How do I put this?

I do not have statistics for the rest of the world, but I do know that in my experience here in Nigeria, using GPRS/EDGE for almost anything is a painful experience.

In my opinion, the least internet capability of any device that you want to use for web browsing, social networking and/or instant messaging should be 3G. Add 3.5G/HSDPA and that’s even better.

But my experience is just that. Can everyone share their experiences and point out the following:

Have you used GPRS/EDGE exclusively on any device?

What device was that?

Where? Your location.

How stable was it?

How usable in terms of speed?

Would you recommend a GPRS/EDGE only device to someone looking to get online via mobile?

Any other info welcome. The more the details you provide, the better. Thanks all!

Airtel Nigeria has stated that they are expanding their 3G infrastructure to cover nearly 80 percent of Nigeria’s population by 2012. This is in a bid to deliver reliable and affordable Internet services to customers.

Before now, Airtel had the poorest coverage of the existing UMTS networks in the ccountry. Already, the expansion can be felt by subscribers, some of who are now seeing a 3G signal on their Airtel lines for the first time in years.

Airtel is targetting 2 million active 3G subscribers out of their total active mobile subscribers of 16 million. Airtel’s plans are a stark variance to the situation on ground with other operators. The default is that 3G is offered in only a few select cities while GPRS/EDGE is deployed in the remaining vast majority of the country.

If well implemented and supported with adequate capacity, this will make Airtel the network of choice for mobile broadband in Nigeria.

GSM operator, GloMobile has upgraded their prepaid bundle mobile internet packages, giving subscribers more value for their money.

Click on the image for a larger screenshot.

The Always MAX package now offer a 5GB data cap instead of the 3GB it had before.

Always MIN now offers 1.5GB as against the old cap of 1GB.

Always Day now offers 150MB as against the older figures of 100MB and 50MB.

Lastly, G 300 now offers 4GB data in place of the old cap of 3GB.

Thanks to Timmy lawal for the tip-off.

GloMobile has just stepped up the stakes in the mobile internet service landscape of Nigeria. It seems that Nigerians are beginning to enjoy some of the benefits of Globacom’s submarine cable. The current bundle plans from Glo are without doubt the most competitive in the market.

A huge thumbs-up to Glo.

PS: Is it only at our end that MTN GPRS/EDGE/3G/3.5G went AWOL today? We haven’t been able to get a single data connection on the MTN network since mid-day till now. On a day that Glo is glowing so bright (pun intended), the MTN data blackout at our end looks really black.

Glo announced its free video messaging some months back, but it didn’t quite fly. It looks like they are giving it another try. Here are the contents of an SMS sent out today:

Glo is at it again! Now you can send and receive a video message for FREE.

Experience one of the advantages of 3G on Glo Video Mailbox. It is an experience you have been waiting for. Simply dial 151 as a video call to activate and 154 as a video call to send a video message.

Call 121 or 200 for any assistance.

It is essentially the same announcement made backin October, but will it fly this time?

GSM operator, GloMobile has finally joined the train of pre-paid internet bundle plans. Before now, Glo pre-paid subscribers could only enjoy GPRS/EDGE/3G/HSDPA at the rate of 15 kobo per kb.

Now, pre-paid subscribers have access to bundle internet packages on the Glo network.

Here are the new pre-paid packages:

All Day (24-hour) Packages

• Always Day – N500 – 24 hours. Data cap: 50mb
• Always Min – N5, 0000 – 24 hours for 30 days. data cap: 1gb
• Always Max – N10, 000 – 24 hours for 30 days. Data cap: 3gb

I called customer care to source for more information on the above-listed All Day packages, but didn’t get through. For example, I wanted to know if there are any data caps on those plans.Updated, courtesy of brym!

Bundled Hour Packages

• G100 – N6, 000 – 100 hours. 3GB data cap with validity of 1 month
• G300 – N15, 000 – 300 hours. 3GB data cap with validity of 3 months

The Bundled Hour Packages simply limit the user to a cumulative number of hours. It does not seem that there are any data caps on these packages.Updated, courtesy of brym!

