News

"My mobile dongle costs more than yours!" - the mushroom option

Just how "portable" is the PortaBella BBNA (Broadband Bonding Network Appliance) now available from Mushroom Networks?

At $1595.00, it certainly qualifies as "reassuringly expensive" compared with the bragging rights you get with a simple $50 HSDPA modem. But the box [image, right] doesn't really look like the sort of gadget anybody but a geek would produce in a hotel lounge.

It is described as "an Internet bonding appliance that provides cost effective Internet connectivity for mobile and portable deployments." It works by letting you plug "up to five USB based cellular data cards providing increased access bandwidth in both uplink and downlink directions for the communication link to the host office" says the product blurb

PortaBella "also enables bonding HTTP traffic for faster Internet access at the mobile locations."

Quote from Dr Cahit Akin, speaking to his PR adviser:

"We are solving a key pain point for markets that demand reliable and high-speed Internet where the application is not otherwise suitable for wired Internet alternatives. Imagine a mobile news gathering vehicle streaming video from the field, or a highway traffic monitoring system or a temporary construction trailer, which requires a fast and reliable connection immediately." 

It would be really useful, no doubt about that; individual carrier's signals tend to pop up and drop out like those Whack-A-Mole fairground games toys. Keeping a single session going, at higher speed than the nominal "fast Internet" offered by mobile operators, and even when one or two of your five networks is off-air? - excellent.

Pulling the toy out over lunch in Quaglinos? Deadly!