[discobay]

I am interested in Peoples' mobile phone network mobile data service Peoples Mobile Data Service as it offers an unlimited gprs plan. However, for as long as I can remember I have only ever known one friend to use their network and his experience of their coverage was mediocre to say the least. Does anyone have any comments on their current performance?

[vmlinuz]

I signed up for their unlimited data service a couple of weeks ago, and I don't really have any complaints. There have been a few times when I've been unable to connect - but I can't say if that's my phone or the network - it's obviously dial-up type speeds, although it does seem to stream pretty well for transferring larger things. I haven't been to many exotic places (like. say, Disco Bay ) so I can't really comment on the coverage, but it seems fine in Central/Mid-Levels/TST/Wanchai/Tsuen Wan.

I wouldn't necessarily choose Peoples if not for the unlimited data, and at the moment I'm running two phones - a Treo for data on Peoples, and a K700 on New World for voice, because a friend gave me the New World SIM before I came out here. I am planning to move my number from the New World SIM to Peoples at the end of my billing month with Peoples, and add some voice to the data plan, more so I don't need to carry two phones than for any particular reason to do with the networks

To be honest, okay, it's hassle, particularly if you're paying a don't-have-HKID-card deposit, but it seems pretty easy to get hooked up with a service, and there are no minimum terms on the contract, so it's easy enough to move to someone else if Peoples turns out not to work for you.

[ohchk2001]

How fast is the data plan. Is it 3G speeds?

I have a "3" phone with a 100 meg data package, and the transfer rates are around 300Kbps which blows away dial up and even ISDN.

[discobay]

The GPRS unlimited data plans top out at around 70 kbps. EDGE on the other hand can go up to 200 kbps. 3G is another horse.

[PhilE]

I've been using the People's mobile data service for a couple of months now with a SE W800i and am happy with the service though I have nothing to compare it against. We seem to be on the boundary between 2 GSM cells in our flat which can prove annoying, but I've not noticed any problems with the GPRS.

I have the phone set to check for email via POP every 30 minutes and that works fine. I don't do a lot else with it to be honest - played with Opera mini but I don't use it much. Have also done some blogging of phone photos via Flickr which is quite cool.

When I used to have an iPaq and work were paying the GPRS bill back in the UK, I used it a lot for surfing and email. Only had a problem with the GPRS speed limits if I hadn't checked email for a few days and I was downloading attachments.

[martyn]

As a phone service, I think it's quite bad - non operational in alot of elevators.

Not sure about data, however, the good thing is that it's unlimited.

[discobay]

I posted a comment earlier today without realising that I was the original poster!
To update you guys and gals I chose Sunday in October. Voice coverage is on a par with my previous provider One2Free though some underground bars seem to be off Sunday's radar. Their unlimited GPRS plan at $128 and voice at $50 and that they are now owned by PCCW were the deciding factors. Neither Sunday or Peoples showed an acceptable grasp of English either in the shops or on the phone but this is far from a perfect world city.

[vmlinuz]

And I'm still with them and still pretty satisfied...

As I said before, I only really chose them because of the unlimited data, and I've been happy with that - I have 'push' email working very well with my Treo, I can reliably do web stuff on the move, and the service is good enough that I've maintained a persistent IRC connection from SSP, onto the MTR, under the water and up the escalator more than once, without any drop-outs long enough to cause my conenction to drop - I would call that pretty reliable.

And I realised yesterday that I can do streaming audio onto it, also pretty reliably - that's live streaming radio from the UK, over the Internet to a phone in Hong Kong - it's good to live at the cutting edge [no pun intended] [and there's a GeoExpat Mobile edition coming RSN, right KIA?]

[dave80]

Originally Posted by vmlinuz

And I realised yesterday that I can do streaming audio onto it, also pretty reliably - that's live streaming radio from the UK, over the Internet to a phone in Hong Kong - it's good to live at the cutting edge [no pun intended] [and there's a GeoExpat Mobile edition coming RSN, right KIA?]

sounds pretty cool, which radio stations can you pick up?

[vmlinuz]

Originally Posted by dave80

sounds pretty cool, which radio stations can you pick up?

I was listening to Virgin, who have decent low-bandwidth ogg and mp3 feeds on their site - the main problem is that, nowadays, you're likely to find that a lot of stations don't have anything below a 64kbit feed, which is a bit high for GPRS.
And there's a mobile version of GeoExpat coming soon, right KIA?