With LiveWriter and Chiwis, now I have an easy way to post blogs with inline images. Since my last post about 3G, I only use Indosat's 3G to get connected, at home, in the office or on the road. I use a USB Huawei datacard that support HSDPA (speed 3.6Mbps) I have got from Indosat. This is the connection status of the 3G connection.
The actual quality of the 3G connection will mainly depend on how good the signal you receive from a BTS. So, it will depend on your location, and also whether you are in a building or on the road. A very nice feature of 3G is that it is smart enough to switch over to operate in lower GPRS or 2G mode when there are no 3G signal available without being disconnected, and the 3G mode of operation will be resumed as soon as the 3G signal become available again. This feature is very important especially if you are on the road. The mode of operation is indicated with a LED on the datacard. Blue flash means 3G and green flash means 2G. I managed to capture this change of operation mode and also the signal strength from the monitoring serial port of the datacard. To be able to track and visualize it, I have created a small GPS application that track the active mode of operation (3G or GPRS), and the signal strength. In the picture, the larger the tracking circle diameter the higher the signal level, the blue color of the circle represent the preferred 3G mode, the green one represent the GPRS mode of operation, and the darker the color the stronger the signal. The location where the tracking is done is around Simprug/Permata Hijau area.
What about Sudirman area? The 3G signal is much better in this area.
And the most? west part of Jakarta is already covered with Indosat 3G signal as recorded here. The tracking is done for Senayan, Permata Hijau and Pos Pengumben area.
In this satellite image, the oval building in the middle is Gelora Bung Karno.
One may ask if the quality of 3G network is already at the level as it is advertised on the television. My answer for this, based on my experience with data only 3G connection, is that we are not yet on that level. There are much much more efforts needs to be done by operators to get in to that level.