Flexi Packs

• G Leisure – N5, 000 – 30 days, 8pm to pam everyday + all day during weekend. 3GB data cap
• G Work – N6, 000 -30 days, 8am to 9pm. 3GB data cap

The Flexi Packs simply limit the user to a cumulative number of hours. It does not seem that there are any data caps on these packages.Updated, courtesy of brym!

Activation

To get started, simply text “activate” to 127 from your Glo line.

Brief Review

I pulled out my Glo SIM this morning, loaded N500 to test out the Always Day package. I received a set of instructions right after texting the required code and successfully subscribed within minutes.

I used it successfully on both my smartphone and on a USB modem connected to a PC. No problems either way, so you can “rule your world” whichever way you want.

I found the Glo 3G internet connection still quite stable and more responsive than MTN’s. This is an excellent move by Glo. The variety of packages is also good, though the fact that some of them cost just about the same sort of spoils the treat.

Hopefully, Glo’s new pre-paid internet bundles will take some pressure off MTN’s over-subscribed 3G network, especially seeing that Zain still limits 3G to postpaid (contract) lines.

---

Need Help With Glo Bundle Plans?
Read: Essential tips for using Glo prepaid internet bundle plans

I held out for as long as possible, hoping against hope that Zain Nigeria would have a re-think about some of their services.

No; I wasn’t asking for too much. I only needed stable mobile internet services. Because this is 2009, I also wanted that internet connection to be high speed. GPRS is good. EDGE is faster. 3G is not bad. But in 2009, anything short of a 3.5G connection does not qualify as high speed.

Recently, a Zain official confirmed to me that 3G and 3.5G are available (officially) only on post-paid SIMs. He spent time trying to convince me to migrate my line to a contract package. But I know better. I’ve had my fingers burnt on contracts a couple of times. I know others who have too.

But I was willing to stay with Zain on their pre-paid platform. You see I have high-speed internet connection at the office and at home, so I could tolerate GPRS or EDGE when out and about.

Then suddenly, Zain internet went bunkers. Tolerating GPRS/EDGE was one thing. Tolerating GPRS/EDGE that was not working was… well… you get the picture.

‘Dayo and others who know me well have been wondering why I have stayed with Zain this long. They know I normally have no qualms changing my line. It baffles them. It sort of baffles me too.

I finally gave in this morning. I just could not bear it any longer. I got myself a SIM from another network. When I popped in the new SIM, 3G/3.5G internet was ready and waiting. My Xperia X1 simply connected on schedule to download my mails. What bliss!

I am sure that Zain works for some people – perhaps people who want nothing than just voice and SMS; people who are not so into mobile internet; and people who do not need a high speed connection.

Mobile internet is primary on my list. SMS follows. Voice comes last. Yes; I’m wierd. Welcome to my world.

No; I am not so naive as to think that I won’t experience any issues with the new network. In Nigeria, that is wishful thinking. But at least, whatever it is I have to tolerate, I now have high-speed internet on the go. At least when it works.

There’s a discussion thread over at Nairaland focussed on Z3, the Zain 3G service. The gist is that the Z3 service is officially restricted to post-paid (contract) plans, though it appears that some very few non-contract lines are able access it (a system glitch?).

In addition, if what the original poster says is true, Z3 coverage is wider than we had supposed, but the majority of Zain subscribers are unable to access it simply because the service is not activated on their SIMs.

I am not able to confirm this right away, but I will find hunt out the truth of this matter. I have held on to my Zain line this long in hope that 3G will show up in the picture sometime soon. If this bit of news is true, I may be replacing my SIM with one from another network.

As much as I have shied away from another line change, I am just not excited about having no 3G access for a long time to come.

Anyone here has access to a Zain official in the know?

---

Update: 20th August 2009
Dayo and I were at a Zain shop to ask about 3G service. We were able to confirm that Zain Nigeria’s official policy is that 3G service is available only on postpaid lines and data-only lines.

While the official I spoke with did his best to convince me to migrate to a contract package, I simply won’t. A GSM contract is always a bad idea.

I did purchase a data-only SIM to test out the official’s claim that Zain 3G is present in my area. Guess – it isn’t.

