Communications companies Everything Everywhere and BT Wholesale annnounced an extension to the UK’s first live multi-operator customer trial of next generation 4G LTE broadband.

Under the 4G LTE trial, the two companies collaborated to provide wireless broadband to 180 customers living in and around St. Newlyn East in Cornwall since October 2011.

The extension has been granted by the regulator Ofcom to enable the companies to continue to investigate the application of 4G LTE in rural areas, which will be beneficial to the rollout of any potential subsequent commercial service.

The trial has proven that fixed and mobile technologies can work together to provide a broadband delivery option for remote rural areas and also demonstrated that the low frequency spectrum allocated to the trial is optimal for enabling broadband in remote rural communities.

Everything Everywhere CEO Olaf Swantee said the rollout of 4G will help drive economic growth and create jobs across the UK by making the economy more competitive, by enabling businesses to be more productive, and by allowing consumers to benefit from the latest mobile innovations.

“This trial has been key in investigating ways to rapidly bring 4G LTE to Britain, and Ofcom is helping us do the groundwork to accelerate the UK from laggard to leader,” said Swantee.

BT Wholesale CEO Nigel Stagg said the trial is enabling BT to see at first hand the real difference LTE is making in rural Cornwall and how it could provide an alternative mode of delivery in rural areas to complement fibre delivered broadband.

“There’s no doubt that fixed line solutions offer a faster and more reliable broadband service, but there isn’t a single silver bullet to meet the rural broadband challenge. We continue to also assess other potential solutions including other mobile and wireless technologies,” said Stagg.

2011 was the year that smartphones became faster, thinner, lighter, and graced our hands with large displays. The average wireless customer was looking for the latest device, unfortunately it wasn’t a BlackBerry, but the newest “Android”. It was the first year that more people were asking about Android that any other, even Apple’s iPhone. Android made an astounding leap in 2011 – two years after Rogers declared the “Android Revolution” started. September 2011 comScore data revealed that 25% of all smartphones in Canada are powered by Android, up from 12.2% in March.

The iPhone is still powerful, but not like it was a couple years ago. The same comScore report showed Apple owning 30.1% of the Canadian market. Most likely Apple would have elevated even further if the rumours of the “iPhone 5″ actually panned out. This was the biggest roller coaster ride of 2011. Analysts and overseas reports promised a complete iPhone redesign with a faster processor, better camera, thinner, aluminum backing, glass backing, antenna change, bigger display etc…, we ended up with the same phone, but “better”. Even without a change in design, lineups happened and Apple sold over 4 million in the first 3 days.

According to comScore, Android and iOS have a combined market share of 55.1%. RIM, once acknowledged as an innovator, claimed 35.8% Canadian market share, but unfortunately started to sink really fast. Even with their 75 million BlackBerry subscribers RIM was riddled with embarassment. Customers were more interested in large and powerful touchscreen devices and RIM delivered familiar “iconic” QWERTY devices. The most impressive BlackBerry on the market is the Bold 9900; it’s sleek, upscale, has a touchscreen and a QWERTY keyboard – it’s the best of both worlds, but it came late to the party. The Torch 9810 and 9810 didn’t prove to be profitable, nor did the all-touch Curve 9380 or the Bold 9790.

Carrier competition was a daily experience. All carriers battled it out, but the Big 3 prevailed and drastically increased their subscriber base.

Rogers still is king in Canada with the most subscribers. In Q3 big red reported their subscriber base reached  9,288,000, Bell has 7,369,596, and TELUS has 7.2 million – totalling over 23 million subscribers. As for the “newer” wireless players, WIND is inching towards 400,000 subs, Mobility has “attracted” a total of 250,000, Videotron racked up 253,900, and Public Mobile has over 153,000. In addition to these numbers there is SaskTel, MTS – when these numbers are compiled the Canadian wireless subscriber base is well over 26 million, and growing. Prepaid subs at the Big 3 decreased while Postpaid subs increased. The busy Q4 numbers will be announced in January/February and it’s estimated that the year-over-year growth will be between 2-5%.

