There's been an interesting battle between Voda and Telstra in Australia. Voda's been flogging wireless internet access, boasting about 3.5 MBit speeds. Telstra objected to this claim on the basis that the Voda network was only capable of 1.8 MBits. The potential confusion for customers is that Voda's hardware can operate at the higher speeds while the network can't. I wonder how many customers purchased Voda's service and are now disappointed.

The other thing that I was a little surprised about was that EVDO capability has been promoted as a feature of many recent handsets. However, it turns out that EVDO capability was only enabled by Telstra in October 2006.

Today's message is short. If you're shopping around for a wireless internet solution - tread carefully. Look at:

1 - Coverage area. Does the service your considering have a coverage area that includes places you're likely to visit?

2 - Full fees. If you leave the coverage area and roam onto another network (like Three's arrangement with Telstra) what are the fees? Can you disable roaming so that you don't get slugged with unexpected fees?

3 - Performance. Is there a difference between what the hardware can do, what the network can do and what happens in real use? Read reviews of the solution you're considering to find out if there's a gap between the spec sheets and real-world use.

Be careful out there.