2degrees launches Micro-SIM; all elements in place for 3G

ABOVE: Five bars of 2degrees' 3G reception: an iPad 3G running one of the telco's Micro-SIMs, which will be commercially launched tomorrow.

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[UPDATE: 2degrees corporate communications head Bryony Hilless told NBR after this story was published: "Good guess, but not right, sorry." Still, anyone who wants to use their Micro-SIM on the company's open-for-use 3G network, using its $6/50MB data plan, will be able to do so. There just won't be anything official about it

UPDATE II: 2degrees has called a major press conference for August 3]

It hasn’t officially announced a 3G launch tomorrow (known to most of the tech world as iPhone 4 Launch Day).

But 2degrees has put all the elements in place to spring a Friday surprise.

With the 3G network on - and now seemly set to stay on, permanently – and SIM card, device and data plan elements all in place - tomorrow’s Micro-SIM launch will, for all intents and purposes, constitute a launch (Ms Hilless said it would not).

Exhibit 1: the network
2degrees formerly said it would block access to its 3G network at the conclusion of its current customer trial.

But this morning, corporate communications head Bryony Hilless told NBR that the 3G network will now probably stay live until launch.

"The rate things are going customers will be able to enjoy 3G right up till commercial launch," Ms Hilless said.

The 3G network was finished at the same time as 2degrees' 3G network last August, the company told NBR. In the intervening months, it has been tweaked and optimised.

Exhibit 2: the SIM cards
Tomorrow 2degrees will launch its Micro-SIM card - a new format SIM that’s compatible with iPhone 4 and iPad 3G.

Existing customers will be able to call a 2degrees 0800 number from tomorrow to initiate a SIM card swap. The Micro-SIM will cost $20, and come with $20 credit loaded. From Tuesday, Micro-SIMs will also be sold at Dick Smith (but not other 2degrees retailers).

2degrees has already supplied NBR with a 2degrees Micro-SIM, which is performing snappily in an Apple-supplied iPad 3G.

The telco has also supplied NBR with a Huawei data stick. Plugged into a laptop, it’s consistently achieved speeds of above 3Mbit/s around the Auckland CBD.

But note you don’t need a Mico-SIM to access 2degrees’ 3G network.

Any compatible 3G cellphone or data stick (that most 3G models currently on Vodafone’s network, and most on XT) can access 2degrees’ 2100MHz 3G using a regular 2degrees SIM card.

Exhibit 3: The handsets and data cards (and retailers)
The Warehouse, Dick Smith and PB Technology websites have all partially revealed 2degrees line up of devices for its 3G launch (either through a concerted PR leak campaign or just the efforts of insiders to impress their mates on Geekzone).

Some of the deals look quite tasty, such as a 3G data stick for $199, including 10GB of data pre-loaded (to be activated when a customer joins 2degrees 3G).

Exhibit 4: Reading the troops
2degrees has been txting its prepay customers en masse this week, telling them 3G is coming.

Exhibit 5: The data plan
Although it launched last August with a joke-price data plan (50 cents per megabyte), the telco now has an okay priced pre-pay data deal ($6 for 50MB) which its marketing bods tell NBR they think is good enough to pull iPhone users into the 2degrees camp.

Watch for some keener 3G data deals to emerge – maybe as soon as tomorrow (and, of course, as we saw above, modems are going to be sold pre-loaded with huge chunks of data).

One thing we do know: there will be no BlackBerry support.

Tethering (using a 3G phone as a laptop modem) will be supported.

Add exhibits 1 to 5, and all the elements are in place for a 3G launch tomorrow as 2degrees’ Micro-SIMs go on the market, and its 3G network trial is bumped up in status to a permanent “on”.

ABOVE: A 2degrees 3G data stick, attached to a laptop, achieves faster speed than Vodafone 3G, but slower than XT. Telecom's XT network has already been upgraded to the faster HSPA+ flavour of 3G. Vodafone is in the process of upgrading to HSPA+. 2degrees says it will add HSPA+ support (plus the HSUPA spec for faster uploads) during 2011. The 2degrees network was of course relatively empty when NBR tested. CTO Mike Goss said customers should expect real-life speeds between 0.8Mbit/s and 1.4Mbit/s.

The techy stuff
2degrees network runs on the 2100MHz frequency (supported by most 3G phones).

The telco has its own celltowers and network infrastructure in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown.

Outside those centres, its 3G customers will roam on Vodafone’s 900MHz network (limiting the extent that 2degrees can bag Vodafone - although it happily does so anyway; below)

APPLE IN FOCUS: 2degrees network operations manager Nick Read (with iPad 3G) and CTO Mike Goss pose with (iPhone) pose with their 3G kit of choice. Any 2100MHz-compatible 3G device (that is, most on Vodafone 3G and XT), can access 2degrees 3G, no special SIM card required.

Better fall-back than Vodafone, they reckon
Unlike XT - which is incompatible with Telecom's older CDMA network (which is being switched off, anyway) - 2degrees' 3G customers will be able to trip down to its 2G network in the even of any 3G failure. They shouldn't even notice anything if they're in the middle of a data session, Goss said.

Vodafone claims the same thing. To which Telecom replies: as soon as Vodafone 3G fails, its 2G network gets quickly overwhelmed by the traffic surge (and that's certainly been my experience with mini outages in central Auckland).

When NBR raised this point with 2degrees CTO Mike Goss, he countered that while Vodafone's 2G network was 60Kbit/s GPRS, 2degrees was 240Kbit/s EDGE - and it would "absolutely not" fall over if required to carry a rush of users after a 3G failure.

2degrees' 3G network has three radio network controllers (RNCs) - one each in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, and has plans to double that as traffic builds.