Digicel EDGE Card - A waste of time for simple web browsing in St. John's Grenada

 This is what the device looks like.

Pros: It cost $199.00 EC - this is reasonable for the person or business man who needs mobile in-field services. I believe this should be retailed for $100.00 EC. However, in 2013, it can suffice for the people who will use the service.
Secondly, this is very easy to install on Windows. Just plug N Play - there is no deal to it, and the configuration is web browser based.

NB: You may have trouble if you are connected to a 192.168.1.X network via your Wifi or RJ45 (network card). So it is best to turn off all connections before you insert the Stick (dongle) into your USB slot.

Insert your SIM card, and do the Digicel thing to make the set up complete.  

It is best to activate Internet on your SIM using a cell phone.

To do this you may have to dial *135# as seen on the Digicel instructions. Several options for the Internet are available.

The configuration setup is pretty straightforward, just insert an APN, username and password.  

Well I tried this and No service, No WAN service was given. 

I then made a call to Customer Care 100, and gave someone my number on the SIM, and within 5 minutes he said please try restarting/reboot/unplug the device.

Lo and behold it worked. 

Cons:

Yes, it works, I tested it in St. John's Grenada. Connecting is ok, but the speed is the worst thing I ever experienced in my 13 years of Internet usage. I felt happy knowing that it was mobile, but sadness overcame me to the point of crying.  

Don't even expect dial up speeds in the rural parishes. You will have to sit and wait for at least 45 to 85 seconds to load the www.google.com web page. 

This cost is a loss; it is an expensive, inefficient service which cannot be improved.

The service for 30 days cost  $60.00 EC. This is pretty much the cost of a month's service of Broadband from LIME or Flow!

The current service may not get any better because of the limitation of the technology. In fact the speed can become worse as more users are added to the data network.

Conclusions:

While the mobile internet connection sounds great and has a strong future for many applications,  there is need for significant improvement in the quality of service with these EDGE cards/GPRS services. 

Mobile device users browsing mobile sites, may not experience slow browsing because many of the sites being used deliver mobile lightweight applications. While this service is good for such, the rolling out of connections to laptops need to make provision for desktop style web applications.

Certainly, if Digicel will launch the LTE 4G network in Grenada and this service can be available at the current price rates, then we are in business, but this is just a dream. The current size of Grenada's population does not make a viable business case for the introduction of   LTE 4G. 

But we do hope to see some kind of improvement in the future.

Thank you Digicel.