re going to need someone to recover it. You can even find them on Twitter or on Facebook. Bookmark them today!

Here are some of the photos from our trip.

Users pick a goodie that they would like to bin and have to manage to stay in the game for 30seconds to win. If they win, they’re presented with a digital token and directed to the neared McDonalds store to claim their reward.

Truly innovative. Hope we’ll see more of these in the future, and not just in Sweden

17:00 Doors open – Drinks, complimentary snacks, and networking opportunity

18:00 “Enterprise and eBusiness Search Technology”

Connie Chen, Transparensee, New York City (speaker kindly supplied by US Department of Commerce)

18:30 Q & A

18:45 “Security Loopholes and Hacking Updates”

Mark Mann, Webtech Software, Ballasalla, Isle of Man

19:15 Q & A

19:45 Optional meal with the speakers and BCS Isle of Man committee

(£15 for 2 courses in Coast restaurant)

It sounds like a fascinating event for ICT professionals and also others interested in the sphere of technology, certainly more fun than shopping for rustic log beds, which is something else you could be doing.. Entrance is free, but please email events@bcs.org.im to ensure a place is reserved for you.

I’m planning to go; anyone else coming?

The interesting thing about their platform is that it provides a great platform for cloud hosting you application without having to worry about the underlying technology or management necessary for your application to work. The can scale their platform depending on application needs and therefore reduce the cost of running massive applications.

Check them out, there’s some interesting things to learn on their Technology page.