On August 22nd a little slip of paper slipped through my mail slot notifying me that I had a package waiting to be picked up. I knew exactly what it was, the 4G LTE USB modem that I requested to trial from DNA Finland. Watching my American colleagues play with Verizon’s LTE network since December 2010, them rubbing it in my face that for the first time in recorded history an innovation in the wireless space happened in America first rather than Europe, was painful. I could always point at Stockholm and say that they got 4G LTE as early as December 2009, but they’d just come back at me with a quip about how Verizon was covering the nation, whereas TeliaSonera was just covering one city in one country. Anyway, as soon as I got back from the post office I eagerly hooked everything up and I’ve been using 4G LTE as my full time internet connection since … but then tragedy struck last night.
I’ve got a small confession to make. I’m a bit of a dick. My 4G LTE trial was supposed to last just 2 weeks, but I just couldn’t give up this amazing connection. DNA Finland was consistently delivering internet speeds that were twice as fast as the internet in my apartment. This is all wireless mind you. I figure I’d keep their modem and SIM until they sent me an email asking me to return their property, but that email never came. Instead, my SIM just stopped working last night, and I’m sad to say that as soon as I publish this article I’ll be taking a stroll to my closest mail box to send this paperweight back to where it came from.
What’s been good about DNA Finland’s 4G LTE network over the past 5 weeks? It’s fast. Stupid fast. So fast that I’m pretty sure there’s got to be a catch to all this. Am I going to get cancer? Whatever, I don’t care. This speed is just … wow. I was grabbing files off usenet at over 5 megabytes, yes megabytes, per second. Downloading a 700 MB movie took barely more than 2 minutes. How much data did I manage to use? According to the software required to make Huawei’s modem work: 65.68 GB!
What’s been bad about the network? It’s tough to say since I never used the USB modem outside of my apartment. My 17 inch MacBook Pro pretty much never leaves my desk. I would have liked to test signal reception throughout Helsinki, and I have a 11.6 inch Lenovo netbook, but for some strange reason I couldn’t get my download speeds to go over 8 megabits per second on that thing. Are my USB ports malfunctioning? I don’t really know, nor do I care, since that netbook is closing in on 3 years of age; for what I use it for, as a machine for Spotify and iTunes that I to connect to my stereo, it’s perfect.
What’s ugly about 4G LTE? I hate installing software. It’s something I want to do only once, when I setup my machine for the first time, and then never again. When you live in a browser, you don’t really see the point in software. The fact that I had to use Huawei’s software made me mad since I knew it would be coded by some underpaid Chinese engineer, meaning it would probably break something. And it did. For one thing, my MacBook Pro refused to sleep with the modem plugged in. I had to unplug the modem before closing the lid, every time. Before I’d do that however I’d have to disconnect from the network and close Huawei’s app, otherwise it would flip out and need to be force quit. Let’s just say that I learned, through repetition, to hold the option key while right clicking to force quit an app rather than having to go through Activity Monitor (the equivalent of the Task Manager in Windows). The modem itself also gets extremely hot, so I’m going to miss it during the winter when it’s -30 outside and I want to warm my hands up during my work day.
With that, I’m off to mail away what’s probably been the most impressive piece of technology I’ve ever tested. Last time I felt like this was when I switched from dialup to broadband. Now that I know wireless broadband exists that’s twice as fast as the broadband in my flat, I don’t think I’ll be able to resist the first 4G LTE products that hit Finland.