Road Worrier: Lifehacker Reluctantly Tests XPT Broadband Again 
Ultimate Hotspot Shows Telstra Next G Is Feeling The Strain 
What Are The Biggest Rorts For Casual Wi-Fi For Travellers? 
Road Worrier Tests 3G Networks Between Melbourne And Adelaide 
Off The Rails: The Truth About Wireless Broadband 
The Issue With 3G Broadband Is Its Unpredictability Telstra’s Ultimate USB 3G modem has finally been made available for general buyers, having been on sale for business customers since September. Telstra has also adjusted its higher-priced next G mobile broadband packages to offer more data.
Not many people would deliberately devote four days to train travel in order to work out just how good Next G broadband coverage is, but it does provide some unusual insights into when 3G broadband services are useful (and when they aren’t). Here’s the five key lessons I’ve learnt during the Off The Rails project.
The Off The Rails experiment has seen some pretty variable results, so it was pleasing to run a test journey from the Brisbane CBD to the Gold Coast and back again and encounter no issues whatsoever.
Welcome to Off The Rails, where I’m venturing along the north coast of NSW on a cheap rail pass to see just how well 3G broadband in general (and Telstra’s Next G network in particular) perform on the go and outside capital cities. After the first day, I’m wondering whether the software that drives the process is going to be up to the task.
For the past week, I’ve been testing Telstra’s Ultimate Broadband across a large chunk of the Eastern states. The conclusion? It’s delivered some impressive results, but it hasn’t yet threatened to get close to its claimed typical download speed of 20Mbps.
Telstra’s DC-HSPA+ upgrade promises extremely high-speed wireless broadband across much of Australia. As ever, capital city business types are the focus for its rollout, but how well does it perform in the rural areas which are suddenly the focus of national politics? Today I headed to Dubbo in the central west of NSW to find out.
