I’m not sure how I missed this news, but 2 days ago T-Mobile UK announced the ‘Wireless Pointer’ mobile WiFi device.
Here’s what we know:
- It’s available on pre-pay for £59.99 or free on a 24-months £15 per month contract.
- The tariffs are the same as T-Mobile’s existing dongle ones - maxing out at 2GB per month ‘fair use’ which a promise that there won’t be any excess charges but usage may be restricted.
- The press release [pdf] says the device supports WiFi with WPS, operates for 5 hours, supports either 4.5mbps (or 7.2mbps other pages contradict this figure) downloads and 1.8mbps uploads. It’s Windows and Mac compatible and also has on-board Micro SD-card storage.
My first thoughts and opinions:
- This has to be a Huawei device (the E583 anyone?) - the images show an identical interface to the Three and Vodafone units and the form-factor is very similar to Voda’s. The specs look identical too.
- It will almost certainly operate on both 2G and 3G signals (like the Vodafone device) but users will only benefit from T-Mobile’s new network sharing arrangements with Orange on 2G for the moment.
- It’s a stupid name that will confuse people - I’m actively looking for these devices and didn’t recognise it for what it was initially.
- I’m not keen on ‘fair use with possible restrictions’ tariffs - 2GBs easy to burn through even for a casual user by accident. T-Mobile aren’t clear enough about how and when the restrictions might apply but the tariff’s not competitive unless you assume you’ll run into that volume (Three, for example, offer 5GB per month for £15 as standard on a 1-month contract).
I wonder if the local T-Mobile store have any in stock…