Mobile month in Ukraine, with Nokia 6120 Classic

I am back from Ukraine, having spent 4 weeks there with nohting more than Nokia 6120 Classic. http://europe.nokia.com/A4399010

Strangely enough, all my plans previously outlined, have materialised.

I got a full month internet access from Life:) for just 60 Hrivnas (12$) per 1GB http://www.life.com.ua/index.php?area=lifebox&lng=uk&page=15-33

The best thing is that this deal is available also to the prepaid card users. As far as I know, it is the only Ukrainian operator giving such good prices to prepaid customers. Others give good price only to subscribed customers.

I have used phone to keep track of 5 mailboxes, Googlereading, photo blogging and GPS navigation (also internet based as in MGmaps and Yandex Maps). During 4 weeks I have used rougly 500Mb, so I think I have got a good deal there.

As promised, during this time Fring has issued a version 3.23 http://www.fring.com/ which now supports this handset. I have successfully used it on Life:) EDGE network. Some lag was there, but overall it was a bearable experience. Fring supports mobile VOIP over EDGE, 3G, WIFI networks on selected Nokia, Sony Ericcsson and Windows Mobile smart phones. Gtalk, ICQ, MSN, Twitter, Skype and SIP are currently supported.

Another surprise was cheap cost of mobile calls (1hrivna/minute to any country) as outlined here (Ukrainian)

http://www.life.com.ua/index.php?area=mylife&lng=uk&page=3-57

Overall, I am very satisfied with the quality and costs of mobile communications in Ukraine.

Mobile month in Ukraine

I am off to Ukraine for a month from Aug 12 to Sep 6th. I plan to get local GSM mobile number with the 1Gb data plan from LIFE and to keep blogging from my Nokia 6120 Classic to this blog (on the topic of issues facing a mobile blogger in Ukraine) and to my personal blog, letting my relatives see new pictures of relatives and nostalgic towns and villages as I travel.

During one month I will visit Kiev, Kherson, Zalizny Port (Metal Port?), Crimea (Simferopol, Evpatorija, Kazantip dance festival) and Odeassa region. Most of the time will be spent by the Black Sea. I really hope to come back as black as possible.

On the mobile side, I count that I will be regularly checking my 5 mailboxes, and keep working from far away on the development on of my web store (will use Quickoffice and OfficeSuite to open any attachment that come my way).

For browsing I will have Opera Mobile, Opera Mini 2 Russian mod, Opera 4 beta and Nokia S60 built in browser.

For IM and VOIP I will use IM+ (solnyshok (a) gmail.com, solnyshok (a) hotmail.com ) and IM+ for Skype. I do hope that during this month Fring will issue a version supporting Nokia 6120 Classic as they promised in their support forums. That would instantly enable my phone for Skype and Gtalk voice communications. I know that it would work reasonably well even over EDGE network that is currently the best you can get in Ukraine.

For Navigation I have Nokia Maps, Google Maps, MGMaps, TomTom6 and SmartComGPS. The problem is that none of the above have any good maps of Odessa, Kherson and Simferopol. For those, I just use maps from OzyExplorer converted for SmartComGPS. Those do not have street names though. For Kiev, I have quite good TomTom map (EasterEurope v608 beta). NokiaMaps and GMaps are pretty useless in Ukraine. Mgmaps (using MSN Roadmaps) are a bit better, but require constant data connection and do not have street names in the abovementioned southern Ukrainian cities.

I have studied mobile offers from UMS, Kyievstar, Beeline, and Life and came to conclusion that Life will suit me better, because I need not a prepaid, but a contract, and unlike others, Life allows me to use all of signup fee towards communications and data plan. Others just make signup fee (about 200 hrivnas) an entrance ticket. And the cost of data plan wih Life is 60 vs. 200+ with other operators. Of course, all of this is only my understanding, after studying operator websites, I will see if I am right in couple of days.

I am in Kiev Aug12-15, in Kherson Aug 16-18, Kazantip Aug 19-25, Odessa Auf 26-Sep6.

So, I am done with the last post on the proper keyboard for the next 4 weeks. Wish me luck, good weather, and stable network out there in Ukrainian prairies.

Fring on Windows Mobile, it works now

Excellent application for mobile VOIP, Skype, GoogleTalk and MSN Messenger have been released for WM5 and WM6 devices, also for non GSM PDAs. Initially in beta, it didn't support all devices, but couple of days ago, since version 3.20.6, it started to work also on my iPaq hx4700.

It works as promised. I used it on wifi and 3g. Highly recommended. Especially with unlimited data plan.



---- 
Sent using a Sony Ericsson mobile phone

Is Skype going to stay free?

Do you think that there is a bright future when everybody is on Skype and calls are free for all?

Not really. Currently Skype is making money by connecting people to non-skype numbers. Imagine what happens when everybody is on Skype? Skype will loose important revenue stream. Is this going to happen? We can reasonably expect, that as more and more people will be joining Skype, it will introduce a subscription fee, which it can keep at comfortable $3-5/month.

The only balancing factor I see - are other SIP, VOIP, etc. providers, mainly gizmo, microsoft and google. If MS or Google will keep offering free VOIP long enough, it may keep Skype at (e)bay.