Fair enough.

Around here in Oxford very few places have free Wifi, and I don't spend much time at home or in the office, so I use 3G about as much as Wifi.

Or, I would, if 3's service was more reliable! :-) It goes up and down like a yo yo; when it's up at full strength that doesn't mean any data will actually flow through it; they have weird packet MTU issues depending on which port's being used (and don't report it properly through DHCP), and then there's the deep signal shadows that seem to be in every interesting cafe, especially in the comfy spots! (Not to mention a complete lack of 3 signal in my girlfriend's basement flat, in a supposedly "very good" signal area).

Over in North Wales at my mum's house, the 3 signal varies from 0% in her house, to high strength exceptionally fast data, by walking a couple of metres down the road. Walk a few more metres and it's back to 0% again, not even calls and texts. You can map out the local ripples with a short walk. Unfortunately, they move over a period of minutes, so it's hard to keep a call going :-( Methinks it's a symptom of insufficient frequency diversity.

I've been told recently in a 3 shop that they are merging infrastructure with T-Mobile over the next year, which should improve coverage for both sets of customers. It is the reason 3 have a map claiming their coverage will greatly improve over the coming year. I've seen it written often that T-Mobile's coverage is among the best, so I'm looking forward to that.

Advice on coverage maps from 3, Orange, and probably everyone else:

(a) Don't believe them; they don't show the variability. Oxford is classed as "very good" yet I have signal problems all over the place with 3, and did have to a lesser extent with Orange. It is highly variable. (I dropped Orange due to terribly poor data support 2 years ago). 3's map of the area in North Wales where my mum and grandmother lives shows a great signal, which it is - provided you're standing in the right spot on the right side of the hill. You really do get the 2.8Mbps there. Yet, indoors when visiting people in outlying villages, I found even sending and receiving texts would not be available for hours, and voice calls were out of the question. Despite the maps showing good coverage there.

(b) They are measured in terms of "percentage population covered". *Not* percentage of the places you will visit. In other words, good coverage in high population areas only is what "99% population coverage" means.

I am using T-Mobile for nearly 3 years now, and I am not always that impressed. Yes, there is very good coverage both at home (base station just 200 meters away) and work, but where I use mobile web most - on the Tube, that is - isn't that perfect. However, I am also quite convinced it's also a matter of rather crappy radio hardware that Nokia E71 has (!), hence I am looking forward to see how things will get with N900. Anyway, I once created this: http://adl.pl/tmobile_coverage.phtml - and submitted to T-Mobile directly, however no feedback, whatsoever...

Speaking of merging Three and T-Mobile infrastructure - personally, I can't see that happening. I know a spot close to my house where both T-M and Three have two separate base stations (lamp-post masts), about 50 meters apart from each other. Once they announced merger (two years ago that was?), I thought that particular and obvious spot will get merged as one of the first, yet nothing has happened so far...

Btw, DO NOT ever believe in coverage maps on network websites! These never take many aspects under consideration, and nobody will actually be able to tell whether you'll get good/bad coverage until you check this yourself. Would you ever imagine that T-Mobile has barely any coverage within Nokia Flagship Store at Regent Street (deep inside, next to checkouts), in the middle of London??? I couldn't believe that either...

Does anyone have an solid sources comparing the 3G networks of the main providers they can share?

Ofcom, has a PDF on this webpage,

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/radiocomms/i...g/maps/3gmaps/

Rich

Has anyone managed to find any new tmobile deals?
The Orange and O2 ones from buymobilephones have now dissapeared (and they were awful) and the MPD vodaphone are poor when compared to the tmobile ones they were offering.
Strange no one else is offering pre orders.

This is because no provider is officially selling the N900 themselves as of yet. The only contract deals currently floating around are from third party companies who are tagging providers normal deals on top of the device.

Oh and I agree the current contract subsidised deals are awful, I for one dont want to be bonded for two years.

Hutchison 3G have been combining their network with T-Mobile's in the UK, and O2 with Voda's - it's mainly an exercise in cost reduction.

So far here in Cambridgeshire it's not affected me much if at all, but then T-M didn't have much coverage outside the city. I would guess that in London there'd be a lot more changes to consolidate base station coverage.

Fundamentally, though, 3G at 2.1GHz is "broken" in that it's not really the best frequency for a mobile service - even GSM at 1.8GHz suffered from the problems of getting good RF coverage, and 2.1GHz is worse - signal absorbtion by trees, walls etc. I'm hoping that operators will be allowed to run 3G services over the GSM spectrum at some point, but it probably won't happen to maintain the stitch-up that was the original massive licensing costs of the 3G auctions.

Oops, went off in a tangent. back on track...

so, with 3G, yes, you'll find it unreliable except near windows and outside.

Unless, of course, there is a 3G base station (aka NodeB) relatively near to your place...

Has anyone preordered the N900 SIM FREE from MPD and got a solid date on shipping? Many thanks

MPD's expected shipping date is 16/11