Although I’ve been impressed with Telstra’s NextG card (the 7.2 Mobile Card Sierra AirCard 880E), including spending my lunch in a cafe today watching Henry Rollins interview Michael Chiklis on YouTube, running it full screen, it doesn’t seem to always work that well.

The NextG service is called “7.2” which you might think (as I did) means that it runs at 7.2 mbps but apparently not for the BigPond site states:

BigPond Wireless Broadband now covers a massive 98% of the population, making it Australia’s largest wireless network. It’s also faster, with average speeds of 550kbps to 1.5Mbps, and a peak network downlink speed of 3.6Mbps.

Maybe 7.2 is the version number?

As I started to write this post, I decided to test it using a broadband speed test while I sit in the Powell Hotel in Footscray, Melbourne (here’s a link to a map to see how far I am from Melbourne’s CBD) in case you think I’m sitting near Uluru.

Here are the results of the first test:

Telstra Test One

Test run on 12/11/2007 @ 05:39 PM

Mirror: Telstra Bigpond
Data: 600 KB
Test Time: 48.4 secs

Your line speed is 101 kbps (0.1 Mbps).
Your download speed is 13 KB/s (0.01 MB/s).

OUCH!

A quick look at the network monitor shows that the card’s signal isn’t great. See image below for a screenshot.

So I ran a second test and it just got worse:

Telstra Test Two

Test run on 12/11/2007 @ 05:51 PM

Mirror: Telstra Bigpond
Data: 3 MB
Test Time: 339.42 secs

Your line speed is 72 kbps (0.07 Mbps).
Your download speed is 9 KB/s (0.01 MB/s).

Hmmm… getting worse. My third and final test for today was slightly better:

Telstra Test Three

Test run on 12/11/2007 @ 06:00 PM

Mirror: Telstra Bigpond
Data: 3 MB
Test Time: 71.87 secs

Your line speed is 341 kbps (0.34 Mbps).
Your download speed is 43 KB/s (0.04 MB/s).

For a comparison, I plugged in my NetConnect card from Three and got these results:

Three Test One

Test run on 12/11/2007 @ 06:05 PM

Mirror: OptusNet
Data: 600 KB
Test Time: 5.68 secs

Your line speed is 860 kbps (0.86 Mbps).
Your download speed is 107 KB/s (0.1 MB/s).

Three Test Two

Test run on 12/11/2007 @ 06:06 PM

Mirror: OptusNet
Data: 3 MB
Test Time: 14.96 secs

Your line speed is 1.64 Mbps (1637 kbps).
Your download speed is 205 KB/s (0.2 MB/s).

Whilst I’m not going to give up on the Telstra NextG card just yet, this afternoon’s tests haven’t been positive.

The NextG card is available for $349 plus $114.95 per month for 1Gb data (see all pricing plans here).

Three’s NetConnect card is free on a 24 month plan and costs $29 per month for 1Gb data (see full pricing plans here).

UPDATE:

I’m sitting this morning at 35 Collins Street, downstairs from the Telstra offices, and the speed is much more acceptable, although still only a third of the speed I was getting on Three last night:

Test run on 13/11/2007 @ 09:48 AM

Mirror: Telstra Bigpond
Data: 600 KB
Test Time: 7.2 secs

Your line speed is 679 kbps (0.68 Mbps).
Your download speed is 85 KB/s (0.08 MB/s).