SCI FI PI

In this day and age of either hyper-complex gadgets or anyone, even a Hilton, can use it toys, new technology can either be a godsend or yet another thing to do in an already overly busy world. With all the fuss about broadband and the slow and inexorable build up of hatred for Telstra and their ‘line fees’, it seems only natural that a market should open up for mobile broadband. The nice people at Optus have a new dongle, which they call the Roamer USB.

But is it to be trusted? Can it actually work? Is it really plug and play?



If you’re technologically challenged, new to planet Earth, or in fact, a moron, we can tell you what Mobile Broadband is. Mobile Broadband (in USB form) usually comes in the shape of an ovoid dongle that plugs into the back of your laptop or desktop PC. It supplies broadband internet to your computer without having to utilise wires, phone lines or anything. It’s what Arthur C. Clarke would refer to as ‘magic’.

It manages to do this by using HDSPA, which is an acronym for ‘broadband using mobile phone signals’ but with the wrong words and letters to confuse normal people.


The plus with wireless broadband is that you can use it pretty much anywhere you can use a mobile phone. You don’t have to hook up to cables and you don’t have to mess about with annoying protocols at public wifi points at airports and cafes. The theory is you plug it in, and it works. It even works at home!

But is this true for the Optus Wireless Broadband?

Yes. Yes it is. It’s unbelievably simple. You plug it in, a little program automatically starts up and installs. You wait a bit, it configures your connection. You click ‘connect to internet’ and that’s it. Really. That is it. Three minutes tops.
The only way you could mess it up is by having an ADD fit and pulling the dongle out half way through, or trying to connect before the little program has finished installing (in two minutes). Maybe you could also mess it up by pouring coffee onto your laptop, but that’s really your problem, isn’t it?

Okay it’s easy. But is it ‘broadband’?
Of course not! You live in Australia! We have what is known overseas as ‘laugh band’. However, given what we have, wireless broadband isn’t too far behind normal ‘fast’ ADSL. Certainly if you need it for emails and normal browsing the lag time is perfectly forgivable (for the moment). There have also been promising noises from Optus about getting their act together and providing more bandwidth and more speed. Fingers crossed. Current speeds for their wireless broadband service are between 500 and 1.5 MB ps.

That said, you can’t take this dongle from your PC and then stick it in a Macbook. They don’t get along. So you’ll have to tell the salesman that your dongle is specifically for a Mac, or make sure you get two if you have both a Mac and a PC.

System Requirements:
Windows XP, 200 or Vista
50 MB hard disk space
Internet Explore 6.0 or above
128MB RAM
USB port (duh!)

Optus Wireless Broadband prices currently range from $34.99 per month for 400 mb to $49.99 for 5GB.