None of the above surprised Dayo, the eternal sceptic. Me? I really don’t care anymore.

---

The PR guys at GloMobile consistently tout their network as Nigeria’s most advanced GSM network. In addition, they tell us that Glo is also building Africa’s most advanced netwwork.

But how advanced (read: intelligent) can this network be, given the following:

1. Newly activated SIMs are not automatically provisioned for mobile data. “Less advanced” networks like MTN and Etisalat do this.
2. Even OTA (SMS) activation for data usually does not work. In the last one year, I have had reason to attempt to activate GloMoibile GPRS/3G on a number of SIMs by sending “Activate” to 444. All I get is a return SMS that my activation request will be processsed within 48 hours. In all cases, it never happened. In one case, 4, 320 hours later, that line has still not been provisioned
3. Going to a Gloworld outlet for activation often does not work either. There’s a particular SIM with me now, OTA provisioning has been attempted about 100 times without any results, and the SIM has been to Gloworld Opebi thrice in the last 6 months. Still no show.
4. The Glomobile billing system (especially for contract data subscribers) has a mind of its own and regularly bills outrageously (or some people at Glo are intentionally scamming subscribers

Personally, I am tired of this mess. If you need easy GSM mobile data activation/provisioning, your best bet are MTN and Etisalat. No; Zain is not much better than Glo in this regard. You will only end up sending lots of activation codes and visiting Zain centres – and if you are lucky, your line gets to be activated.

Yes; it is more a game of chance.

The flip-side is that because of the diffuculties of getting activated, there are relatively and significantly fewer users on both Glo and Zain data services, making both of them relatively stable. At least, generally, they are more stable than MTN data. Etisalat’s high mobile data tariff seems to help maintain stability on their network too.

You see, you cannot eat your cake and have it.

Thinking of it, it is either the Glo network is not so intelligent. Or it is that the network is so intelligent – infact, far more intelligent than the people who operate it (apologies to all my guys at Glo) – that the personnel have not gotten the hang of how to put it to work as intended.

What do you you think?

I have been working behind the scenes on a concise guide to mobile internet in Nigeria. Nigeria is one of the fastest growing mobile voice and internet countries in the world. This free ebook provides concise but useful information about the available GSM-based mobile internet services in the country.

• 2nd Revision: Mar. 2010
• 1st Revision: Feb. 2010

A revised version is now available for download

Most current mid-tier and all current high-end mobile phones have built-in email clients in their Messaging menu. This means that you can recieve, manage and respond to your emails on your phone. Benefits include having access to your mail when away from your desktop or notebook. You can always fire a quick and short response, and then follow it up with a detailed response later.

Setting Up

1. The email account you want to setup on your phone must be either POP3 or IMAP (the latter is better). This includes Gmail, corporate email accounts, and premium (not free) Yahoo email accounts.

2. You need to have a full internet serviccee on your line via GPRS, EDGE, 3G or HSDPA. WAP internet won’t do. Luckilly, all the 4 GSM networks now offer full internet to pay-as-you-go subscribers.

3. You need to know your mail servers, both incoming and outgoing. These are usually in the format: mail.domain.com, imap.domain.com, smtp.domain.com. There must be two of them, though in some cases the two may be the same.

4. Your email username (usually the full email address) and its password

If you have all the above, simply go into your Messaging settings menu and input them in their respective fields. During setup, choose IMAp as mail service type. If your account does not run IMAP, then opt for POP3. Ask your webmaster or company technical support members for help if necesarry.

Some mail clients offer the option to set automatic retrieval, such that at the set times or intervals, the phone connects to your mail server to download new mails.

Let me know how it goes setting up your email account on your phone. I’ll be here to guide you through the tough spots if you run into trouble.

A user of this site recently submitted the following comment:

Yomi

I am getting fed up with all the sub standard internet services being rendered to us in this Country, mainly because of the speed. I started out with glo, it was a frustrating experience. By the way, can you confirm if glo is still rendering 3G services? I really dont think so.MTN was promising at the beginning, now they’ve joined the pack. Now i’m think of dumping MTN for Visa phone internet. I need your advice.

