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Test Swisscom Mobile Unlimited Card

During my military service, I've tested a Swisscom Mobile Unlimited (UMTS/GPRS/WLAN) Card. Installation from the included CD was easy enough; however, it seems that there is a special installer program for the device driver that circumvents unsigned drivers warnings. I would guess that Swisscom could afford cards with drivers that are signed by Microsoft. After installation, a firmware update of the card was done. However, when starting the Unlimited Data Manager, the "Connect" button did not appear. Even an upgrade to the newest Software (and again even newer firmware) did not help. I called the Helpdesk and after much fiddling around, the ENE CB-1410 Cardbus Controller in my HP Compaq nx7010 notebook was identified as the culprit. It seems to be known to Swisscom that the Mobile Unlimited Card does not work properly with these PC Card controller. I was offered a refund and the promise that a new (read: better) card (also integrating EDGE and UMTS into one offering) will be out January. A workaround included creating a dialup connection for GPRS (which switches to UMTS when available). So I could still access the internet; however, roaming between WLAN and UMTS was not possible. De-installation of the software and drivers was not so smooth, as it included manually removing devices and drivers.

To summarize: Swisscom has created an interesting package, but there are still some rough edges to it. Especially installation and de-installation could be made much smoother. The service itself (I was just using UMTS) satisfied my connection requirements (mostly browsing the web and some e-mail).

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