Just a couple weeks ago there rumours in the industry that WIND Mobile was “in talks” to buy Mobilicity. Both carriers declined to comment, but it would be reasonable to predict that 2012 will see carrier consolidation. The new entrants cannot keep this low handset and low monthly voice and data plans offering up another year. Something has to happen. Perhaps Mobilicity will merge with another, or it might be Pubic Mobile that gets gobbled up. Regardless, 2012 we’ll see one of the new entrants vanish. How the government lays out the upcoming 700Mhz auction will help speed this along – will or won’t they have a set aside?

One of the major trends in 2011 was the continued adoption of smartphones and data devices. All the carriers reported that smartphone usage increased, now representing above 40% of their total postpaid subscriber base. Gone are the days of a simple flip phone – people are demanding devices with more capabilities. With Canadians wanting to be connected all the time. 2011 brought LTE (Long Term Evolution) to the forefront for some lucky Canadians. Rogers and Bell successfully deployed their LTE networks across Canada, bringing “peak download speeds of up to 75 Mbps” – in reality it was between 12 Mbps to 25 Mbps. Both carriers coverage map reaches millions of customers (Rogers at 8 million, Bell claims just over 3.5 million) from Yellowknife to Vancouver, Ottawa and Halifax. Mass adoption has not happened yet, 2011 was more of “who can get to market first”, and came with ridiculous pricing for devices and plans. 2012 will be very different. TELUS will join the fun, along with Virgin, SaskTel, and MTS and this should drop the prices a bit.

All this new found speed will should finally allow for a greater adoption of mobile content, something that’s been predicted since the Vancouver Olympics. Next year should see a dramatic spike in the way we use our smartphones or tablets. Watching movies, videos and TV (news, sports, syndicated shows) on the go will be the norm. But this will come at a cost of course. Carriers will have to create a better, more affordable pricing structure to make this happen.

2011 was fundamental for wireless in Canada – but it’s 2012 that will be spectacular. The handsets will become more powerful, speed will be at a premium, mobile content and mobile banking will be at the forefront, the 700Mhz spectrum auction will raise billions for the government, Shaw and Eastlink will launch their wireless networks, plus every carrier will continue to compete for customer loyalty on a daily basis… unfortunately the low-cost subsidy pricing of 3-year contracts will still exist.

Mobilicity’s IPO may set the stage for a consolidation among Canada’s wireless new entrants, in particular a merger between Mobilicity and rival Globalive Wireless Management Corp., which operates under the Wind Mobile brand.

A merger between any of he new mobile players would give those companies more pricing power, along with streamlined marketing costs that would help them attract more subscribers away from the “big three” – (Rogers Communications Inc., BCE Inc. and Telus Corp.

The coming IPO is speculated to go at $15 to $20 per share with an eye to raising $50-million to $100-million. Mobilicity, legally known as DAVE Wireless, already has a group of about five or six investment banks in place for the IPO, with Toronto-Dominion Bank serving as one of the lead institutions.

Both Mobilicity and Globalive have apparently reached out to a variety of investment banks to model a potential merger, however, sources close to both Mobilicity and Globalive have said no merger deal is imminent and that a key stumbling block has been uncertainty about how the federal government plans to structure the next auction of wireless licences in 2012. One of the big keys is having access to the highly valuable 700-megahertz frequency. This is known as LTE (long-term evolution) and enables faster connection speeds for mobile devices, including smartphones and tablet computers. IT is LTE, for example, that is essential for reliable delivery of high-quality video on mobile devices.

You can read the speeds, feeds and specifications here.

The 32GB Xyboard tested was a data-chugging monster that runs Google’s Android 3.2 Honeycomb operating system, powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core CPU and Verizon’s 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE). I’ve tested other 4G tablets before, including ATT’s HTC Jetstream and the HTC Evo View 4G. Neither is as fast as the Xyboard.

It seems Google has worked out the freezing quirks with version 3.2. Honeycomb let me drag and drop widgets fluidly across all five home screens.

Gmail, Google Search, Google Maps, Facebook for Android, Twitter for Android, Google Music and several other apps of various chunkiness ran great as programs with which to kick the tires. The Xyboard passed the more strenuous tests with Angry Birds Seasons, YouTube and Netflix, which is included on the tablet.

Netflix, which was revamped to have larger touch targets, looked great on the Xyboard’s In-Plane Switching (IPS) high-definition display, which is designed for wide viewing angles. This makes it easier for more than one person to watch something on the tablet. I watched one quick episode of “Parks Recreation” without so much as a hiccup on the app.