Let me start by saying that sub-standard Internet servicees in Nigeria is the story of our lives. From GSM/3G operators, through their CDMA counterparts, to dedicated Wi-Max/Wi-fi/ and cable ISPs, Nigeria internet users have stories of woes to tell.

Now, on to the questions posed by the commenter.

Yes; GloMobile is offering 3G services, and our experience here at MN is that they currently offer the most stable and reliable 3G/HSDPA service in the country. In our informed opinion, this is largely due to the fact that their bundle plans are available only on a contract basis – meaning that lots of people are not keen on taking it up.

Zain is relatively stable too, if you are lucky to be located within their very limited 3G/HSDPA coverage area.

MTN is undisputedly the worst in the 3G/HSDPA bracket at the moment. Dumping MTN for anything right now is a good move.

On the CDMA front, so far as I know, there is very little difference in quality of service being delivered by Visafone, Starcomms, and Multilinks. And, honestly, that is not saying much. We have too many tales of woes of customers subscribed to EVDO on these networks who are getting basic CDMA 1x speeds as a daily experience inspite of having EVDO coverage at their locations.

Just last week, I was a witness to an individual who so got frustrated with the crawly speeds he was getting on his EVDO connection in the Egbeda area that he went all the way to Yaba hoping to get a better EVDO connection. He was badly disappointed, because all he got was the same old crawly speeds, again inspite of EVDO coverage.

Also note that my responses are qualified with terms like “currently”, “for now”, etc. This is because the tables often turn unexpectedly, and in another few months the presently unreliable service may have found a new lease of life, or the currently stable and dependable service caught the plague. Choosing an internet service in Nigeria is often like walking a minefield.

I must also add that for some odd reason, there are pockets of people here and there who respond with glowing tales of some of the above-mentioned poor services. This means that inspite of the general experience, there is the chance that you can hit a jackpot with whatever service provider you choose to go with.

But since when did it become normal to depend on luck and chance for a service you have duly put down your hard-earned money for? The story of our lives.

I received a request from an iPhone owner who wants to be able to use his PC internet subscription on his phone. In this article, I present a tutorial on how to setup a wireless hotspot on your notebook and browse with your Wi-fi enabled phone through that wireless connection.

The idea is that you can bypass your GPRS/EDGE/3G/HSPDA network and save some cash (please be sure to send a donation!).

On to the business at hand…

Stage One: Setup your WLAN Network

1. On your notebook, go to Control panel
2. Click to open “Network Connections”
3. Right click on “Wireless Connection” and click on “Properties”
4. Click on the “Wireless Networks” tab and select the check-box tagged “Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings”
5. Under “Prefered networks” click “Add”
6. In the text box labelled “Network name”, type in a name for your network
7. Under “Network Authentication”, select “Open” or “Shared” (shared is more secure)
8. Under Data encryption select “WEP” and type in your password in “Network Key” field. Use a 5-character password. Click “OK”
9. In the list of preferred networks, you should now see your new wireless network.
10. Select/highlight your network, then click on the “Advanced” button. Select “Computer-to-computer (ad hoc) networks only” and hit the “Close” button.
11. Click “OK” to close the box

Stage Two: Share Your Internet Subscription Through the New Network

In all probability, you have a subscription from Starcomms, DirectOnPC or iWireless, or some other ISP

1. In Control Panel, click to open “Network Connections”
2. Look for your ISP connection, right click it and select “Properties”
3. Go to the “Advanced” tab and under “Internet Connection Sharing” check the box which says “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s internet connection”
4. Right below it is a selection box. Choose “Wireless Network Connection”
5. Click “OK”. That’s it. Your very own WLAn hotspot is ready!

The Rest…

Enable WLAN on your notebook (hardware button or desktop icon). Then set your phone (in this case my Nokia E90) to search for available WLAN networks. Your new network should be discovered and displayed. Works a treat here, and I’m browsing on my commie at breakneck speeds (I have a HSDPA link on my notebook).

When asked for your WEP key, enter your 5-character password, and depending on the device complete the process and start browsing!

Feel free to ask your questions using the comment box below. Just be sure to give as much details as possible.