T-Mobile’s 3G service was launched in July 2004 and a datacard was released for corporate customers in October that year. Now known as the Multimedia Net Card, the latest incarnation uses slightly different hardware.

T-Mobile’s layered network uses GSM for voice and text, GPRS for small data exchanges, 3G for high-speed links and Wi-Fi for broadband access. In the UK, users have access to over 750 Wi-Fi hotspots and worldwide the figure is 13,000.

To install the card took longer than other 3G cards we have reviewed but it offers useful options for corporates. First it prompted us to install the T-Mobile Communications Centre (TMCC) and there is also the option to install T-Mobile’s HotSpot VPN Client.

There are three installation types: Internet, which installs Communications Centre with standard settings and components; Administrator, with options to customise settings and integrate VPN clients; and Deployment, which allows the creation of redistributable installers with custom options and is recommended for IT staff deploying 3G cards throughout their firms with standard configurations.

The standard option is Internet and it gave us no problems though we had to reboot twice before inserting the datacard to complete the install. Our first 3G connection was in central London (W1A). Initially we could not get any service in Tottenham (N17), but half way through the review, carried out over several months, 3G sessions in N17 became possible. We could also link in Nunhead (SE15), West Kilburn (W9), but not Harrow (HA5) or Farnborough, Hampshire (GU14). For 3G links, data rates normally did not drop below 350kbit/s, and if we did not get a connection the card correctly gave us a GPRS link. We had no crashes using the 3G card.

TMCC has useful options for IT staff. For instance, we could set standard profiles for office, home and mobile and create custom ones. We could export and import configuration data; and password-protect configuration data. We could also set thresholds for how much data we could pass over the 3G link.

Many of these options cannot be used during an active connection and we expected them to be “greyed out”. However, TMCC does not immediately show which options are available, preferring to pop up a message instead if a chosen option is unavailable. A pop-up also asked us to download an update to upgrade TMCC from version 2.0.0.40 to 2.3.1.20, but this update process kept failing. Only when we clicked an update option on a toolbar did this download and install properly.

Apart from internet access, we could access email through Lotus Notes without configuration alterations at the server or client ends.

Other useful tools were a download monitor, which plotted a graph of download speed over time and showed time connected, amount of data sent and received, and average data transfer rate. TMCC shows which service is currently being used and the signal strength.