The Xyboard’s camera is an HD 5-megapixel back shutter (the Jetstream has a great 8MP rear camera), which pairs well with the 1.3MP HD camera in front for video chat via Google Talk or Skype.

Xyboard camera and video shoots looked middling to great. My favorite part about the Xyboard’s photo capabilities is that once you log into the tablet with your Google account, photos from your Picasa Web albums populate the gallery application. This was an awesome perk.

The Xyboard has a smaller twin, the Xyboard 8.2. While that slate is focused mostly on media consumption, the bigger brother is “enterprise-ready.”

It’s a corporate road warrior’s dream in the sense that it comes preloaded with Citrix’s Receiver desktop virtualization and Go To Meeting Web conferencing software, as well as Web conferencing apps such as Fuze Meeting and Polycom’s RealPresence Mobile app for business users. QuickOffice HD is also preloaded to let workers access their documents on the go.

]]> http://techsupport.foreverwarm.com/motorola-droid-xyboard-tablet/feed 0 http://techsupport.foreverwarm.com/how-to-set-up-activesync-on-your-iphone-or-ipod-touch?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-to-set-up-activesync-on-your-iphone-or-ipod-touch http://techsupport.foreverwarm.com/how-to-set-up-activesync-on-your-iphone-or-ipod-touch#comments Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:41:37 +0000 technicalguy http://techsupport.foreverwarm.com/?p=46 How to use Activesync to wirelessly sync your iPhone or iPod Touch email, calendars, and contacts to an Exchange Server .

Activesync(tm) allows you to synchronize your Email, Calendar, and Contacts with your business email account in real-time. Any changes made on your iPhone or iPod Touch will be reflected in your Outlook immediately, and all new mail will automatically arrive on your iPhone (and your Touch if you have WiFi connectivity).

Here’s a quick how-to guide to setting up Activesync on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Requirements:

• Microsoft Exchange 2003 with Service Pack 2, or Exchange 2007
• iPhone software version 2.1 or later
• Ports 80 and 443 forwarded through the router/firewall to the Exchange Server
• If you’re using SSL, you need a SSL Certificate from a registered provider (your SSL cannot be self-signed)

Note: This setup will NOT work with the standard email account you got from your Internet Provider, or Gmail, or other POP3 type account. You MUST have a Microsoft Exchange Server. (Instructions for standard emails)

How to test for Activesync:

If you’re not sure you have Activesync and want to find out if your server is setup for Activesync, browse to your mail web page as follows:

• In Internet Explorer, browse to http://mail.myserver.com/oma – you of course, substitute your server name, just keep the “/oma” at the end.
• Enter your login credentials
• Say “yes” to the security warning about your device being unsupported, if you get one, and then you should see a page like this.

If you don’t see that page, or get an error, then you need to talk to your IT support person (or call us at 604-715-5107).

How to set up Activesync

Start by tapping Settings, Mail Contacts Calendars, Add Account, choose Microsoft Exchange.

Here’s Apple’s Quick Setup Guide that walks you through the setup on your iPhone or iPod Touch. If the Activesync test (above) worked then this will be an easy configuration. If you’re not using an SSL connection, say Yes to the SSL prompt, and when finished you must go back into the mail account on your device and, at the bottom, turn of SSL. (this will get rid of the annoying popups)

If you get errors or it just won’t sync, then there are all kinds of possibilities:

• Apple’s Enterprise Support page
• Check that your SSL Certificate is not self-signed
• Confirm you have connectivity
• Use Safari to test for Activesync (as shown above) on the iPhone or iPod Touch
• Check your spelling in the account setup – especially your password

Activesync Management for Enterprises

Here’s Apple’s Iphone Configuration Utility for Windows. I didn’t have enough users to make it worthwhile using this but it looks like it would help in a larger corporate environment.

Other articles in our Apple_Windows series:

• How to use Time Capsule with a Windows PC
• Easter to Hack Apple than Windows
• How to setup Activesync on your iPhone or iPod Touch
• How to use AppleTV with Windows

Foreverwarm Consulting Inc provides peace of mind to small businesses through prompt computer support and proactive network maintenance.

FOREVERWARM CONSULTING INC
Call: 604-715-5107